As I write this post, I’m currently playing the role of senior software developer and sole product manager for a startup in the music industry. I was hired a number of months ago to work on the software team, but the founder of the company recognized that his organization needed to shift some things around in order to continue growing and he also wanted to step away from tightly controlling the path of the platform and being a bottleneck for approvals, etc. I have a background in product management, which my CEO was aware of (to some degree, at least...he did interview me and did get my resume and I did talk about product management in our interview), but I also regularly ask questions and pose opinions at meetings that likely reminded him of my background. And why pay someone new an additional salary when you already have someone under contract that can do twice the work for the same pay? I’m joking...It was a thoroughly discussed and thought-through decision on my part and his.

This transition puts me in two positions of leadership and responsibility with respect to my job: as a senior developer on the technical side I have (at minimum) implied responsibility for junior developers, and I'm responsible for ensuring the success of product management endeavor as well.

I'm not sure if it's my age, or the particular phase in my life I'm in, or simply my general interests, but this shift in my responsibilities at the company I work with got me thinking about how to best uphold my responsibilities and also craft my current team into a well-functioning, strong, successful team. This company is a small, young, and talented. Yet the value of talent and youth (and associated exuberance) is undermined by inexperience, and the challenges created by these opposing forces became clear to me almost immediately.

I've spent many years working on teams in the different technical fields. Some have been successful, some have not. When I began to reflect on how I wanted to move forward over the next few months and how best to help my current team grow and thrive, I started to think about other teams I've been on--I've also spent most of my life on teams, from little league through college and post-college sports teams to community-focused teams to teams living abroad and working together on projects. I decided to write these essays to, hopefully, sort out my thinking on the subject of building strong teams.

In the next post, I discuss more about why I'm writing this. Read it here.