I've been in engineering management for decades. Here are some things I've learned about the ingredients of a successful engineering team.
1/ Customer Focused
Engineering teams need to be obsessed with their customers. I learned this particularly well at Amazon, which strives to be the earth's most customer-centric company. Jeff Bezos is famous for having an "empty chair" at meetings, which represents the customer. Whether your customer is a consumer, a business user, or an internal team, learn who they are.
You cannot do this if you do not know your customer. Develop personas. Know their world, their objectives, their challenges. Make life better for them, and keep iterating on that. Rinse, lather, repeat.
We make our customers priorities our priorities.
2/ Trust
When team members trust their leadership, and leadership trusts team members, you have a well-oiled machine. That's simple to say, but harder to achieve. Broken trust is not easily re-established. Where there's distrust, there's friction and resistance. Many managers are either results-oriented or people-oriented: they need to be both.
Earning trust increases your credibility, gravitates others toward you, and leads to more opportunities. When everyone has that mindset, great things can be accomplished.
3/ Respect
We give each other the benefit of the doubt in communication. We don't assume the worst possible meaning from a slack message or an email. Everyone gets a voice in discussions. If you disagree, you're expected to voice your opinion.
All of that can be done respectfully.
We celebrate each others' skills and achievements. We appreciate the variety of backgrounds, experience, and abilities others bring to the table. If you're one of those 10x engineers who only values engineering things, you need your horizons broadened: management, marketing, sales, administration, and communication are all real skills that are just as crucial to running a business. Some people excel at going deep, while others can go broad and juggle many balls simultaneously. Some people are highly educated, others are self-taught. Learn about personality types: some people are drivers, some are conscientious, some are supportive, and some are influencers. I love having a mix (and playing referee!).
4/Alignment
We work toward common goals to achieve great things together. Once a decision is made, everyone commits to it. That can be hard if you don't agree with it, but there's no place for resentment or not doing your best.
5/Attitude
We're humble, not egotistical. We don't think we know everything.
We're constructive in our criticism. We're self-critical.
We learn from each other. I've worked with some stellar engineering talent in my time - but honestly, attitude is far more important to me than technical ability.
6/Commitment
We don't make commitments lightly. We set realistic expectations. We value realism over optimism.
We can be trusted to meet our commitments. We guard existing commitments when considering new requests or changing priorities. We own our work, and everything about it: that includes quality, operations, and support. We don't farm those responsibilities out to other departments.
7/Innovation
We pursue excellence.
We're always learning and always curious.
We're committed to ongoing improvement.
One of my favorite movie scenes is in Apollo 13. The astronauts are using the lunar module as a lifeboat, but carbon dioxide is building up. In Houston, a manager walks into a conference room full of engineers, dumps out a box on the table, and says, "The people upstairs handed us this one, and we have got to come through. We've got to find a way to make this, fit in the hole for this, using nothing but that." Without hesitation, an engineer mutters, "Okay, let's build a filter..." and they're off and running. That's the spirit you want: a fearless eagerness to innovate.
"We've got to find a way to make this fit into the hole for this, using nothing but that."
8/Measurement
You can't improve what you can't measure. Anything is measurable (f you don't think so, read How to Measure Anything by Douglas Hubbard).
We use metrics. We confirm accuracy with multiple kinds of measurements.
We prefer compelling data over intuition and experience.
We avoid the trap of the measurement target becoming the objective.
9/One for All and All for One
The team supports each member, and the individual members pledge to support the team.
When a project is in jeopardy, the entire team mobilizes to save it.
We hold each other accountable to our standards.
I like Charlton Heston in the 1959 movie Ben-Hur. He's appraising the sheik's four white Arabian racing horses, and he remarks that they should be arranged differently to work better as a team. He suggests the most stable horse go on the inside and the fastest horse on the outside. The sheik is impressed, and implores Ben Hur to become their trainer: "Would you make my four run as one?" After this advice is taken, the team's performance goes through the roof. Put the right people in the right positions, arrange them to complement each other, and your team can really go places. Fail to notice things like this and your team will be held back.
Would you make my four run as one?
Reality Check: You're Dealing with People
Just how realistic is this? Is the above list fiction or reality? Surely there's no organization where this attitude and behavior is to be found fully. You're right, this is an aspiration, and we don't hit it every day - but that doesn't make it unreal. The more these things are true, the better your team will operate.
Engineers and managers are people, and people are dynamic, changing beings. They have varying goals, they have good days and bad, they have things going on in their lives, not all of which will they share with others. They certainly aren't Lego blocks with uniform characteristics, which is how a lot of software process theory wants to treat engineers. The more you can build a culture that embodies the above, the more successful your teams will be. The important thing is to be moving everyone in the right direction. If these characteristics become part of your company's DNA, it's almost self-perpetuating. The best way a manager can lead in this regard is by example. Practice servant leadership to inspire others to act in kind.