Building Winning Teams that build winning products: My experience as the Director of Software Development at Infusionsoft as well as a Tech Startup advisor and mentor, in building teams, hiring great talent and building an organization that helps them grow

1. Building Winning Teams
Anila Arthanari
Director of Engineering, Infusionsoft

2. Mention:
@anila_art
Hashtag:
#PHXstartupweek
#ChaseBasecamp
#yesphx

3. Product excellence is now
paramount to business success

4. The basis for
success and for
continual product
excellence is speed

5. Speed not Efficiency

6. Speed not Efficiency#1 Talent

7. Job Description
• Strong comp science basis, problem solving and analytical
skills
• Communication and strong sense of seeing things through
• Real industry experience with Scala and Java
• Experience with AWS services and distributed applications
• Familiarity with NoSQL and RDBMS databases
• Industry experience in building, shipping and scaling RESTful
services

8. • Experience and Skill
• Master and Student
• Tactical and Strategic
• Individual Contributor &
Leader

9. Technology Creativity
Business
Smart Creatives

10. Speed not Efficiency
Wanted Alive
Passionate, entrepreneurial, intelligent,
hard-working and talented engineers

11. Leading Indicators
• Big Hairy Goals
• Propensity for action
• Learning
• Self-direction
• Values

12. Where do you find them?
• Friends and family
• Advisors and supporters
• Meetups and Dev Communities
• Startup events
• LinkedIn and other recruiting sites

13. If you cant tell someone how to think, then you
have to learn to manage the environment where
they think
#2 Environment

14. Environment
• Constant learning opportunities
• Clear Mission
• Autonomy and responsibility
• Free information flow

15. The “P” Word
•Agile
•Lean Startup

16. Process Goals
• Right problem definition
• Fast solution creation
• Easy information flow
• Serendipity and learning

17. Driven by purpose not process
Measured by speed not effort

18. #3 Leadership

19. Speed not Efficiency
If you can’t tell someone how to think, then
you have to learn to manage the environment
where they think

20. Environment begins
with the people

21. Job Satisfaction Job Dissatisfaction
• Purpose
• Autonomy
• Mastery
• Benefits
• Convenience
• Stapler

22. Say YES
to the small things

23. Harness the power

24. Build Context
• Set the strategy
• Align to team charters
• Define success metrics
• Transparent decision making

25. Your JOB as a leader
• Relentless pressure to move
• Set high expectations
• Create and manage the energy
• Treat everyone like your partner
• Communicate, communicate, communicate

26. Best leaders
• Have courage to take risky action
• Are vulnerable to their failings
• Are relentless in their pursuit
• Are avid learners
• Think of their team as family

27. Summary
• Speed and quality
• Start with the right people
• Create an environment to thrive
• Your team is your foundation

28. Founder Mindset

29. Follow me @anila_art