Skilling Up Your Team Members

In the long list of jobs a development tech lead should be performing, one often falls off the radar. Many of the leads I have interacted with became leads due to the current lead being promoted, reorganisation, or they chose to leave. At that time, they were the most experienced developer on the remaining team; therefore, they are the new lead of the team. Many of which are promoted to leads before they are truly ready to take on the role. Many of them sour on the position due to the skill gap, ultimately leaving the role and seeking a different role in technology. Many of these new leads have an ideal perception of the role, but most are never shown the balance needed to lead the team, or the delegation required to fulfil the duties.

My entry into the role was not too different from what I have seen happen to other leads. By many measures, I was placed into a lead role much too early. It started when I chose to leave my first development role and switch companies. I was leaving to go and help a company rebuild a recently purchased solution in the new owner’s approved technology stack. There were two developers on the team, of whom I was one, who had experience in the standardised technology. The team also had six remote contractors who were supporting the purchased system in the current technology. What more could a new developer want? Experts to support the current solution while I work on rebuilding in the new technology. Partners that could help translate the existing logic to the new software. It all sounded like a great learning experience with sufficient time to focus on the goal.

Then the event happened. Within 3 weeks of my start date, the only other technical employee, our dev lead, gave notice. I was the chosen one to take the lead of the team with less than three years of development experience, and now tagged to guide team members with four times my experience. This was a very tough professional experience. I was extremely lucky to have an experienced and supportive business analyst to help guide my way. Along with a Vice President who had an impeccable sense to stop by and ask how it was going, when clearly he knew what was happening on the team. Often offering support or precisely timed feedback with suggestions, if necessary.

From my experience being promoted to a lead, I made the decision to never allow this to happen, if I can help it. However, it was quite recent when I realised not every lead feels this sense of responsibility to skill up those around them. As I felt confident in my lead role, I began to offer insights into the daily activities of a lead to the senior-most developers on the team. The thought was that the senior-most member is the next lead, but in making this error did not realize how valuable it is to share the information with all team members. Today, all team members on my team get shown what it's like to be a lead. Whether they want it or not, I share this information.

On my team, I hold no meaningful information to myself. Everyone talks about their career goals. First, we start the conversation in private, then with the team. Each member has the opportunity to take on the traditional lead tasks to learn with a safety net. Often, we talk through the decisions I have to make the final call on, as a team. Carefully describing the decision tree and why I think the decision is the right choice. Each team member learns to ask questions and provide feedback during this discussion. Making it a team decision and all input is considered.

Not everyone loves this mode of operation to start. There is a feeling that their contributions to the discussion will go unheard, or that the ability to take on a lead role is my trying not to work. Until they see it in action. As those members around them stand up to take on a traditional lead role, we prove that this is no gag. They see this is for them; it is me pushing them to be better, and it is them learning skills to benefit their career. One thing I try not to do is force this on a team member. Instead of pushing them away with more responsibility, I focus my efforts on those who want to learn the skill. Many of them come around to it as they begin to understand why and how it could benefit their career.

For those who play along, when it is their turn to lead, they already have a great sense of the job. They know how to handle the complexities of business decisions; many of them have already played the role for months. They have already been making decisions for themselves and the team, knowing the impact on the business for each of the decisions. They have the confidence to succeed and know what success looks like as a lead. They are ready for the journey into leadership.

For each new lead that comes from my team, the training continues. We set up weekly and then bi-monthly discussions to talk through the difficulties they are facing as a new lead. Until, eventually, they are confident enough in their abilities to begin training their first group of developers on how to handle the lead position.