Managing people: teamwork, training and culture

Sport gives us some of the clearest examples of this challenge. Assemble a team of individually brilliant players, in any sport, and you will not automatically get a brilliant team. History is full of squads with world-class talent that underperformed, and leaner, less decorated teams that consistently punched above their weight. The difference is rarely ability. It is how well the team is managed, motivated and united behind a shared goal.

The same is true in software development. You can’t produce great software without great people. But you also need to ensure you create the right conditions for those people to succeed.

We therefore believe it’s always worth the time, effort and expenditure of investing in all our people. By showing we care, and helping them to reach their potential, they will always go the extra mile and produce better quality work for our customers. So here are some of the ways we enable this at Damilah:

Maintaining a positive culture

We strive to create a culture that is open and supportive, where everyone is clear on what success looks like and how they can find the right path towards it.

Our line managers are ultimately responsible for an employee’s growth and development, but it’s not limited to them. For example, someone might need support for a particular skill that is not within the line manager’s competence – in which case, we’ll ensure they are connected to the right person in the business to help them develop in the desired way.

In other words, we’re constantly supporting each other and growing together.

What’s more, it’s important to us that our people are prepared to take risks in order to develop and innovate. If they are afraid to, they will usually struggle to advance. Of course, that those risks will be taken in a measured way with the right support.

Software and technology are always changing and we constantly need to try new things to stay ahead of the game. We’ll usually do that in close consultation with clients, and often ‘spike’ technology – that is, test something in a controlled environment. If it works, then great: we can roll it out. And if it doesn’t, we’ll learn from it and move on. We learn lessons together with our clients in an environment built on mutual trust.

Investing in training and development

I’ve worked in businesses as a CTO where training is the first thing to go when budgets are tight. But that’s a false economy that ultimately impacts on the quality of the work delivered and the success of the business. That’s why we continue to invest in training, because we know we’ll get a return on it, tenfold or more.

Each of our employees has a development plan, which can include both technical skills and the ‘softer’ skills, such as communication or presentation. Doing this, we believe, delivers the obvious short-term benefit of upskilling our team – but also the long-term benefit of an increasingly knowledgeable, committed workforce that chooses to stay with us.

Celebrating innovation and success

With technology changing as fast as it does, it is important for us to stay close to new developments and make space for our people to explore them. We do this by providing opportunities to all our people to initiate or join specific innovation projects, which allow them to invest time in trying out new technologies that enhance our capabilities and ensure their skills remain at the forefront of the industry.

There is no greater motivator than success – and it can be addictive. We celebrate success at every opportunity, for example by having annual awards for both individuals and teams. Awards are based on performance and also the way in which our people uphold and emphasise the values of our business.

Working as one team with our customers

We believe strongly in the value of teamwork, and our commitment to this extends to our customers. We avoid the traditional customer-supplier relationship, opting for collaborative, transparent partnerships from the outset.

We encourage customers to feel as if we’re all part of the same organisation, working towards the same goals. Quite simply, that’s our culture – and the culture we encourage from everyone we work with, both internally and externally.

If you’d like to find out more about any of the points raised in this article, and how we can deliver great software for your business, get in touch now.

Iain Bishop, founder and CEO, Damilah