Coach New Project Team Members to Succeed
I’ve been having some strange email conversations with two testers, one business analyst, and a project manager. They have each found jobs on projects, and they are in over their heads. Each of them wrote to me, hoping I would help.
The testers wanted to know how to write test plans and tests. The business analyst wanted to know when to get involved with the project and how to write requirements for her project. The project manager wanted to know how to organize the Gantt chart for his supposedly agile project. I told him he didn’t need a Gantt.
These poor people. In each case, I asked, “Do you want private coaching from me?” Oh, no, they replied. They just wanted the answers to their questions.
Well, the answers to their questions require private coaching, because the answers are project- and context-dependent. After a bunch of back and forth, I told them to start reading because they don’t know how to ask the right questions. (Yes, that sounds arrogant. Sorry.) I also told them to talk to the rest of their project teams and ask for help because floundering by themselves is a no-win situation.
This is a management failure. It might also be a team failure. That sounds harsh, but why else would these other well-meaning people who want to succeed come to an outside expert? They don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know who to ask down the hall. But the answers are inside their buildings—or on their wikis or on their intranets.
And if the answers aren't there, an external expert can’t help find them. The only way they can find the answers is by talking with the other project team members. As was famously said in Cool Hand Luke, “What we've got here is failure to communicate.”
There is a reason I advocate a buddy system for new people. With a buddy system, new people learn how to do what they need to do for this project in this context. Once they learn that, they can generalize it to the larger context.
These folks are in over their heads. Are they qualified for their jobs? I can’t tell. That’s because I suspect there are funky and suspect requirements for these projects. I think some of these organizations are in a transition state where they are not quite agile and not quite waterfall—and their project teams are not quite sure what to do. That means new hires need even more coaching than they might otherwise receive.
Managers need to conduct one-on-ones, especially with new people. Managers might not need to perform the on-the-job coaching, but they need to make sure the coaching gets done by someone. Right now, all I see is people getting plunked into projects where they are not set up to succeed.
Managers, have you hired someone recently? Are you concerned about that person’s performance? Make sure you are not contributing to his lack of knowledge. Start having one-on-ones.
Teams, do you have a new person? Have someone coach that new person. Make sure that person becomes a real member of your team.
