Where, what and how
I met an entrepreneur some time ago that told me something I've never forgotten. And even though his company was about as non-technical as you can get, I see it over and over as I work with tech startups. "Everyone," he said, "prepares for failure. No one prepares for success."
There's an assumption that commercial success will solve it's own problems. But that's not reality. It will create new challenges which will need to be dealt with, or that success will be very short-lived.
One of the biggest is when you go from a small team working in a single location to a bigger team working in multiple locations.
Working across locations changes a lot
There's a lot to be said about the advantages of being a small company and those advantages primarily have to do with the ease of communication that happens with less people (and fewer logistical hurdles.) There's an element of culture here, but really, it's a function of trust: can you trust that you understand the person's intent when they are going in a certain direction? Do you have enough of a foundation of trust that you will ask about things that you don't understand?
But then companies grow - if they're lucky. And when they grow a few things start happening:
- You don't know everyone anymore. They're just coming on too fast.*
- You don't know what everyone does anymore. Jobs become more specialized.
- Sometimes you aren't sitting right near the other people, so you can't even see everyone anymore.
Suddenly, all the shared vocabulary is muted. When you have multiple offices, the nonverbal clues are gone. You think that you can overcome this by all-team meetings where you introduce the new people, and you think that it's the new people's job to adjust to the company culture and learn the vocabulary. (It is, but it's also important to understand that - like any vocabulary - it is always being modified by its youngest members to meet their needs.)
As the problems start to intensify, you think you can silo the teams. Make them packets of autonomous creation, so that people can still walk over to each others desks. People can smell each other's coffee's at the morning scrum. And the morning scrum can happen in the morning, because that's the timezone everyone is in.
All true. To an extent.
In reality, when you start getting too big to simply walk over to someone else's desk, everyone has to adjust. The simple fact is, while you can silo your teams to help to optimize your internal structure, that's not the way your customers will experience you. They expect you to be one company and they expect to experience your products in a consistent way. It's not an unrealistic expectation.
Well, can't you just have people who work across the teams to ensure consistency? Absolutely. But now your culture has to accommodate two types of people: the horizontal and the vertical. If your organization has so strongly resisted the idea that working across locations can be done effectively, then the horizontal people may come to be seen as "overhead". There is also the simple matter that those people have to be physically located somewhere and they will have to develop mechanisms to communicate and coordinate across locations, timezones, perhaps even languages and cultures. It is vital that those people are not considered "other". "Other" in this case might even mean management. Because if someone else is responsible for ensuring consistency across locations, then each team has absolved itself of that responsibility. Which means each team is no longer building in the customer's best interest.
So, what's the answer?
Ha. Nice try. There's no easy answer here. As with any complex problem involving time, space and people, the only redress is to be aware of it. Realize that there is no shortcut. However, here are a couple of recommendations on where to start.
1. Treat communication as a skill (one that can be learned)
Focus on communication as a core value and train people how to communicate. Realize that working with dispersed teams is a skill which people can and should be trained on.
2. Make sure that everyone has accountability for the end result
Yes, that means teams who don't work on a project will be responsible for how that product comes out. Doesn't make sense? Well, unless the customer is going to experience that product in complete isolation from the other products, it makes sense to your customer.
3. End each hallway decision with a "Who's going to communicate that?" agreement
Hallway conversations are a fact of life. They shouldn't be done away with. And the CEO or other leaders are going to be asked to - and will (and should) - make decisions in casual conversations. Remember to make sure someone has responsibility for telling the folks that aren't in that office about the conversation. The information invariably gets around one office, but it starts to create tension between the offices if decisions keep getting made that the other offices aren't aware of and can't influence.
4. Find ways of recognizing and rewarding horizontal work
It would seem like having a view across teams would be considered to be a bigger role. But my experience is that it is often seen as less concrete and therefore can drift into the realm of being considered "overhead." Make sure all of the teams understand what the horizontal work is and why it's important. If people don't understand someone else's job, they will assume it's not important.
So, congratulations on your growth. The challenges are just beginning.
* Sometimes that speed is helped by hiring people from the network of the current team. This can be great, unless it becomes unbalanced, where you are importing subcultures. I've heard tale of some hypergrowth companies that come to resemble Afghanistan, ruled by warlords with serious taxes to be paid when trying to move between territories.