Creating High Performance Teams

Most teams operate at well below their potential level of productivity. Putting a group of developers together to work on a project does not automatically mean they will form an effective team. In many cases the developers will work in isolation, with little communication between team members. This leads to misunderstandings, friction and poor quality work. Through coaching a team can learn to work together effectively, supporting each other and collaborating to push themselves to higher levels of productivity.

All teams can benefit from coaching. Even if your team is performing well, coaching can still take it to a new level of performance. World class athletes and sport teams all have coaches - that is how they got to the top, and how they stay there.

What are the signs of a poorly performing team?

There are a number of signs that your team is performing well below its potential:

there is little or no communication between team members. For your team to really perform at its full potential, there needs to be freqent face to face communication between the team members. If your team members are physically separated, or if they spend all their time with headphones on ignoring each other then they are not working as a team but as a group of individuals who happen to be working on the same project.

you suffer from frequent schedule slips and overruns. A poor performance team will frequently miss deadlines and milestones. A high performance team will ensure that it can accurately estimate how long work will take, and will not promise more than it can deliver.

your team works massive amounts of overtime. In order to try and meet their deadlines, the members of a poor performance team work long hours and are often in at weekends. This may seem productive, but as the team gets more and more fatigued it actually produces less and less. A high performance team maintains a sustainable pace, and very rarely needs to work any overtime while maintaining a high level of productivity.

your team members jealously protect their own code. In a poor performance team, there may be individuals who are able to produce large volumes of code, but are loath to let others touch or even see 'their' code. If the rest of the team can't understand the code, or it does not fit in with what they are doing, then it will be counterproductive. In a high performance team the team members take the time to review each other's code, or even help each other design and write it. This means that if any team member drops out then the others will be able to take over their code at short notice.

your team gets stuck in integration hell. A poor performance team will often split the project into one-person mini projects and assign one to each developer. The team members work on their part in isolation until it is time to integrate, then all hell breaks loose as it becomes apparent that everyone had made their own assumptions about what the others were doing. Components may need to be re-written to work together, or there may be missing functionality that everyone assumed was being worked on by someone else. There is also often huge levels of code duplication as each developer writes his own way of doing common tasks.

your team is in testing hell. A poor performance team will often leave all the testing to the end of the project in an effort to 'save time' while developing. It is not unusual for the testing phase to drag on interminably as each bug fixed uncovers (or introduces) yet more bugs. A high performance team will ensure that testing is done continually throughout the lifetime of the project, creating automated tests where possible. This ensures that the code quality is maintained during the project lifecycle and actually speeds up development.

your team has poor morale and high turnover. Software development can and should be highly enjoyable and rewarding, but working on a poor performance team can be highly stressful, leading to low morale and high staff turnover. It has been estimated that the cost of replacing a single experienced team member is equivalent to five months of that person's salary.

How can team coaching improve my software development?

The Developers' Coach will work with your team in a number of ways, including:

discovering and resolving issues that are affecting their performance. There are a huge number of barriers that can prevent a team from reaching peak performance, from communication issues to problems with the work environment. The Developers Coach will help the team identify and remove these barriers.

enabling the team to create and implement their own set of solutions and working practices. There are a large number of methodologies that can help make teams more effective, but they all have strengths and weaknesses. There is no single 'one size fits all' methodology that is suitable for every project, but the coach can help your team create and customise its own working practices based on the principles of agile development.

improving team communication. A major difference between a high performance team and one of poor or average performance is the quality of the communication between team members, and between the team and other stakeholders.

working with individual team members on a one-to-one basis. The Developers' Coach can provide personal coaching for any team member who wants it, to enable them to resolve personal issues that may interfere with their work performance.

working with managers and other stakeholders to enable them to get the best value from the team. A high performance team places high demands on the rest of the organisation. The Developers' Coach will help the organisation to find new ways of working with the team that will get the best from it.

 

What service does The Developers' Coach offer?

The Developers Coach offers two services for companies wanting to turn their development teams into high performance teams:

In-house coaching and mentoring.

The Developers' Coach will come into your organisation and work with your team, typically for one day a week over a period of two or three months. The service will be tailored to the specific needs of the team, and will typically include:

• Analysis of the team's current practices and level of performance.
• Group coaching for the entire team.
• One-to-one coaching for individual team members.
• Training and mentoring the team to introduce agile practices.
• Coaching for selected managers and other individuals who work with the team.

This service is currently limited to the UK only. Rates vary depending on team size and location. For a quote send an email to team@thedeveloperscoach.com.

 

The High Performance Team Development Course.

(Note: this service is currently being tested. If you wish to take part in the trial, then contact The Developers Coach by emailing trial@thedeveloperscoach.com.)

This is a course of team and individual coaching delivered by telephone. The programme is available worldwide for teams of up to ten members. There are two versions of the course available, the one month intensive course and the three month full course.

The intensive course includes:

• four one-hour team coaching sessions, one per week over a one month period.
• two 30-minute coaching sessions for each team member over the same period
• optionally two 30-minute coaching sessions for additional managers and other project stakeholders. Managers and other stakeholders do not join in the team coaching sessions.

The cost depends on the team size:

Team size	GBP	USD	EUR
4	£1400	$2226	€1988
5	£1500	$2385	€2130
6	£1600	$2544	€2272
7	£1700	$2703	€2414
8	£1800	$2862	€2556
9	£1900	$3021	€2698
10	£2000	$3180	€2840
Additional managers & stakeholders	+£100 per person	+$159 per person	+€142 per person

 

 The full course includes:

• twelve one-hour coaching sessions, one per week over three months.
• Three 30-minute coaching sessions for each team member, one per month
• Optionally three 30-minute coaching sessions for additional managers and other project stakeholders. Managers and other stakeholders do not join in the team coaching sessions.

The cost depends on the team size:

Team size	GBP	USD	EUR
4	£3000	$4770	€4260
5	£3150	$5009	€4473
6	£3300	$5247	€4686
7	£3450	$5486	€4899
8	£3600	$5724	€5112
9	£3750	$5963	€5325
10	£3900	$6201	€5538
Additional managers & stakeholders	+£150 per person	+$240 per person	+€213 per person

The prices for the High Performance Team Course given here are what will be charged when the service is officially launched. For a limited time you can enrole in the trial programme and get a 50% reduction - email trial@thedeveloperscoach.com for more information.

To find out more about how The Developers' Coach can help your company improve its software development teams send an email to team@thedeveloperscoach.com and arrange a free telephone consultation.