Trust as a requirement

In my experience, after quite a few companies and teams, I came to a point where you have to realise what are you talking about. You can think about reorganizing your department, your team, and the way you plan or execute, …  that’s great but did you see a pattern behind all these movements?

I know, it seems obvious: PEOPLE. That’s the one and only thing that really matters.

Software development IS about people. It’s not about technology; it’s not about processes, methodologies or continuous integration. Get the right people on board. Get them to a state of motivation where they perceive the change as something positive, the improvement as a way of life and the quality as a property of the product core, not as something to deal with besides the product.

“Then build Trust”

Yes, that’s it. Easy, isn’t it? Are you waiting for a detailed explanation about how to build trust in your team? Maybe some step by step guide or how-to to convince everybody that you deserve this trust? Well, sorry, in my humble opinion, there is nothing like that.

Of course you can find hundreds of books dealing with this topic. You can find dynamics to generate conversations, extract values from your team, create some synergies, this is very useful, don’t get me wrong. I can recommend you to read everything you can, if you are like me, curious, it will help you to open your mind and look for places that were hidden so far but let me share my findings during all this years:

“There IS a silver bullet for Trust: Be authentic.”

Don’t try to be someone else. Work on your self-awareness, get to know how you think and behave and then show that to others. Don’t try to follow any predefined pattern that you can read in a book, things like: “A good leader is someone who <insert here whatever attribute you like in a leader and you don’t see in yourself>. Even if the attribute is a good one, it will be perceived as a fake. You lose. Team loses.

• Be transparent (even if it hurts or feels uncomfortable some times, even if you don’t have the answers)
• Share the information (timely)
• Treat others as THEY want to be treated
• Be open, honest and direct (I love this statement from one of my employers)
• Act with passion
• Save this thought as a filter for all the actions you are going to execute: “First of all, it’s about PEOPLE”.

If you can do that, you are in the right place. Now you can choose one of the wide range of methodologies or frameworks of your choice, just get the one you think fits best with your business model or your company culture.

It will work.