Team organization is a process that needs constant monitoring as a company scales, Jared Newman, engineer at defense technology company Anduril, said.
Once managers become overloaded or team priorities become disconnected from business outcomes, it’s probably time for a restructuring, he said.
And though there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to change management, LA tech professionals said there are some best practices for reorganizing a growing engineering team: Begin with communication and transparency.
“A key behavior of effective managers is maintaining good lines of communication between themselves and their team, and using those lines to gather and distribute information,” Newman said. Communicating a clear company vision not only gives a team context, but also allows its engineers to take ownership of executing that vision.
Once a restructuring is complete, delegation and follow-up are key to its success. Tim Goodwin, CTO of TigerConnect, said managers should make it clear why restructuring is a boon for engineers. When teams are properly organized, engineers see opportunities to advance their professional careers and learn new skills.
Since joining Anduril two years ago, Newman has seen the company grow from 10 people to over 200. While there might not be a crystal ball to consult when considering restructuring a team, Newman said looking for overwhelmed managers is a good place to start.
When did you know it was time to reevaluate the structure of your engineering team?
I don’t believe I have ever felt that there was a clear point in time to make a team restructure. I view it as something we’re continuously monitoring and thinking about. Most structural changes we make to the organization are retrospective recognitions of how the team is already operating. I think that in a rapidly growing company, the informal processes and structures of the organization dominate, and effective individuals are often leading without formal authority anyway.
Therefore, your formal structure always lags your informal structure. That being said, I think some indicators to look for are managers becoming overloaded or disconnected from the day-to-day of their direct reports, or team priorities becoming disconnected from business outcomes.
Effective managers maintain good lines of communication between themselves and their team.”
How did you determine the right structure for your team, knowing that team would see growth in the coming months?
I think the biggest thing that can guide team structure is having a long-term vision for the product you’re building. Where do you want it to be in three years? If you can articulate this vision well, then it not only helps you structure the team but also gives people context to help them make decisions that are not just “locally optimal.” Once you have a vision, you can think about how you can structure teams so that they can chunk up parts of the vision and take ownership of them.
It’s hard to talk about what specific team structure looks like at Anduril since it varies a fair bit from team to team. For example, the team that builds our VR and native applications has a UX designer, product manager, a front-end developer and a couple of back-end developers, while the team that owns the core OS and device drivers is comprised of three back-end engineers.
What steps did you take to try to ensure a smooth transition to the new team structure?
I think effective managers maintain good lines of communication between themselves and their team, and use those lines to gather and distribute information. Communication offers valuable insights that you can use to gain signal on when to consider formal team restructures. This means that when executing a restructuring, it’s not so much asking everyone involved their thoughts on the matter, but rather gathering enough signal to make an informed judgment.
As for executing smooth transitions, I’d say that clear and succinct communication around the change is critical. If you are wishy-washy about what’s happening then folks will just end up confused and the effort spent restructuring will be wasted.
Goodwin said he looks to team performance when evaluating whether or not it’s time for a restructure. Looking to commercial data, such as business value reports or customer satisfaction statistics, can help answer whether an engineering team is operating smoothly or not.
When did you know it was time to reevaluate the structure of your engineering team?
There are many variables when it comes to evaluating an organization or department’s structure. Often, it may be a factor of fast growth (or unfortunately in these times, right-sizing forced on the company by external factors). The driving question should always be “How is the team performing?” And to ask that question with a commercial lens: Is the team, department or organization delivering business value? Is that value acknowledged by customers and the senior executive team? Or is there a disconnect between what they want and what is being delivered?
One of the biggest drivers to know when it’s time to reevaluate team structure is knowing which teams are producers of that value and which ones aren’t. Can this be measured in your organization? If it can’t, then it’s likely the team structure is sub-optimal. If a team is really cranking, consider no change.
If a team is really cranking, consider no change.”
How did you determine the right structure for your team, knowing that team would see rapid growth in the coming months?
I have a preference for cross-functional teams that can align around a specific goal or product. This drives transparency and accountability. Too often, companies structure teams along functional lines such as all the project managers are in the project management team, all the QA people are in the QA team, etc.
Human tendency is to try to put all the things with the same labels into the same box. Try to avoid that. While there may be some benefits in functional models in terms of people with similar skills learning from each other, that comes at a price, which is the lack of prioritization of business outcomes. The biggest weakness of a functional model is a lack of accountability. Learning skills can be addressed other ways through skills guilds, lunch and learns, etc.
What steps did you take to try to ensure a smooth transition to the new team structure?
The first step is aligning the wider team around the problem that needs to be solved. If they don’t agree there is an issue or align on the goal, they won’t buy into the new structure. So lots of communication about the “why” as well as the plan itself are crucial.
In this way, engineers can provide their input and have an opportunity to say if they do or don’t believe in the changes. Ideally, the changes, especially in a growing company, provide an opportunity for career development and growth. Understanding how it will help an engineer advance their career will align personal goals with business objectives. It doesn’t always have to be about management responsibility, it might be about learning new skill sets and having engineers become more balanced and capable exponents and practitioners.
