Starting a tech leadership group
I noticed the senior engineers at work didn't have a space to come together. Senior engineers are distributed over many client projects and, from experience, they too need a support group. I, as a tech principal, need their help elevating the the technical capabilities across the organisation.
Here's the process I took:
- validate what my senses were telling me
- On an individual basis, I told each senior engineer what I was thinking and asked whether they felt a need for a space for senior engineers to connect.
- Each engineer responded positively with their own personal take
- invited senior engineers to discuss further
- shared the positive responses anonymously in an email invitation
- prepared a one pager to guide our discussion, including steps for:
- context setting
- purpose - potential topics, initiatives, opportunities,
- membership - who was in this group and who was not
- structure - how often, the formats (round table, lean coffee, knowledge sharing, etc)
- needs - what might the needs be of the group
- roles & responsibilities - rotation of various roles, e.g. facilitator, note-taker, knowledge curators, etc...
- have the discussion for 45 minutes
The pace of the session went well, we covered all the steps, I made sure all voices were heard, and it felt like everyone was on the same page.
We agreed to meet fortnightly, have a mixture of formats, limit membership to level 5 engineers and above to keep group small and manageable. There were a lot of ideas covered when we spoke about purpose of the group and needs of the members, including:
- cohesive set of standards for common tech we use
- port of call for feedback on strategic objectives
- working out what messages to amplify to wider engineering discipline
- peer support
- fostering sense of belonging and collaboration outside of client work
- coordination of talent development, training needs and cultural change
All in all, a very worthwhile session that I should have made happen sooner.