Timlid toolkit from e-mail to kanban boards
This time at TeamLead Conf we decided to collect reports for a whole stream more. In September in St. Petersburg for the first time there will be three parallel report tracks for team leaders and team leaders. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that we are growing and developing, on the other hand, the theme of the conference allows us to do this, and a variety of areas of work and the development of team lead is recommended to cover this activity as widely and deeply as possible.
So, by good tradition, we will have 6 main areas of benefit. Below are their "talking" names:
Today we’ll talk about the team tool. This section traditionally includes reports that are somehow related to the systematization, algorithmization and automation of various team lead duties, from accounting and setting tasks to development maps, checklists, meeting facilitation programs, etc. etc. In general, everything that somehow helps the team leader in work.
Timlid's toolkit this time will be devoted to more than ten reports. From my point of view, this is quite consistent with the situation in the industry. Since the leaders are mostly engineers, the methods for solving even non-engineering problems are still close to engineering ones.
So, what tools we will talk about in St. Petersburg this time.
I am sure many of you have read and continue to read books about management, go to conferences, agree (and often disagree :)) with the advice of speakers and nod their heads at reports. But for some reason, few people use these tips in practice.
Often this happens, because from the stage we are told what to develop and how to be, but what exactly to do and what actions to take is far from always clear. Need specifics!
Dmitry Li will show real practices gained experimentally and give a recipe that will help you look at familiar processes and approaches from the outside. The conversation program includes: transparency in goals, order in working with everyday tasks, personal growth and development of team members, forms of effective communication.
I am almost sure that many tried to build individual development maps, build training plans, plans for "pumping". In his story, Sergei Cherepanov will share real experience in creating and implementing a development map, which, among other things, is a tool to help take care of developers. History from the beginning to this day:
And much more from real experience using this tool.
Feedback is perhaps the best tool in working with employees. Unfortunately, not everyone uses it successfully; they do not know how or do not understand how, why. Say that you have already talked about this more than once? That's all right, but the topic is so specific and often unique for specific teams, managers and employees that we considered it worthy of being raised again.
In the report, Ruslan Ostropolsky will share his point of view on what is considered effective feedback, how to give it, in what form and when. And most importantly, what errors can be encountered when working with this tool and how to avoid them.
Personally, I believe that a correctly posed task is two-thirds of the total result. How many of you have not come across toast tasks, tasks that consist of one heading and a couple of common phrases? How much effort and time was spent reworking what was done incorrectly due to poor wording? We ’ll talk about this together with Anton Kosterin from Tinkoff Bank. Let's look for answers to the following questions:
Well, in the topic of the section, let's look at the toolkit for working with tasks: validation, technical decomposition, linking of tasks, assessment of labor costs and technical risks, and prioritization.
All of us, to varying degrees, get used to working in IT companies with a strong engineering culture, a flat hierarchy, articulated values, self-organization of engineers within teams and the sovereignty of teams within the engineering division. Look around you and select any items to your liking.
But how to influence sovereign teams and people who do not obey you? The laws of economics, elements of social psychology and Nash equilibrium will help - one of the key concepts in game theory.
The Contour Engineering Division employs 1,200 people. These are approximately 90 teams distributed across 9 cities, or working remotely. Igor Lukanin in his report will talk about how to offer people and teams “rules of the game” that are beneficial to them and solve your problems. In fact, there are many cases when it is enough to set the rules of the game correctly, and then the game theory will work over time and people (teams), pursuing their own interests and achieving their own profit, will do as you need. Sounds tempting?
Together we will look at examples of how this works in Kontur: how it turned out to simplify hiring using the free labor market within the company and fix all security vulnerabilities through social pressure.
There will be two reports about Kanban this time. The first from Alexei Pimenov about the method itself, I will write about it a little later, and the story of Artyom Rasskosov about finding the answer to the eternal question of the managers of the When.
To such questions, Artyom and his colleagues honestly described the technical solution to the problem and put a mark, but this did not save. Tasks, evaluated in 2 days, fell on production through 4. The problem is that the guys estimated the development time, and this was not what the customer needed.
As a result, Artyom and the team have come a long way before finding a good solution that suited both customers and development. It is about this decision that the story will be: what they tried, why it did not produce the desired results, what problems they encountered. Consider the frequency diagram and how, using this tool, you can replace the assessment of tasks with a service level agreement.
The SCRUM manual tells us that the Product Owner is responsible for the backlog. However, the team leader has unique project knowledge. And the tools with which it can influence the contents of the backlog.
With the right approach, and having the right tools, the strength of the timlid make it so that:
In his report, Alexander Lebedev will talk about the practices of working with food backlog from the side of the team leader based on personal experience. We’ll talk about how to reduce risks on business inquiries, and about the features of the life of a closing team in a long chain.
Surely, many of you also came up with questions: what does my team know and know what knowledge is and in whose heads they are concentrated, how to correctly show growth points or explain decisions made regarding the distribution of work and tasks.
Once Alexei Troshin came across these questions and in the process of searching for answers he found an approach that has become a simple tool. With it, bottlenecks in the documentation of products and in the areas of knowledge of team members are visible. With him there is the opportunity to make the right decisions in filling the voids and developing the missing competencies. Alexey will tell how he came to this decision and show how it can be used, and what tasks can be solved with its help.
In the age of chat and messengers, email, it would seem, was supposed to lose its position. But, fortunately, this did not happen and is unlikely to happen. All complex and responsible decisions and instructions still go through e-mail. Even in an environment far from enterprise.
Communication in mail is radically different from communication in messengers, and not everyone knows how to switch from chat rooms to mail, write correct and understandable letters. And here we are talking about both understanding the rules for writing letters, and about technical aspects.
Yevgeny Ryzhkov realized that his colleagues did not know how to communicate via e-mail, and made a presentation at an internal conference on how to do this correctly. Although most of it was “understandable,” in his opinion, most of the colleagues learned a lot. But more importantly - gradually, communication by mail in PVS-Studio began to improve, understanding with the outside world has grown significantly.
Even if you know how to communicate by mail, then come to the report to find out what you should tell your colleagues about, in order to avoid all the problems that Yevgeny and his team have overcome.
The eternal problem in almost all teams is decision making. Consensus is not always possible, voting often does not work, disputes and misunderstandings often occur, which leads to the sole decision-making by the leader. Sometimes it is justified, but more often than not.
Leonid Savchenokv will talk about meeting practices that help the team make decisions, so that it is shared by all team members, and it contains the contribution of each participant.
Come to this report if:
We learn from Leonid several simple and understandable facilitation practices that can solve these problems. We will expand the tools of ourselves as the host of meetings, gatherings and ceremonies.
The topic is about all the same aspects of management - setting goals and delegation, control, motivation - but from a position where you are, as it were, not really the boss of the employee. That is, either this is an employee from another team, or your managerial powers are blurred, as in any “agile and turquoise”. But this happens more and more often. Often you have to "occupy" the workforce, more often ask someone to help. But what if your task was directed to another team, where their priorities and rules of the game?
Igor Katykov will share his experience :
So, by good tradition, we will have 6 main areas of benefit. Below are their "talking" names:
- Personal development.
- Work with a team.
- Timlid Toolkit.
- The development of awareness.
- Transformational changes in processes and people.
- Building a technological process.
Today we’ll talk about the team tool. This section traditionally includes reports that are somehow related to the systematization, algorithmization and automation of various team lead duties, from accounting and setting tasks to development maps, checklists, meeting facilitation programs, etc. etc. In general, everything that somehow helps the team leader in work.
Timlid's toolkit this time will be devoted to more than ten reports. From my point of view, this is quite consistent with the situation in the industry. Since the leaders are mostly engineers, the methods for solving even non-engineering problems are still close to engineering ones.
So, what tools we will talk about in St. Petersburg this time.
Classy Timlid Recipes: Tools, Approaches, Practices
Dmitry Lee from Badoo
I am sure many of you have read and continue to read books about management, go to conferences, agree (and often disagree :)) with the advice of speakers and nod their heads at reports. But for some reason, few people use these tips in practice.
Often this happens, because from the stage we are told what to develop and how to be, but what exactly to do and what actions to take is far from always clear. Need specifics!
Dmitry Li will show real practices gained experimentally and give a recipe that will help you look at familiar processes and approaches from the outside. The conversation program includes: transparency in goals, order in working with everyday tasks, personal growth and development of team members, forms of effective communication.
How we created a development map for developers
Sergey Cherepanov from FSD
I am almost sure that many tried to build individual development maps, build training plans, plans for "pumping". In his story, Sergei Cherepanov will share real experience in creating and implementing a development map, which, among other things, is a tool to help take care of developers. History from the beginning to this day:
- How the guys implemented development maps for front-end.
- How with the help of a card they help to move from June to middle and above.
- How such cards helped the whole team move towards more effective collaboration.
- How interviews of participants within the team are conducted to validate and consolidate knowledge.
And much more from real experience using this tool.
Correct Feedback as a Timlid Tool
Ruslan Ostropolsky from DocDoc
Feedback is perhaps the best tool in working with employees. Unfortunately, not everyone uses it successfully; they do not know how or do not understand how, why. Say that you have already talked about this more than once? That's all right, but the topic is so specific and often unique for specific teams, managers and employees that we considered it worthy of being raised again.
In the report, Ruslan Ostropolsky will share his point of view on what is considered effective feedback, how to give it, in what form and when. And most importantly, what errors can be encountered when working with this tool and how to avoid them.
The Tale of the Turnip, or How the Right Tasks Are Born
Anton Costerin from Tinkoff
Personally, I believe that a correctly posed task is two-thirds of the total result. How many of you have not come across toast tasks, tasks that consist of one heading and a couple of common phrases? How much effort and time was spent reworking what was done incorrectly due to poor wording? We ’ll talk about this together with Anton Kosterin from Tinkoff Bank. Let's look for answers to the following questions:
- How tasks should appear that meet the interests of the customer - a chain from the global goal of the company to setting the task with layering. Areas of responsibility and artifact generation.
- What problems and pains of team lead and development team happen due to bad, incorrect, incomplete task definitions.
- What are the criteria for a correctly posed problem, the composition of the minimum necessary setting to achieve a successful result.
Well, in the topic of the section, let's look at the toolkit for working with tasks: validation, technical decomposition, linking of tasks, assessment of labor costs and technical risks, and prioritization.
From myself, I want to add that a correct and correctly posed problem motivates its solution, and powerfully demotivates in the opposite case.
We try (in public) economics, psychology and game theory
Igor Lukanin from SKB Kontur
All of us, to varying degrees, get used to working in IT companies with a strong engineering culture, a flat hierarchy, articulated values, self-organization of engineers within teams and the sovereignty of teams within the engineering division. Look around you and select any items to your liking.
But how to influence sovereign teams and people who do not obey you? The laws of economics, elements of social psychology and Nash equilibrium will help - one of the key concepts in game theory.
The Contour Engineering Division employs 1,200 people. These are approximately 90 teams distributed across 9 cities, or working remotely. Igor Lukanin in his report will talk about how to offer people and teams “rules of the game” that are beneficial to them and solve your problems. In fact, there are many cases when it is enough to set the rules of the game correctly, and then the game theory will work over time and people (teams), pursuing their own interests and achieving their own profit, will do as you need. Sounds tempting?
Together we will look at examples of how this works in Kontur: how it turned out to simplify hiring using the free labor market within the company and fix all security vulnerabilities through social pressure.
Frequency diagram in Kanban. How to answer the question “When?”
Artyom Rasskosov from SkyEng
There will be two reports about Kanban this time. The first from Alexei Pimenov about the method itself, I will write about it a little later, and the story of Artyom Rasskosov about finding the answer to the eternal question of the managers of the When.
To such questions, Artyom and his colleagues honestly described the technical solution to the problem and put a mark, but this did not save. Tasks, evaluated in 2 days, fell on production through 4. The problem is that the guys estimated the development time, and this was not what the customer needed.
As a result, Artyom and the team have come a long way before finding a good solution that suited both customers and development. It is about this decision that the story will be: what they tried, why it did not produce the desired results, what problems they encountered. Consider the frequency diagram and how, using this tool, you can replace the assessment of tasks with a service level agreement.
Product Backlog Risk Management Tools
Alexander Lebedev from New Cloud Technologies
The SCRUM manual tells us that the Product Owner is responsible for the backlog. However, the team leader has unique project knowledge. And the tools with which it can influence the contents of the backlog.
With the right approach, and having the right tools, the strength of the timlid make it so that:
- incoming tasks were worked out and it was easy to plan them (do you remember the turnip and correctly set tasks? - and again we return to this important topic);
- unsuitable tasks disappeared on the approaches before the team even saw them;
- the probability of labor exploits in the name of a sudden deadline remained minimal.
In his report, Alexander Lebedev will talk about the practices of working with food backlog from the side of the team leader based on personal experience. We’ll talk about how to reduce risks on business inquiries, and about the features of the life of a closing team in a long chain.
Personally, my experience says that the “last mile” is the most stressful section in terms of risks and planning complexity.
Knowledge and competencies in the team: find, see, pump
Alexey Troshin from FINAM
Surely, many of you also came up with questions: what does my team know and know what knowledge is and in whose heads they are concentrated, how to correctly show growth points or explain decisions made regarding the distribution of work and tasks.
Once Alexei Troshin came across these questions and in the process of searching for answers he found an approach that has become a simple tool. With it, bottlenecks in the documentation of products and in the areas of knowledge of team members are visible. With him there is the opportunity to make the right decisions in filling the voids and developing the missing competencies. Alexey will tell how he came to this decision and show how it can be used, and what tasks can be solved with its help.
How to communicate by e-mail and work effectively with mail
Evgeny Ryzhkov from PVS-Studio
In the age of chat and messengers, email, it would seem, was supposed to lose its position. But, fortunately, this did not happen and is unlikely to happen. All complex and responsible decisions and instructions still go through e-mail. Even in an environment far from enterprise.
Communication in mail is radically different from communication in messengers, and not everyone knows how to switch from chat rooms to mail, write correct and understandable letters. And here we are talking about both understanding the rules for writing letters, and about technical aspects.
Yevgeny Ryzhkov realized that his colleagues did not know how to communicate via e-mail, and made a presentation at an internal conference on how to do this correctly. Although most of it was “understandable,” in his opinion, most of the colleagues learned a lot. But more importantly - gradually, communication by mail in PVS-Studio began to improve, understanding with the outside world has grown significantly.
Even if you know how to communicate by mail, then come to the report to find out what you should tell your colleagues about, in order to avoid all the problems that Yevgeny and his team have overcome.
"We consulted, and I decided." How to make decisions by a team
Leonid Savchenkov from Yandex
The eternal problem in almost all teams is decision making. Consensus is not always possible, voting often does not work, disputes and misunderstandings often occur, which leads to the sole decision-making by the leader. Sometimes it is justified, but more often than not.
Leonid Savchenokv will talk about meeting practices that help the team make decisions, so that it is shared by all team members, and it contains the contribution of each participant.
Come to this report if:
- you are not happy with the passivity of your team during key decisions;
- you want no one to go blunt on your phone or laptop during team meetings;
- you are faced with a situation like "but I said that this will not work, but they did not listen to me."
We learn from Leonid several simple and understandable facilitation practices that can solve these problems. We will expand the tools of ourselves as the host of meetings, gatherings and ceremonies.
Not yours - here you are and get mad! We do not manage our subordinates
Igor Katykov from Tinkoff
The topic is about all the same aspects of management - setting goals and delegation, control, motivation - but from a position where you are, as it were, not really the boss of the employee. That is, either this is an employee from another team, or your managerial powers are blurred, as in any “agile and turquoise”. But this happens more and more often. Often you have to "occupy" the workforce, more often ask someone to help. But what if your task was directed to another team, where their priorities and rules of the game?
Igor Katykov will share his experience :
- How to get the approval of other managers for connecting not their employees.
- How to get the result from the employee, and not the unsubscribe "I had no time to do yours, it's secondary."
- How to get a satisfied employee who will be happy to help you later.
We tried to collect stories on various topics and make the picture with tools the most complete. Look at your surroundings, your tasks and difficulties, pick up tools and come to listen about them at Saint TeamLead Conf on September 23 and 24 in St. Petersburg.
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