The "Macros" for healthy engineering teams - part 1: Carbs
The "Macros" for healthy engineering teams - part 1: Carbs
This series explores the parallels between nutritional macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats) and critical elements that drive engineering teams’ health.
Just as our bodies require a balanced diet of macros to function optimally, engineering teams need specific ingredients to function well. For health related to an engineering team, we refer to a team that can execute well, collaborate, tackle tech debt appropriately, and continuously learn and improve.
In the first article of this series, we will start with the first macronutrient: carbohydrates and their counterpart, motivation.
Carbs: The Fuel of the Body & Motivation: The Fuel of Engineering Teams
Carbohydrates are often our body’s primary energy source, powering everything from complex brain functions to demanding physical activities.
When we consume carbohydrates, they are broken down into glucose, utilized as an immediate energy source, or stored as glycogen in muscles and the liver for future use.
Similarly, motivation is the primary energy source in engineering teams, driving them toward productivity, collaboration, and innovation.
In a previous post, I touched on the topic of Motivation in teams. In it, I summarized the key insights from Daniel Pink's book “Drive”, which introduces three essential elements that drive intrinsic motivation: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
This time we will look at motivation from a different angle. This interesting study (“Effects of Task Significance, Coordination and Incentive Mechanisms on Motivation of Online Teams“) looks at the correlation of task significance, team coordination, and incentives with motivation in a team, especially for remote or hybrid settings, which are very common nowadays in software engineering.
Task Significance: The Complex Carbs of Team Motivation
The concept of task significance draws a parallel with the sustained energy provided by complex carbohydrates in nutrition (I am referring to non-processed carbs, like whole grains or beans). Complex carbs offer a steady source of energy, avoiding rapid spikes and dips (see a previous post on Continuous Glucose Monitoring to find out how to monitor those spikes and dips). Similarly, the belief in the importance and purpose of tasks within a team provides a continuous source of motivation and engagement for team members.
When team members perceive their tasks as significant and meaningful, it instills a sense of purpose that fuels their motivation over an extended period. This is particularly crucial in remote teams, where physical separation can often lead to a sense of disconnection or isolation.
Also, another study (“The Future of Motivation in and of Teams”) emphasizes how task significance plays a vital role, especially in complex team structures where it’s important to align individual and team goals.
How can an engineering leader help with this?
As engineering leaders, one of our main responsibilities is allocating people to projects, activities, or tasks. If you’re leading a unit, think carefully when you need to delegate something to one of your managers.
For example, once, I had a manager who was very analytical and really passionate about engineering metrics. At the same time, our team had lots of incidents and low unit test coverage, so we decided to create a working group to work on elevating the engineering excellence of our group. Assigning the ownership of this working group to this manager was a practical move that aligned with his strengths and was meaningful for him and the team. He was really motivated while leading the group, and this caused a significant improvement in our core engineering metrics.
If you’re a line manager, think about when you allocate user stories to your team members.
For example, once, my team had lots of operational issues since it owned one of the significant features of a company. I was pressured to solve bugs within a specific SLA, and I started prioritizing bugs over feature development for all the team members for a few weeks (after agreeing with the product owner on the team). Some of those bugs were minor but I wanted to solve them so our team wasn’t going to get called out at a higher level. What happened is that the team was really slow in fixing those bugs and people expressed low energy in working on those issues. I came to the realization that the tasks weren’t significant for them. The “why’ we were doing this and the “why” specific issues were prioritized wasn’t clear. This was a good learning point for me that showed me how all the team members need to understand the meaning of activities executed to be effective fully.
Feed your team with significant activities, similar to how you feed your body with healthy complex carbs.
Coordination: The Essential Fiber of Team Functioning
In nutritional terms, fiber, a type of carb, is essential for the smooth functioning of the digestive system and contributes to overall health. Similarly, effective coordination in a team ensures that all efforts are harmoniously aligned, much like how a fiber-rich diet optimizes health.
Our main study highlights that well-coordinated teams are more motivated and perform better.
A lack of coordination, on the other hand, can lead to ineffective utilization of skills and resources, much like how a diet lacking in fiber leads to health issues.
Moreover, the study (“The Future of Motivation in and of Teams”) points out team coordination is crucial for remote teams where the geographical dispersion of team members can often pose challenges to effective communication and synchronization of efforts. This study especially underscores the importance of team coordination in complex team settings, where the coordination of goals across various teams is fundamental for the success of the entire unit.
How can an engineering leader help with this?
Another key responsibility for an engineering leader is coordinating the team's efforts. Think about this when you look at unblocking your team for the success of an initiative.
For example, once, I was the line manager of a team building a new product feature. While executing it, we discovered a blocker that was supposed to be tackled by the Platform team. The team created a ticket, and I assigned it to the engineering manager on the other team. After a week, we checked on that dependency, but nothing was in progress on that ticket, and people felt discouraged. It was my mistake, I should have coordinated better (or just coordinated) with the other lead. I learned it wasn’t enough to create a ticket and wait for things to get solved. I probably could have had a meeting to explain our request and follow through on the progress, and avoided wasting a week. I learned how coordination affected motivation in my team.
Team coordination is very important to ensure a motivated team is effective and things flow correctly. Similar to how high-fiber food operates for our digestive health.
Incentive Mechanisms: The Sweeteners of Motivation
Incentive mechanisms in teams are analogous to simple sugars in nutrition, they provide a quick, immediate source of energy or motivation. We talked about the difference between recognition and rewards in this post — here, we refer to incentive mechanisms as both monetary rewards and verbal / written recognition. They offer an instant boost to morale and motivation, similar to how simple sugars give a rapid energy spike.
However, just as an overconsumption of simple sugars leads to rapid energy crashes, overreliance on such incentive mechanisms can cause fluctuations in team motivation. Our main study cautions that while incentives can be effective in the short term, they must be balanced and integrated into the team’s overall dynamics for long-term benefits.
This suggests that incentives should not be the sole focus but rather a part of a broader motivational strategy emphasizing task significance and effective coordination.
How can an engineering leader help with this?
Engineering leaders can thoughtfully design incentive mechanisms that align with the team’s objectives and individual members’ motivations. For instance, while a team member might be motivated by a monetary bonus, another might find more value in public recognition or professional development opportunities. Thus, understanding the individual motivation drivers within your team is crucial for effectively utilizing incentive mechanisms.
For example, once, one of my teams was working on a project with a very tight timeline. They had to work every weekend in the last month before the deadline. Even with lots of last-minute challenges, they were able to make it. I distributed a few spot bonuses to those who worked on that project. The manager on the team mentioned some team members felt energized by it, but the tech leader didn’t. Digging into it, he was looking for a written recognition and callout since he was the one making some of the most critical tech decisions. I came to the realization that incentives need to be utilized strategically, and it’s not just about giving money to people.
In summary, utilizing incentive mechanisms in the right way is valuable for boosting team morale and motivation. Similarly, in a balanced diet, eating some wholefood fruit after a strenuous workout can be a good way to recover energy lost during the workout.
Just as our bodies depend on a balanced intake of carbs for optimal functioning, engineering teams require a mix of task significance, coordination, and incentive mechanisms to thrive. Task significance fuels sustained motivation much like complex carbohydrates provide long-lasting energy, coordination brings the necessary structure and alignment like dietary fiber, and incentive mechanisms offer immediate boosts, comparable to the quick energy from simple sugars.
In the following article, we’ll take a look at proteins and their metaphorical significance in nurturing team growth and resilience.