Heidi Helfand
Director of Engineering Excellence - Procore
Author - Dynamic Reteaming
Heidi coaches and influences fast-growing companies using practical, people-focused techniques. Her approach is based on experience at highly successful startups. The first was ExpertCity, Inc. (acquired by CitrixOnline) where she was on the development teams that invented GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar. Heidi helped the company scale from 15 employees to 800. Then she was Principal Agile Coach at AppFolio, Inc. makers of workflow software for property management and law verticals. There, she built a coaching group that supported dynamic, cross-functional teams as the company scaled from 10 people to 650. She is currently at Procore Technologies – a leading provider of cloud-based applications for construction. At Procore, Heidi is in R&D leadership, coaching and consulting on software development and reteaming best practices as this company scales globally
Scaling Lean/Agile Metrics Across Your Software Company
In Collaboration with Tim Doherty
When will it be done? We all want to be able to answer that question with confidence. Software development is hard. Estimating software development accurately is darn near impossible. We have a critical need to become more predictable to help our companies succeed. As seasoned software developers, we've read the books on lean. We’ve hired the consultants. And this year, we believe that we've found the holy grail to make our predictability problems disappear. Sounds great, right?
Reality check. The challenge is that when you are trying to enact change, and there are people involved, it's not so easy as find the best solution and install it in your teams. You can't just force things on people. You need to take a different approach.
Questions come up like this: How do you get the people to buy into your change and own it? How do you invite people in as participants in the change and not try to shove the latest agile techniques down their throats? In this talk, we'll share our best tactics for success when introducing new changes in your organization so that you can learn from our mistakes and be inspired to drive change in your own organization.
Tactics:
--Frame your initiative as a compelling problem, and gain buy-in with a one pager (we will share an easy-to-use template for this)
--Find the people who have the problem or the pain. They will be eager participants looking for new ways to make their lives easier. Then offer yours as one possible solution rather than “the†solution.
--Partner with others who can help support your initiative. There is a power in collaboration. Find the opinion leaders. Get them up on a stage sharing techniques in their own words.
--Manage your initiative with regular check-ins. Schedule it. Socialize the progress of your initiative widely in your organization to drive continued interest and momentum.
--Weather the challenges that come along the way and adapt your way forward. Things are going to happen that might discourage you. Press on.
Reality check. The challenge is that when you are trying to enact change, and there are people involved, it's not so easy as find the best solution and install it in your teams. You can't just force things on people. You need to take a different approach.
Questions come up like this: How do you get the people to buy into your change and own it? How do you invite people in as participants in the change and not try to shove the latest agile techniques down their throats? In this talk, we'll share our best tactics for success when introducing new changes in your organization so that you can learn from our mistakes and be inspired to drive change in your own organization.
Tactics:
--Frame your initiative as a compelling problem, and gain buy-in with a one pager (we will share an easy-to-use template for this)
--Find the people who have the problem or the pain. They will be eager participants looking for new ways to make their lives easier. Then offer yours as one possible solution rather than “the†solution.
--Partner with others who can help support your initiative. There is a power in collaboration. Find the opinion leaders. Get them up on a stage sharing techniques in their own words.
--Manage your initiative with regular check-ins. Schedule it. Socialize the progress of your initiative widely in your organization to drive continued interest and momentum.
--Weather the challenges that come along the way and adapt your way forward. Things are going to happen that might discourage you. Press on.
WORKSHOP:
Dynamic Reteaming
Team change is inevitable, especially when your company is hiring like crazy and doubling in size. Your teams might grow and split. 20 people might arrive in one day. What feels like “tectonic shifts” happen as you morph structurally in an attempt to refocus work and people. How can we bring a humanistic stance to this dynamic reteaming? How can the people be empowered to own their own team changes? How do you integrate the new people in without losing your sense of “culture?” We will explore questions like these with an interactive format. Along the way, I’ll share case studies from 3 successful startups I’ve been a part for nearly 20 years.
Key takeaways:
Learn patterns of team change including: isolation, one by one, grow and split, merging and switching.
Experience what it’s like to let people choose their own teams.
Analyze your current situation with ecocycle and panarchy tools.
Determine a strategy for dealing with the “how do we maintain our culture” question as your company grows.
Analyze reteaming problem sets to determine how you would approach solving them.
Learn tactics to help your teams gel and get up to speed after they change.
Key takeaways:
Learn patterns of team change including: isolation, one by one, grow and split, merging and switching.
Experience what it’s like to let people choose their own teams.
Analyze your current situation with ecocycle and panarchy tools.
Determine a strategy for dealing with the “how do we maintain our culture” question as your company grows.
Analyze reteaming problem sets to determine how you would approach solving them.
Learn tactics to help your teams gel and get up to speed after they change.