Great teams
The best players need teams to shine
Even the most skilled and successful individuals throughout history have required teams to support their exploits and enable their achievements. Listen to any of them being interviewed and without fail they will all acclaim the contribution made by those close to them as pivotal.
Teams are very different though and not all individuals will perform in all teams, irrespective of their talents. Some talented individuals can destroy otherwise high performing teams and conversely some teams can damage talented individuals.
A culture that fosters growth
Culture is the set of ideals, norms, behaviours, beliefs and practices used within a group. The famous Jamaican Bobsled team of 1988 operated under a very different culture to that of gold medalists Switzerland yet they performed identical tasks in support of their activity, albeit with slightly different goals. Culture will always exist in a group, either deliberately or accidentally but it will always be there.
Our goal is to be clear about what culture DeARX wishes to embrace
We use it to mould the teams of individuals who are the masters of the technology solutions our customers depend on.
While Jim Collins has influenced our thinking regarding “First Who”, we are further influenced by Netflix and The Agile Manifesto when it comes to culture and building the best teams.
While creating solutions for our customers, our goal is to “build software better”. At the same time we embrace the view that our developers should find stuff cool. What we do is a craft and good craftsmen and women are driven by their own sense of achievement, meaning they should be coordinated as craftspeople who are part of a team and their value is ultimately defined by the collective perspective of the team.
Given this thinking, we support the idea that “The greatest motivation, is contributing to success”. Further, that “Great teams are created by hiring talented people who are adults and want nothing more than to tackle a challenge, and then communicating to them, clearly and continuously, about what the challenge is.” Thank you Patty McCord and Netflix.
While we espouse an overarching DeARX culture, we acknowledge that, quite naturally, individual teams develop along different paths. It is mature to acknowledge and embrace this, while at the same time ensuring that no team strays too far from the core. Significant benefit comes from moving individuals between teams and allowing the pollination of culture and skills between them.
Despite all this, finding the right people and coordinating them in effective and high performing teams, is an ongoing exploit that we get continually better at, but is a ceaseless journey of successes and failures that make each day an opportunity.
Agile Manifesto
The Agile Manifesto contains values and principles which form part of the DeARX culture. We repeat these values and principles here to keep it close to home, but you may also explore the thinking further by following this link to agilemanifesto. and agilealliance.org.
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan