I foster healthy high performance in software engineering teams.

For a decade, I served as a full-time Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in small-to-mid-sized companies and startups at various stages of growth. I subsequently spent more than a decade facilitating transformational change for a wide range of organisations, coaching hundreds of executives in effectiveness, and serving as a fractional CTO. I bring all of this experience to bear in helping technology companies to dramatically improve the performance of their engineering teams.

These engagements often start with an initial consulting period to discover the full scope of improvement opportunities in context, and to help the whole organisation understand the potential impact of change.

There are a variety of outcomes from here, from the internal team taking change forward on their own, involving me and those in my network in specific supporting roles, or retaining me in for a period of time as a fractional CTO.

There are three proven approaches in particular that form the foundation of a comprehensive diagnosis.

Engineering Success Plan

Nobody understands the unique challenges facing the engineering team better than the team itself. The key is to bring this forward in a constructive way.

Through a series of surveys, interviews, and workshops, we explore the problems, opportunities, and gaps, drawing out feedback and ideas from all quarters of the engineering team through a safe and structured process. The end result is a “core dump” of the group mind that I then organise, work with the team to prioritise, and turn into a roadmap to support a step-change in outcomes.

Engineering Team Health Check

Using a proprietary survey based on theories of psychological flow and my own observations of the key traits of healthy, high-performing teams, I quickly gain a snapshot of the individual and team dynamics that are helping or hindering effectiveness.

This approach provides instant feedback and improvement opportunities to each participant, as well as a group picture that I compare against statistically-significant samples to produce a detailed report on the state of the team, as well as next steps required to improve morale, retention, and productivity.

If you would like to see this for yourself, you can take the survey now.

Engineering Technology Health Check

Strategy and team are important ingredients to the success of any group, but in engineering in particular having the right tools, technologies, and rituals is essential.

Through structured feedback, I take the team through an inspection of best practices in software engineering. The results are use to identify the most important areas to remediate as well as the key strengths to build upon.

We then translate this into an actionable, agreed plan with clear deliverables and responsibilities.

I have had the pleasure of working in this way with a wide array of technology-focused companies over the years. You can read about their results in their own words here.

If you would like to learn more about how this comprehensive, methodical, and proven approach can help take your engineering team to the next level, please get in touch.