VI #009: How To Level-Up Technical Excellence: 3 Components of High-Performing Engineering Teams

Read time: 3.5 minutes

An important goal of engineering leadership is achieving technical excellence within our engineering teams.

We understand that technical excellence is essential to building high-quality software that meets customer needs, scales, and can evolve and continue to perform successfully over time. But unfortunately, many companies struggle to achieve this.

One primary reason that organizations struggle to achieve technical excellence is that they don't prioritize it.

Software development teams are often so focused on meeting deadlines, delivering features, and hitting business targets that they neglect the importance of investing in their technical infrastructure, processes, and team culture.

There are other reasons too:

• Lack of training and development opportunities for team members.
• Inadequate documentation and knowledge sharing practices.
• Insufficient tooling and technology stack.
• Poor team dynamics and communication.

But achieving technical excellence is possible with a deliberate and systematic approach. Here's how:

Step 1: Create a culture of continuous improvement

The first step in achieving technical excellence is to prioritize it as a core value and create a culture of continuous improvement.

This means providing team members with opportunities for learning and development, encouraging experimentation and innovation, and continuously evaluating and improving processes and practices.

Creating a culture of continuous improvement can be challenging, especially in a startup where time and resources are limited. However, it can be achieved if you keep it simple (such as via a weekly sync with your team, applying the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle), lead by example, communicate regularly, ask for improvement ideas, find ways to empower your team, emphasize the importance of incremental improvements, and help share and celebrate ideas and improvement results.

By regularly following this approach, you can identify areas for improvement, implement changes, evaluate their effectiveness, and make further adjustments as needed. Using maturity models to prioritize learning may help here also, if they are thoughtfully and appropriately applied.

Step 2: Invest in your technical infrastructure and processes

Investing in your technical infrastructure and processes is crucial for achieving technical excellence.

This means developing a robust and scalable architecture, implementing automated testing and deployment practices, and ensuring that documentation and knowledge sharing practices are in place. Some items to consider reviewing and focusing on include hardware, software, and network infrastructure, databases, development processes, and quality assurance processes.

One particular mistake many organizations make is neglecting technical debt, which can often accumulate over time. By measuring technical debt (e.g. tracking in your project management system or with a tool such as SonarQube), communicating its importance (including to non-technical stakeholders), establishing a process for paying it down (for example, budgeting time each sprint), and continuously monitoring and adapting, you can keep your technical debt under control and avoid major problems down the line.

By investing in your technical infrastructure and processes, you can ensure that your team is set up for long-term success.

Step 3: Foster a collaborative and communicative team environment

Finally, to achieve technical excellence, it's crucial to foster a collaborative and communicative team environment. Teams that communicate effectively and work together cohesively are more likely to produce high-quality code, catch bugs earlier in the development process, and deliver software that meets customer needs.

Firstly, open lines of communication should of course be established between team members and encourage frequent collaboration. One way to achieve this is by scheduling regular meetings, such as daily stand-ups or weekly check-ins, where team members can share progress updates and seek help on challenges they’re facing.

It's also essential to create an inclusive environment where all team members feel comfortable sharing their ideas and opinions. Naturally, active listening and respectful feedback are key to ensure that everyone's contributions are valued.

Another key aspect is promoting knowledge sharing and cross-functional collaboration. This may include encouraging team members to work across disciplines and share expertise with others. And it’s important to remember to celebrate successes and failures as a team, encouraging constructive feedback and tying this back into continuous improvement.

That’s it for today.

In Summary

By following the steps outlined above, you can level-up technical excellence within your engineering team and build software that raises the bar for quality, scalability, and maintainability. It’s important to remember to prioritize continuous improvement, invest in your technical infrastructure and processes, and foster a collaborative and communicative team environment.

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