Checking in with Collaborating Technical Teams Working Virtually

1. INNOVATION AND COLLABORATION
PULSE SURVEYS
FOR R&D AND ENGINEERING
Checking In with Collaborating Technical Teams Working
Virtually
APRIL 19, 2020
DAVE LITWILLER

2. INTRODUCTION
• The rapid transition to virtual work since the onset of Covid-
19 social distancing has placed new demands on all affected
workers
• A month in now, any novelty which might have existed early
on has worn off
• While every functional group is under added pressures in
this new state, research, development and engineering have
particular challenges for the ability to keep up a high pace of
output when operating disbursed
• Collaboration and innovation at a distance is highly sensitive
to changes in the chemistry, communication and deliberation
behaviors of R, D & E teams
• Even small changes in tool use, communication, interaction
and decision making can cumulate over time to large
differences in capacity to invent, innovate, and problem solve
as teams

3. BACKGROUND
• What follows is a set of ideas for how to poll collaborating
remote technical team members about aspects of their
work and recent changes thereto
• These pulse survey queries assume that executives and
managers are already taking reasonable efforts to build
context, guide self-development, remove roadblocks,
provide timely decisions, and keep in touch with how team
members are doing at a distance:
• All hands meetings, department, workgroup, project, skip
meetings, 1:1’s, quick calls, etc.

4. QUALIFIERS
• I’m offering the following suggestions not to intimate that
they are profound or new
• rather, I’m serving these up in the spirit that sometimes by
asking questions in even just somewhat new ways can
reveal changes in the thinking and behavior of staff and
management, whereas
• ongoing use of similar inquiries or patterns of dialog as
employed in the recent past may not as easily reveal shifts
in sentiment

5. QUALIFIERS
• The suggested frameworks are general forms which need
to be tuned in to each company’s terminology, traditions
and circumstances
• They are meant as references to be used inductively
toward adapted sets for live use that best meet the
particular circumstances of any one firm

6. WESTRUM INFORMATION
FLOW MODEL
Better Since
Move to
Virtual
Worse Since
Move to
Virtual
Why?
Information is Actively
Sought (Pull for Info.)
o o
Messengers Can Safely
Bring Forward Bad News
o o
Responsibilities are Shared o o
Cross-Team, Cross-
Functional Collaboration is
Rewarded
o o
Failure Causes Inquiry o o
Failures are Treated as
Opportunities to Improve the
System
o o
New Ideas are Welcomed o o

7. HIGH VALUE
COMMUNICATION
High Value is Placed On: Better Since
Move to Virtual
Worse Since
Move to Virtual
Why?
Timely, Well-Curated Push
Communication by
Individuals and Groups
o o
Design Documentation and
Code Comments
o o
Design Techniques o o
Integration and Release o o
Test Techniques o o
Use of Our Issue Tracking
System
o o
Use of Other Shared
Development Collaboration
Tools
o o

8. SPEED AND UTILITY
OF COMMUNICATION
Information is: Better Since
Move to Virtual
Worse Since
Move to Virtual
Why?
Transmitted Such that It
Provides Answers to the
Questions the Receiver
Needs Answered
o o
Timely o o
Presented in a Way the
Receiver Can Effectively Use
o o
Delivered Using the Right
Channel or Collaboration Tool
(messaging, phone, video,
CMS, documents, etc.) for
the Variety of Content We
Need to Share
o o

9. EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT
PERFORMANCE
What Would Improve Your Effectiveness and
Performance in Our New Circumstances, in the
Categories Below?
Answer
Ability to Operate Self-Directed, Much of the Time
Ability to Incorporate Your Ideas and Creativity in
Our Shared Work with Less Friction
More Easily Access the Thinking of Teammates to
Test and Shape the Direction of Your Work
Interact More Vigorously with Colleagues
More Easily See the Product- and Enterprise-wide
Impacts of Your Design and Technical Choices
Getting the Feedback You Need
Getting Your Voice Heard and Being Able to Deliver
Feedback to Others

10. DOING THE RIGHT THINGS,
THE RIGHT WAY
Better Since
Move to Virtual
Worse Since
Move to Virtual
Why?
Doing the Right Things o o
Doing Them the Right Way o o
Accruing Technical Debt o o
Accruing Corporate Development
Debt
o o
Dropping Things We Should be
Curtailing or Stopping
o o
Maintaining High Standards of
Performance
o o
Self Reflection Time and Quality o o
Group Reflection Time and
Quality
o o
Capacity to Put Reflection
Learnings into Action
o o

11. BUILDING AGILITY
THROUGH TRUST
Better Since
Move to Virtual
Worse Since
Move to Virtual
Why?
We Are Delivering on our
Vision
o o
We are Being True to Our
Targeted Culture and Values
o o
We Have High and
Appropriate Transparency
with Each Other
o o
We Minimize Waste, Re-Work
and Waiting
o o
We Have a Low Level of
Mistaken Assumptions and
Inferences that Complicate
Our Work Together
o o
We Act as One Team o o

12. DEVELOPMENT
EXECUTION AND
LEARNING
Your Own Sense of: Better Since
Move to Virtual
Worse Since
Move to Virtual
Why?
Voice of the Customer o o
Customer-Defined Value o o
Having the Pulse of the
Marketing Plan for Your Work
o o
Product Development and
Program Objectives
o o
Accountability for the
Success of the Team
o o
Priority Clarity and Which
Matters Require Urgency
o o
Your Personal Rate of Skill
Development
o o
Our Collective Rate of Skill
Development
o o

13. CLOSING THOUGHTS
• The queries ending with Why? are meant to start the
discussion for follow-up improvement, not be the end
• The purpose of these information flow and collaboration
polling matrices is to:
• Identify where R&D and engineering efforts are in likely in
good shape, and,
• Shine a light on where the technical organization can
improve its training, tools, techniques, communication and
decision mechanisms to maximize productivity across the
enterprise throughout the remainder of working virtually
• Similar lines of inquiry may be helpful across other
functions of the business, or even company wide

14. SOURCES (PARTIAL)
• “Accelerate,” Forsgren et al, IT Revolution, Portland, 2019
• “The Study of Information Flow,” Westrum, Elsevier, 2014
• “Debugging Teams,” Fitzpatrick et al, O’Reilly, 2016

15. FURTHER
DISCUSSION
For additional discussion about innovation and collaboration
pulse surveys for high growth technology businesses:
dave.litwiller@communitech.ca