Bonding in a top team
Team work is an inseparable part of software development, and each successful piece of software is created by a successful team.
The secret for the perfect team has been chased by numerous executives, professors and corporations all the way up to Google. As recently as a decade ago people used to think that a top team could be created by cram-packing a bunch of experts into one (dys)functional group and waiting for the magic to happen. Nowadays we understand that the expertise of some individual gurus is much less important than team communication.
Vaisala’s John Liljelund is a seasoned team player who’s equally comfortable building teams in challenging underwater construction site operations, product and renewable energy project development and as a CEO.
This is also something that John Liljelund, New Solutions Director at Vaisala, also likes to stress.
The members of winning teams are able to work well in a group, are self-aware and know how to lead themselves.
“Good old-fashioned intelligence and certain competences also play a major role, but personally I would highlight the importance of social intelligence in the creation of good, balanced team dynamics”, Liljelund says.
Looking for top experts
According to Liljelund, the building of teams starts off with certain basic building blocks regardless of whether you’re trying to create a Group Leadership Team, a five-person start-up or, say, a team of developers.
The most important block has to be finding the right people. Every team needs technically skilled individuals: you wouldn’t build a house without a carpenter, perform a heart bypass operation without a surgeon or develop software without a coder.
“I used to work with renewable energy on the technology supplier’s side. In those projects we were looking for some hard-core skills in mechanical structure design and fatigue measurements”, Liljelund says.
Vaisala is a global leader in weather, environmental and industrial measurement, and their role as a pioneer is based on having the world’s top experts.
“Our clients require us to work in demanding conditions on ground, at sea, up in the atmosphere and in space. Comprehensive solutions require a variety of skills over the whole stack, including science, hardware, UX and software (cloud & embedded), not to mention the essential skills in sales, marketing and solutions delivery. The million dollar question is how these experts can be turned into winning teams with a passion to solve clients’ problems,” says Liljelund.
How can you find these top experts, then? One solution is to utilize – drum roll, if you please – consulting firms!
Outsourcing the company’s core competences in their entirety would be sheer madness, but all roles can’t always be hired directly, for whatever reason. Vaisala, a global company with nearly 2 000 employees, for instance, uses a lot of consultants (including but not limited to rocket scientists).
“Recruiting someone for a permanent position aims at long-term commitment, whereas consultants are great for more project-style work – doing X and then looking at how things turn out and how they’ll develop.”
There may be situations – when building new business, for example – where the need for additional capacity is temporary.
“If that’s the case, hiring a consultant can be a very smart move. Sometimes it’s also possible to ramp up the energy levels of an existing team by introducing a consultant into it,” Liljelund says.
Consultants shouldn’t be hired on a whim and then abandoned after all the fun and play is over, however.
“We strive to choose with consultants as if they were in-house employees. In the interviews, we focus on finding out how good a fit the person would be for the team and the Vaisala culture. We always involve a member of the team in the assessment process and often ask for a second opinion from another team. People are our most significant asset, so the application process is always carried out with great care, whether it’s for a permanent position or consulting,” Liljelund says.
Communication is key
Good team players are more than technical wizards. Just like star players, they aren’t able to tap into their full potential unless they become part of the team.
“At Vaisala, we have the world’s best researchers working in their own domains, such as air quality research. The success of the entire company requires that they work well as a team,” Liljelund explains.
The qualities he appreciates in team members the most are related to communication skills and team dynamics.
“As far as important characteristics go, situational intelligence and social awareness are right up there. Building and maintaining trust link to the same theme as well,” Liljelund says and continues: “Everything stems from self-leadership, self-awareness and the ability to stay objective. If the management of the company provides the necessary framework, every worker is able to make a difference and influence how their team works.”
Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert makes no difference as long as each team member feels like they’re making a meaningful contribution and have an equal standing compared to others.
Engaging with the group is easy if even the difficult topics can discussed openly and everyone feels safe to present their ideas without fear of being rejected out of hand.
If all the team members only invest in trying to prove their own worth and to compete with each other, it will have an adverse effect on cooperation and success.
Building an environment of trust is closely related to the ability to listen.
“Communication skills are linked to a person’s appreciation of their colleagues. People always give off certain energy. Our own being has the ability to create energy that affects other people and simultaneously the whole group.”
Team work cannot be based on individual agenda; instead, people need to learn how to pause and listen to others.
“When building a team, I always try to see to it that the group doesn’t have one or two persons running the show while others sit around quietly, because that’s really not a winning combination. Having a couple of bulldozers may work pretty well for while, but if you’re looking to create a dream team, you need to have a different approach,” Liljelund summarizes.
Getting rid of roles
Teams always have certain tasks and benchmarks that at their best give energy, motive, encourage and engage the team members. Everyone needs to know where the goal is and which position they’re supposed to play in the field, but there also needs to be some leeway in how the results are achieved.
“A bit of unclarity stimulates team members and makes people invest time and energy to collaboration. When we work as a group, we’re much smarter and much more efficient about the way we act,” Liljelund explains.
In work teams, the responsibilities and roles need to be clearly defined, but Liljelund doesn’t believe in traditional roles or even in team leadership.
“To me, the whole idea seems a bit dated,” he says and continues: “A team leader is more like a facilitator who provides a framework and ensures that the team is balanced in its communication and that it also engages with other teams.”
There can be more than one person in charge.
“In software development, a Product Manager, for example, is responsible for the technical side of a product while a Solutions Manager takes on the commercial responsibility. When I build a team, I don’t have any particular roles in mind. Instead, I try come up with the right mix of people to avoid the team becoming too homogeneous.”
Diversity creates energy and, most importantly, new approaches. The team can be balanced out by things such as age distribution and different backgrounds.
Problems with communication mean problems for the team
The most common problems of teams are related to communication: if there is none, the team’s not balanced. Communication problems are often caused by people only communicating in ways that come natural to them and interpreting what other people say through their own perspective.
Remote work adds another hurdle, since nonverbal messages aren’t communicated as well through Zoom or Teams as they are in the real world. This means it’s possible to inadvertently hurt someone’s feelings.
“Online tools work and have become important, but there’s more energy interaction when team members get together and interact in the same physical space,” Liljelund says.
In addition to having well-functioning communication channels, it pays to have a physical office too. “Companies should pay more attention to the way their premises promote interaction and to creating a good vibe.”
In other words, going on and on about the importance of communication doesn’t lead anywhere before teams have a proper framework for communication.
“In the olden days, there had to be dialogue between Product Development and the factory and they needed to be on the same page. The same applies to software development: we need to be as close to each other as possible, either remotely or physically, and to create a low threshold for communication.
Organizational boundaries should also be blurred. This way people will stop thinking that their colleagues come from the “wrong” department and will begin focusing on what’s important and listening to each other.
Liljelund stresses that one of the primary duties of the management is to ensure that there are enough forums for discussion and that discussions are held across the organization, not in isolated teams.
To put it differently, a successful team is skilled in mutual interaction, but the team also needs to be able to communicate with other teams and to avoid creating silos, in particular.
“Instead of silos, there needs to be bridges and channels across different teams since a particular product or solutions area can be controlled by a number of different teams. The management can’t act as the bridge, however, since it’s job is only to give encouragement and provide frameworks,” Liljelund says.
Casting a broader net
There’s no reason to stay close to the shore when you can venture out to sea. According to Liljelund, having social networks outside the company is also important: being open to other people’s influences ensures a steady flow of creativity. “Networks can also provide skilled people for various consulting needs when extra competence is needed to solve an issue, for instance.
“We’re off to a great start with the Rakettitiede consultants working on air quality, for example. The team has good energy and has already bonded well”, Liljelund says.