Leadership & Strategy

Building a Culture of Ownership and User Empathy

After taking over a marketplace engineering team of 45 people in Singapore, the author noticed a lack of ownership and user empathy, as well as an acrimonious tension between the engineering team and the data analytics and business operations team. To address this, the author conducted an immersion followed by a hackathon, pairing members of all non-tech cross-functional teams with members of the engineering team. Through this, the team developed empathy towards users and each other, and became more vocal and passionate about their ideas. The author also learned the importance of developing ownership around key marketplace challenges, having a clearly defined team charter, and empowering people on the team to make decisions.

Scaling a Small Team with a Strong Foundation

Growing a small team into a large organization requires a strong foundation of initial hires, a shared direction, and the right leaders. As teams grow, technical challenges arise and the team must remain aligned on a single goal. Communication and teamwork become essential, and leaders must be highly motivated and driven while also being able to collaborate and work flexibly with others.

Overcoming Hiring Constraints

This company faced the challenge of not finding potential candidates fit for positions available within their company when expanding. To overcome hiring constraints and meet their goals, they devoted their time to researching different target locations, conducted surveys, and created a cross-functional team. They also hired local recruiters and invested in marketing strategies to target potential talent. Lessons learned include allocating resources to a professional local recruiter, understanding the qualities the company is looking for in prospective employees, and investing in marketing strategies.

How Managers Can Support Employee Career Growth

This story is about a person who was stuck in a role they didn't want to be in and was struggling to make the transition to product management. The protagonist was able to help the person by introducing them to other product managers and sharing their own experiences of transitioning from engineering to engineering management. The person was also given an opportunity to create a product requirement document and was referred to some great books. Eventually, the person was able to impress the team and earn the role in product management. The protagonist learned that it is important to recognize potential and invest in people, even when it may not seem like there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Communication Is the Key in the Workplace. Here’s How to Improve.

Poor communication in the workplace can lead to ineffective one-on-one meetings and staff meetings. To break this cycle, it is important to provide different forums for status updates, focus on improving person-to-person communication, and create goals and objectives on a quarterly basis. It is also important to create a platform where everyone can talk about emotions and feedback, and to show vulnerability in order to create a culture of psychological safety.

Choosing the Perfect Implementation of Agile

New managers and teams often struggle to establish a steady rhythm of work. Agile methodology is often used to help teams plan sprints and set objectives and key results (OKRs). Teams should also use a scorecard-based system to assign tasks fairly, and ensure that no single person is overburdened. Additionally, managers should prioritize the mental health of their team and solicit their advice to foster a sense of ownership.