Team's & Communication, featuring Brent Collier

I interviewed by brother-in-law, Brent Collier. He has been working as a software developer for about 7 years. Currently he is working for Twitter in San Francisco as a Senior Software Engineer / Tech Lead. I selected Brent because since he has entered the software development field he has worked for several different corporations and they all seemed to be structured so differently, he would certainly have interesting experiences to share.

Me: What position do you hold?

Brent: I am a Senior Software Engineer/ Tech Lead for Twitter

Me: How many people are on your work team?

Brent: 10 people

Me: What is the largest team you have been part of?

Brent: Largest was around 30 people

Me: Do you manage any employees?

Brent: Not currently

Me: How would you define effective communication?

Brent: Thorough, but concise

Me: Do you consider yourself to be an effective communicator?

Brent: I am not as effective as I would like to be

Me: Have you ever been on a team with someone you consider to be a “bad” communicator?

Brent: Probably, but I don't remember anyone specifically. 

Me: In your team, what are your primary methods of communication?

Brent: Email, Campfire (group chat) and instant messaging

Me: So, mostly informal?

Brent: Yes

Me: How is your team structured? Hierarchy or self-managed?

Brent: We have a manager mostly for reporting purposes, but we're mainly self-managed.

Me: How open is your manager to input on projects?

Brent: Extremely open. In fact, most of the decisions are made by us.

Me: How often do you receive/give feedback? 

 

Brent: Constantly and at all levels. We do code reviews on all of our work. We have weekly one-on-one meetings with our manager. And we also do biannual peer review feedback on ourselves and our managers.

Me: Have you experienced any issues regarding accountability on your team?

Brent: No issues. We all know what we're responsible for. 

Me: Have you ever needed to mediate between team members in conflict?

Brent: No, in an open group it's rare for things to elevate to that level.

Me: Have you been part of or are you part of a high-performing team?

Brent: Yes, if your team is not high performing, then something needs to change. 

Me: In your opinion, what do the high-performing teams in your organization do differently from average teams?

Brent: Performance teams constantly evaluate and adapt. They spot inefficiencies and address them.

Me: What does or what could your organization do to enhance team productivity?

Brent: We have a team whose sole purpose is to enhance developer productivity. They build and support tools/methods to help us be as efficient as possible which can be difficult in a company with 800 engineers.

It was great to get the perspective of someone in the field that I am working towards entering and realizing that many of the concepts we are learning are actually effective. I thought that Brent's definition on what effective communication entails was completely accurately conveyed in a non complex way. I also thought it was awesome that he is involved in a high performing, self-managed team. I often wondered if self-managed would really work. It sounds good but can it be successful? And i think it can. Based on Brent's experience in the field, he is on a self-managed team that in comprised of team members that are highly effective, are accountable for themselves and the team, and work together to discover the solutions to implement for their organization. The description he gives for his team shows that they really are great communicators and seem to actually be a team, rather than a group.