Effective collaboration CTO/VPE

Building on this key working relationship!

The relationship between the technical leadership in a company can be complex and highly dynamic.  This is particularly complicated when you first have a CTO and a VPE.  Up until this time often the responsibility of engineering is entirely with one person and they “do it all”.   How do you set this up to be effective as you change the roles and evolve the company?  What are some good baseline practices to build to make sure these changes succeed for you and the company?  I’ll walk through some of the key things that have worked well in the past for me and others I have worked with.

Clarity on roles

The first thing you should do is make sure there is clarity between the roles.  I’ve written in the past about some of the ways of thinking about the VPE/CTO roles.  If you haven’t read that, I recommend starting there.  The key here is to get really explicit about who is going to own which aspects of technical leadership.  If you aren’t able to get this nailed you aren’t going to be able to productively and successfully collaborate.  I recommend building a document which records all of this, updating it as things go along and talk about where the division is successful and where it may not be going as well.  You can update this over time as the business, organization and people change.  By building this foundation you’ll be well on your way being able to have effective conversations and collaboration.

One team

With breaking down the responsibilities, it is key to remember that you are one team.  The goal is for the engineering practice to thrive and to properly meet and exceed the needs and wants of the company.  This mindset shows up in all sorts of ways.  When things aren’t going well, engage openly with your partner to talk about the challenge.  Be radically supportive and empathetic.  Treat them as adults and hold them responsible, but also support them in being the resolution to the challenges that they are facing.  You need to remember that you are on one team and that infighting isn’t going to help you, your team or the company.  There is a lot of stake if you don’t succeed, so don’t get distracted by making it personal or turning toward blame.  You both are responsible for the success of the engineering organization, so you better turn toward the challenges as one team.

Play to each other’s strengths

Each of us has our own set of strengths.  Learn these, get to know them intimately and figure out how you can capitalize on this for each other.  You have the ability to shape the roles and responsibilities to shape the most impact to the company.  You may be good at building technical strategy, but your partner may be phenomenal at this.  If this is the case, have your partner lead building the technical strategy, find your own strengths and figure out how to capitalize on those.  Too often I’ve seen people get caught up on what they think they are supposed to be doing as opposed to what is the way to create the most impact for the company and team.  By having open communication and staying flexible while keeping an eye on where you want to get to, you open up a lot of degrees of freedom to get there.  Take advantage of this and make sure you play to each other’s strengths.

These are three guidelines that I’ve used to make sure I collaborate effectively with other technical leaders and have had fantastic results with.  Let me know what you think and what has worked for you in the past!