Month 15 managing a new team
And then there were 2: I published our new team composition plan, splitting my single (large) team into two medium-sized teams — with shockingly positive feedback!
Yet another first-time management experience that goes swimmingly well as though I've done this before
Might be worth writing about my approach, since I didn't find what I wanted to read on org design in a single place and instead knit together advice from several leaders and various mediocre resources
TLDR, roughly:
1. Define motivation, goals, priorities, and factors to consider. Use human input and feedback, but don't do org design based directly on existing current team members.
2. Break down existing charter(s) into domains & subdomains, and map to products, services, responsibilities, tooling, etc — and the expertise required for each.
3. Refactor those domains, combine & re-sort, set some aside to consider dropping or handing-off (don't worry yet about whether or where).
4. Then draw the rest of the owl: examine which domains naturally go well together, which puzzle pieces can be set off to the side more flexibly, and identify which islands of pieces have stronger or weaker dotted lines connecting them to other islands.
5. Write out a few options. Write out each domain & subdomain line-by-line and explain tradeoffs of where it does or doesn't fit. Or try a matrix of whatever dimension fits your brain. Consider what amount of structure makes sense for the function you're building, the wider organization expecations & culture you're part of, etc. Some places expect super well defined lines, definitions, boundaries. Some teams can operate with a more general charter and focus on how teams collaborate and abstract away individual responsibilities or reporting structures.
6. Go back to the goals, priorities, and factors. Which options might have clear missions & coherent charters that humans want to be part of and lead? Think long-term about how this evolves over multiple years, anticipating future needs and changes, and avoiding a future reorg.
7. Start fitting the humans back into the picture.