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Question

Our team has expanded lately and there is are definite skill gaps on the team. This is to be expected in technical areas but as a side effect of this there are gaps in confidence and communication as well. We have been trying to slowly give junior members more responsibility and autonomy but the efforts don't seem to be having a noticeable effect. I understand that mentors could be a good option and some articles even recommend making people stretch by putting them in uncomfortable situations. I do not feel comfortable putting our team on the line in this way. Any one have any experience doing this? If so what were the results?

I disagree with this question receiving close votes. This is a question which has a lot of relevance to anyone managing employees, and while it may be difficult to answer, falls directly in what is the primary subject matter of this site. — Aug 1 '13 at 17:23
@enderland with all due respect, I tend to support close voters here. As said in help center, "Your questions should be reasonably scoped. If you can imagine an entire book that answers your question, youÃ¢Â€Â™re asking too much." - As far as I can tell, this advice applies here — Aug 7 '13 at 10:13

happybuddha 4,31152752 · Answer 1 · 2013-07-31 19:49:41Z

There are a couple of ways I saw this work in the past :

Most of the times the problem is that the junior resources are just not aware of what they exactly have to deliver. Or what is expected of them. Conduct a survey and see if they know what the management expects from them and if they are facing any challenges.

Identify stronger members from the senior team and assign the grooming/mentorship of junior resources to these members. This role should be mandatory for all senior resources and you can dangle awards/compensation for performing members (The yardsticks of measuring performance is a different thing altogether (Ex: weekly assignments fulfillment)

This is an extreme measure - Have bi/weekly assessments and be ready to let go of under performing staff.

Communityâ™¦ 1 · Answer 2 · 2017-04-12 07:31:57Z

I think your problem is more that people don't know what is expected to get to the next level and don't know when their current performance is just not good enough. It could also be that they are happy not growing to the next level (the sad but true fact is that there are some people who will skate along at the minimal level they can get away with and not get fired).

So first you need to determine what to do and how each person working for you will best be motivated to reach the level of performance you need. This is how we did it back in the olden days. It worked then and it will still work.

First define exactly what type of tasks people should be able to do at various levels. A junior developer should be able to:
1.
2.
3
An Intermediate level developer should be able to :
1.
2.
3.
A senior developer should be able to:
1.
2.
3.
(This link might help you determine what you see as the differnces between the levels:
https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/14914/whats-the-difference-between-entry-level-jr-sr-developers/14972#14972) and you may want to get more technical than that.

Now tie their promotion to those levels to demonstration of the skills you defined. Now they know what they have to be able to do (and include soft goals too such as ability to estimate tasks, ability to deal independently with users, etc.).

Now sit down with each person individually and ask him where he feels he stands in the skill levels shown. Ask him to justify any places where you disagree and then explain why you disagree if you still do after he explains. Ask him where he wants to be on the scale. Some people may be happy at the lowest level because they are going to school at night for instance. YOU may find some people are more interested in being specilists than generalist and ifyour organizational structure can handle that, then slot them into a plan specifically to get them the specialist knowldge they need to be your expert on Business Intellingence or embedded systems. If they want to be a specialist and you can't support that organizationallly, consider if you can help them get some experience so they can move on to where they want to go. In return ask them to make some progress on the general goals as well.

Then devlop a plan for each for what he needs to learn or demonstrate to get to the next level or stay at the current level without being at risk for being fired (if the person isn't even meeting the junior level). Then look over the project work you have and help distribute it so that people start to get the experience they need to progress.

Maintain a record of what each person has accomplished and what is still needd to be demonstated before promotion. Make sure to notice and compliment them when they make a step forward. Make sure to talk to the ones who are not progressing and find out why - are they not getting the assignments they need, are they not getting help to undersatnd the work at the next level (maybe a mentor is in order here or some pair programming) or have they reached their highest level of competence (not everyone can reach the senior level). Juniors are notorious about over estimating their actual skill level. It is important to keep letting them know when they are not reaching the goal. The most important thing in all of this to actually promote them when they demonstrate the skill level necessary. Budget at the skill level you want all of your devs to achieve not at the junior level so you can do this.

Finally, people who choose not to learn and progress from the junior level or who can't even handle the junior level tend to be the people that you need to get rid of. Let them know their job is in danger (and say it outright not just imply it) if they are not performing the way you want them to. Give them a chance to improve, monitor improvement more closely than with people who are not on a performance improvement plan and get rid of the ones who just won't reach the level you need.

the_reluctant_tester 85548 · Answer 3 · 2013-07-31 20:52:25Z

You would need to understand why ?

why is confidence & communication taking a hit ?

why giving responsibility & autonomy is not working ?

are junior clear about their goals ? are they getting small wins to start with (helps confidence ) ? are they set up with time & resources to succeed ? is there fear of failure ? are they motivated to step up ? are they getting the work/challenges that each individual is interested in (in my experience,nothing works more for people than goals & challenges which appeal to their self & career interests, mentors/leaders need to find & set those goals) ?

In situations like this, it is paramount to hold one on one discussions with each junior and find out.

bethlakshmi 70.4k4136277 · Answer 4 · 2013-08-01 11:13:46Z

I've had to bootstrap teams with a mix of experience and virtually NO understanding of the technology - my experience has been that smart, motivated people will succeed if they are given time, resources, and support.

Here's some tricks that have worked:

Mentoring

is great for what I think of as the "craft" of a job. Not technical stuff, but the deeper art of "why" and "why do it this way not that way?", and nuances of how in terms of how to work smart, not hard. It's best when there's trust and a personal connection. A mentor does not replace a book, a wiki page or a bootcamp, they supplement it.

Best for cases where you have some seriously senior folks and some definitely junior folks. There is such a thing as "peer mentoring" - which can help in a different way, but for helping green people get more seasoned, I'd say experienced mentors to junior people is what you want.

Key elements:

Often the best mentors are those that are picked by the mentoree - for most of what a mentor can impart, a mentoree must be willing to hear - it often includes giving feedback on work, which is something one can't hear from just anyone.

Mentoring is a skill - senior person does not equal good mentor. It's also a chemistry thing - sometimes a person who isn't a natural mentor will end up having a very good connection to certain other people - so never say never, but some folks are more likely to be good mentors.

It's really key to have the skills of providing thoughts, feedback, advice AND a listening ear without getting hands on into someone else's work. If the mentor is doing work FOR the mentoree, the mentoree isn't learning anything.

a general advice is that the mentor be outside of the normal chain of management

In my experience, creating a mentoring environment is an art, not a science. Saying "everyone shall have a mentor, we shall pick them now!" is not a fruitful approach. Better to offer the idea, and offer both mentors and mentorees support in hooking up. For example, when you see two folks hitting it off, suggest a mentoring relationship and offer the time and space in the work to develop the relationship.

Mentors don't have to be on the same project as the mentoree - it can work, but a certain degree of distance can be really useful.

Challenge and Failure

Stretch assignments ARE good - but in moderation. You can't have a person do ALL stretch assignments, everyone needs some common and familiar turf. Also important for asking someone to stretch outside their comfort zone:

Stretch does not equal "wild leap of faith" - stretching means doing just a slightly uncomfortable bit more than you knew how to do before. Go to far into the scary unknown and you will get pushback.

The higher the stakes, the less the stretch - take the bigger challenge on the lower risk outcome - this is a good case for prototypes, beta tests, dry runs, etc. - don't be new at it the first time you do it for real - do a test of some sort.

Management has to back the play - a real reason for lack of willingness to stretch is a belief that management will not back your play when you fail. There has to be a trust here - and that's a whole other conversation.

A map to success - even lots of trust won't get you by if the person doesn't have a game plan they believe in. Not to say that management has to make the plan - but starting with a "what plan will get you from not-ready, to ready?" is a really good first step.

Learning Plans

Lots of companies do learning plans, with varying degrees of effectiveness. A learning plan's objective should be guided or provided by management - the goal is to learn something that helps this company and this output. But the steps to the learning plan are something an employee should have input into - some folks prefer books and self study, other's really do need a guided class, and how it'll come into the regular work is something worth specifying - just learning for the sake of learning is great, but the company needs to invest people's time in a particular goal for a work product.

Meredith Poor 8,8661730 · Answer 5 · 2013-08-01 03:44:17Z

One scenario I am aware of is that someone with HTML and CSS experience was hired to maintain a website, and the company almost immediately expected him to take care of database stuff - something he knew nothing about. This was a pretty breathtaking assumption on the part of the employer, but understandable. Given the circumstances, someone should have sat him down with a laptop and walked him through SQL Server basics. The reason I found out about this is that he hired me as a tutor.

At another site, we hired two people on a VB6 project. One of them was a few weeks away from graduating with a Masters degree in CS. I handed him a form to do and left him alone for a couple of days, then went back to see where he was. About all he could do was drag a button onto a form and change the font size. We fired him instantly.

In short, in some circumstances extended professional development is worthwhile, in others you have to let people go that can't hack it. For these 'junior' developers, one has to figure out whether they have the raw capacity to step up to the next level. If so, create the appropriate development environment and give them space to explore. Otherwise limit their assignments or, if necessary, send them home.

Most of the time I've been handed something I know nothing about I simply started experimenting, however these were circumstances where I had time. In one case I was a 'network administrator', which meant I was between tasks enough that I could root around in something I didn't know much about. In another we were launching a sounding rocket in a year, other people had to set finish chunks of hardware, so I could play around with LabView to my hearts content. If your project is under pressure, you may not have this luxury.

happybuddha 4,31152752 · Answer 6 · 2013-07-31 19:49:41Z

There are a couple of ways I saw this work in the past :

Most of the times the problem is that the junior resources are just not aware of what they exactly have to deliver. Or what is expected of them. Conduct a survey and see if they know what the management expects from them and if they are facing any challenges.

Identify stronger members from the senior team and assign the grooming/mentorship of junior resources to these members. This role should be mandatory for all senior resources and you can dangle awards/compensation for performing members (The yardsticks of measuring performance is a different thing altogether (Ex: weekly assignments fulfillment)

This is an extreme measure - Have bi/weekly assessments and be ready to let go of under performing staff.

Communityâ™¦ 1 · Answer 7 · 2017-04-12 07:31:57Z