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Tech Team Traditions?
Antigua Nice asks: "I have recently been promoted to manager of a young IT department and would like to introduce a tradition and/or mascot for the upcoming season. Although we are busy 24/7/365 we are especially busy during the NFL season since we are a sports related company. The goal of this is to add some excitement to the new team, unite the members and keep department moral high. It might also be worth mentioning that I have recently added two more administrators to the team. If you currently have any department traditions or know of any, could you please take a moment to share them with me. They could be anything from going out for beer and wings after the first game to each member bleaching their hair. Any and all input is welcome."
The worst experiences I've had are when someone tries to artificially create a tradition and force it on everyone. The best traditions develop naturally. Try a few things, see if they work/people like them/they catch on.
I work for a tech support office that handles several sites across the state... We have a "Bonzo the clown" in the tech Van... Whenever all four of us go on a trip (usually just me.. but sometimes we take a trip), one of my coworkers, the responsible one, usually tries to plan things out in the vehicle, to make sure everything'll go smoothly when we get there. My boss, however, is a bit more immature. Whenever my coworker tries to do this, my boss picks Bonzo off the dash, waves it at her, and repeats "BONZO'S NOT LISTENING!!" over and over. Kind of a mascot, and kind of a tradition.
Have hot cheerleader mascots. Keep them under your desk (pref @ groin level). Naturally, cheer leaders must try out... and you are the manager.
;-)
This will not only raise moral but raise nerdy appendages.
You may have to resort to the blow up kind if your department is ultra-nerdy
"Oh, and next Friday...is Hawaiian shirt day...so, you know,
if you want to you can go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans."
Seriously... traditions aren't made, they happen. If you want to make one happen, I recommend maybe starting with a bi-weekly happy hour or poker night, or something similarly social along those lines, possibly subsidized by the company.
Ok, that's enough. I'm dropping Ask Slashdot from home page preferences again. Who let the MBAs in the room anyway?
One perinial favorite is "perpetual hazing" of administrators (or sales droids, if your team is fortunate enough to have access to some). Nothing brings a team together like having a common interest in tormenting someone who isn't part of the team.
Be careful when setting bounds though. For example, back in the late 70's (before I knew better) one of my rules was
which seemed clear, simple, and to the point--until you realize that you're dealing with bright, highly competative people who deal with complext rule systems all day, and are trained to look for security holes. The revised version, worked a little bit better, but (perhaps because they'd seen me flinch), the team realized that hazing your manager is even more fun than hazing sales droids. It took almost a month to get their focus back on the sales department where it belonged.-- MarkusQ
P.S. Important note: never haze anyone who makes your travel arrangements.
... but I've always hated garbage like that. I go to work to work. I see these people 8 hours a day. I don't want to see them before work, or after work (well, except a select few who are friends).
The whole 'team' word is over used, and in my mind, reeks of management-itis. OK, there may be companies where teams mean something. The companies I've worked for, it's just that: work. Most people don't want to be there any longer than they have to.
When I worked at Hayes, our boss used to try to put together things, like after work outings, as a reward. You want to reward me? Let me leave early. I have a life (as far as being a geek goes). I have projects at home, cars to tinker on, software to write, dogs to play with, rocks to climb, etc.
We used to have company mandated meetings. It's amazing how many you can not show up to (like, say, 100%), and still not get fired. Apparently, my skills as a programmer are worth more than really pissing me off by writing me up or some other BS for not showing up.
And don't confused this with being a "team player". You can be a team player and still not be a "team".
I finally solved this problem a few years ago. I am an insultant. I work from home 99.44% of the time. I have my dog at my feet, my 'fridge 15 feet away, and no one cares if you wear slippers to work. Oh yea, and I save about $800 a year in gas.
It is apparent that you have become a full-blown
PHB and are out of touch. You want team tradition?
Make it beer Thursdays, or better yet, Fridays
free at 4 pm tradition. Even if you choose to do
nothing good for your employees, please refrain
from doing some lame puppet as morale booster.
Take the money you'd spend on a puppet and give to
employees (even if it's a cent per head). Show that
you care about real people, otherwise start a
tradition of posting a Dilbert cartoon on your door
every day.
I work at a pretty small advertising company, and while we have no traditions, we love nothing more than to kick back at 5pm once the day is over and all enjoy a couple beers on the roof (we're lucky enough to have a top office in a building in NYC) and talk about business, life, and so on. If the next day is probably going to be slow, maybe head down to the local bars for more drinks, no one has to go if they dont want to. Admitably, its a small group which helps its intimacy, but traditions seem a bit silly unless theyre started naturally, and smack of artificiality. I prefer the 'Hey, we're heading down to the bar for some drinks, wanna come?' to some official company thing arranged in advance.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
Second rule (for advanced readers): Don't, unless you can find something which absolutely everybody will enjoy.
Buy everyone beer? What about the guy who doesn't drink (either by choice, or for medical reasons)?
Take everyone to the football game? What about the guy who doesn't like football, or the guy who has to stay home to look after his kids?
Throw a really expensive Christmas party? What about the people who don't celebrate Christmas, or who celebrate it a couple weeks later?
Have everybody play Unreal Tournament? What about the guy who gets motion sick?
"Team building" sounds great, but paying for 90% of people to do something together that they really enjoy doesn't help build a team; rather, it makes the other 10% of people feel even more isolated.
Teams build themselves. People form friendships, and find activities on their own. Let this happen naturally; don't try to push it forwards prematurely.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
You can't start traditions, one day you just look around and realize that you've been doing them. But you want to raise moral?
You control only two things that your employees want. Money and Time. Take everyone out to the bar, or to a picnic, or to the rifle range, or get everyone tickets to an NFL game. Thats the money part. The time part? Do it on company time. If your not doing it on company time, invite family, and its not compulsory.
--Cam
All jocks think about is sports. All nerds think about is sex.
some Reebok commercials featuring Terry Tate the office linebacker
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1. Reward your best team members with pay raises 2. Get rid of any that can't cut it
Promoted from...where? Were you once one of the IT people? If so...would YOU have really wanted what you're suggesting?
would like to introduce a tradition and/or mascot for the upcoming season.Numerous posters have pointed out the foolishness of trying to "impose" a tradition. A mascot I could see, but only if it was genuinely funny and not contrived. Nor intended to be taken seriously.
The goal of this is to add some excitement to the new team, unite the members and keep department moral high.I assume you mean "morale", not "moral" - I think what you're proposing would inspire more IMmorality...
It might also be worth mentioning that I have recently added two more administrators to the team.Do you mean more IT people (Network/System administrators), or more managerial staff? 'cuz I know nothing would make ME happier than having more people overseeing me and telling me what to do... (If you meant that you hired more people to help with the workload, you probably ARE on the right track there.)
Want some advice?
- Try asking the people actually doing the IT work what would improve morale.
- Buy a bunch of Dilbert books and read them. Anything that resembles any program that any of the "Pointy-Haired Boss" characters implement in those books should be recognized as Probably Not A Useful Idea. It sounds like you're dangerously close to crossing over to that category right now...
People who have to do tech-support-type work ARE a pretty cynical and jaded bunch, in my experience (heck, I know that describes ME), and are not likely to respond positively to contrived or ephemeral attempts to manipulate their attitudes.(Note: If this is actually a clever plan to promote "team unity" by uniting the staff in their hatred and/or mockery of you, it just may work..."Can you believe this guy? He actually thinks he can MAKE us start a 'tradition' on purpose! And who in their right mind would think these 'Apshai, the Bug God' dolls would do anything for morale?")
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Focus on being a facilitator, not an instigator. People hate being forced into activities with coworkers. It is very difficult to pick an activity that everyone will like, and it is very difficult to get everyone to like each other. As a manager, people may not always tell you they don't want to go out for drinks or go out on bowling night. Instead they might just sit their seething in resentment when they'd rather be home.
What you have to do is plant a seed of an idea, and then see if something grows out of it.
Some examples of facilitation:
* Building a volleyball court for employee use.
* Permitting use of office projectors for movie night.
* Letting people run a gaming server on the company pipe
* Foster an environment where people can leave work together to grab coffee or whatever (as opposed to an environment where everyone always tries to make it look like they are always working)
Some no no's:
* Forcing your sys admins to play volleyball during their lunch hour.
* Asking everyone to spend their friday night watching Planet of the Apes at work.
* Pressuring people into 1st person shooters after work.
* Insisting everyone go out to get coffee every morning as a break.
The all time worst company sponsored activity I have ever heard of was an event a big company picnic. Employees were sent into a corn maze and they raced to escape the maze. A few hours of time off was awarded to everyone with more given to those who finished fastest. The managers sat and watched the whole thing from a platform overlooking the maze. For some reason, the situation reminds me of slaves fighting against each other in a gladatorial pit for the amusement of their masters except in this case the only reward was a few hours of freedom.
- No, I am Sparticus.
Now if I only could find a team with such a tradition....
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
I'd say go out and buy YOURSELF a copy of "peopleware" and read it. There are a couple of VERY important points made there
1)You can NOT build teams - They can form, and the BEST you can do is not to interfere. Don't TRY and force teams. Now you can setup an environment that will foster team growth, but that is about it
2)YOU, as a manager, will NEVER really be part of the team - period. You MIGHT like the team, the team might like YOU, and occasionally invite you along, but you are never REALLY part of the team. Even a team lead who does not have full management power is even slightly on the edge of a team. He/she CAN be a member, and in fact, can be the core, but that is in the same way that the hole in a doughnut is the core of the doughnut - he's not the same
Part 2 is why MOST managers HATE teams - they don't fully control them, and aren't really part of them, so they are afraid of them, so they break them up
One Hint from the book - if you are lucky enough for a team to form, feel lucky, and do your best to keep them happy
I've had the joy (and I'm NOT using that sarcasticlly) of being a member of a gelled team twice in 20 years. Each time the teams lasted, oh, around 2 years before management did something stupid, and broke up the team. We almost NEVER went out after work, MOST of the gang didn't see each other outside of work, and we had very diverse interests - BUT we all KNEW what the other folks (guys and gals) on the team liked/disliked
Another thing that I'll point out (not in the book) that I've noticed about every gelled team I've seen (not only worked on) - They were mixed gender and/or orientation AND mixed age. Best team I was ever on had folks from about 22 years old, up to about 50! (and that was for an 8 person team)
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
To add to all the insightful comments about NEVER doing mandated things, let me add my experience:
In my previous job (a bank), the upper management would "reward" an entire appartment with a weekend seminar in a hotel 3 hours away from our city. When it was our turn, we were ordered to show up at the workplace at saturday 8:00AM, where a minibus would pick us up, take us to the hotel, spend the night there, and the minivan would drop us back *at workplace* (not at our homes) sunday 8:00PM. Only workers, no couples, no family. We were told we could NOT refuse. I kid you not.
This "seminar" turned out to be one of those crappy "Let's build teamwork!" courses... all the while we were complaining about how they had KILLED our weekend for what was, essentially, work. The married ones couldn't see their families, the single ones didn't have our free time.
To make things worse, the rooms we were assigned to had FOUR beds, which meant we all had to share the room (AND restroom) with three other guys. The two women in my department got it much easier, as they were assigned a two-bed rom (they were relieved, as they were afraid they'd actually have to share a room with two other guys).
In the hotel's defense, the lunches they gave us was very good.
The kicker? Right before we left, our boss took a picture of the entire department, posing in the hotel entrance. Two weeks later, the internal monthly newsletter had it page 3, along with a store telling that "The XXXX Department had a blast at the YYYY Hotel! [...] The bank has a long standing tradition of rewarding good work and [...]".
The people at the Human Resources department weren't really jerks - they were out of touch with reality and actually believed employees viewed these "weekend seminars" as an actual prize.
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
HERE'S a GREAT one:
Treat your IT employees as professionals, with respect and humanity, rather than like retarded step children. Who need to be 'shown the way'.
Bonehead.
Skip "Breathe in, breathe out...the rest is easy"
Look I have a wife and two kids. At this point whenever one of these mandatory team/tradition deals happens I just leave and go home. I have NEVER suffered any consequences from adopting this attitude, my job is programing after-all not coffee and cookie time. Maybe if I was at all interested in climbing the ladder or whatever I would pay more attention to bull like this, but personally there is nothing more gratifying than getting home early, finding that the kids are still napping, being alone with my wife for a little bit to unwind, and then being there to play with the kids right when they wake-up. I don't care how fun the tradition is, if you think I am going to go out for bowling with the team instead of this, forget it I am going home. I would not get any work done anyway.
I had it all before. The Hawaiian shirt day, the company picnic, the baseball games, the ping-pong, the cookie time, the beer hour, pizza night, hazing of new employees, bowling, arcades. In the beginning I put-up with it all thinking it would somehow look bad if I did not take part, but it really did not matter. I even was a vegetarian and ate raw beef as part of prospective employee hazing! Then I wisend-up.
If you want to build morale and you cannot provide interesting projects or decent raises how about this for a suggestion. Rather than having everybody get together for for cookie and coffee time, just get a coffee-maker for the office and stock it with free coffee. Once a week put-out cookies near the new coffee-maker. That is a nice perk, if we want coffee or cookies we can go get some whenever we feel like. Remember that the majority of us were the quiet kids in the back of the room in school. We are still like that, we are quiet and don't care much for being forced to be social. We would rather spend that time doing what we enjoy more in our lives.
When I was part of a large (~50) engineering group, we just did a few things during the holidays.
For example, at Halloween we dressed up. We also invited the families in to trick or treat door to door. I'll admit, I was a bit scared to see my kids go to some of the more "embedded" geeks - i.e. the office reminded you of their pungent scent.
Christmas / Hannukkah was our biggest event. We had a buffet lunch, which always sparked good conversation about food. With a diverse group from around the world, it was always interesting. Then there was the Yankee swap - a sleeper hit for us. This little gift giving game turned into a serious event. The Dilbert Calender(s) were always top prize. We also had some uber-geeky tech games, like build a paper structure to hold cafeteria trays. Most trays before collapse wins.
Your mileage may vary.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai