Engineering Ecosystem Audit
A deep situational review of your teams through the lived experience within the engineering ecosystem
Understanding how your teams are functioning, relating, and performing.
There’s always a lot of activity in engineering teams, but it’s unlikely that your teams are performing to their full potential, why is that?
Engineering teams form a complex ecosystem, with individual teams varying in the work they do and how their performance is perceived. Their collective contributions depend on many interconnected factors which are difficult to assess in terms of how they impact teams.
With limited visibility into the daily efforts and interactions of teams, technical leaders can find it difficult to calibrate the ecosystem for optimal performance.
To address this we must understand what’s really going on in teams, using the subjective experience of all of the participants involved in getting work done.
To do this, we conduct an Engineering Ecosystem Audit.
“In a complex adaptive system the only way to understand it is to probe it, to experiment in it.”
- David Snowden, originator of the Cynefin Framework
Engineering Ecosystem Audit methodology
The Engineering Ecosystem Audit drills deep into your department providing qualitative and quantitative data to expose the reality of how people are thinking and working together.
If you are navigating difficult change processes or scaling to meet business goals it is likely that your teams will encounter some friction and turbulence along the way. Some things may be working well, but there will always be frustrations under the surface.
Rather than avoiding the tensions inherent in change and growth, the Engineering Ecosystem Audit will show a courageous leader exactly where the problems and opportunities lie, along with recommendations for how they may be tackled.
Surveys
Individual contributors and stakeholders within the Engineering Ecosystem, including engineers, QAs, product teams and architecture and managers will participate in two surveys.
The first is the Team Dependencies Matrix Survey for everyone to complete. This will reveal the nature of the relationships between teams, and the cohesiveness within teams.
The second is the Engineering Culture Index Survey for engineers to reveal how individual engineers relate to their work, their teams and the wider ecosystem, measuring a number of factors to build a comprehensive picture of engineer sentiment.
Interviews
To complement the surveys, qualitative insights are sought through in-person interviews with everyone within the ecosystem. This will be in a high-trust, confidential setting where people can freely discuss their experiences and thoughts about their day-to-day work and interactions with colleagues.
The personal testimonies will be anonymised and assessed via a thematic analysis to discern the most salient themes that emerge from the conversations - these anecdotal themes tell the stories of lived human experience.
What an Engineering Ecosystem Audit can do for you
An Engineering Ecosystem Audit from Human-Centric Engineering can show you:
What’s working and what is broken
The subjective lived experience of your people
Team interdependencies and potential bottlenecks
Expose misalignment, tensions, and stalled workflows
Continual improvement initiatives for optimal performance
Key benefits
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Clarity
Clear away the confusion of how work gets done, and know exactly what to do to improve your team culture and flow
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Metrics
Comprehensive data from multiple perspectives gives you a starting point to benchmark your team’s progress
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Catalyst
Exposing reality acts as a catalyst for engagement, action, and involvement throughout the team
Engagement level
The Engineering Ecosystem Audit is a deep dive discovery across the entire department or an appropriate subsection of teams. This involves the active participation of all team members.
DIY
Light Touch
Not available as Light Touch
Light Touch options are available for:
Deep Dive
✓ Forms and surveys
✓ Interview with each participant
✓ Dependency Matrix and report
✓ Engineering Culture Index report
✓ Summary of patterns and findings
✓ Workshop to discuss findings
✓ Strategic advice
✓ Detailed reports
✓ Individual reports
✓ Detailed thematic analysis
✓ Stories behind the statistics
✓ Targeted and prioritised recommendations
+ Track progress with one free retake of the surveys within 12 months
What you receive
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Dependency Report
Powerful insights into the dependencies, bottlenecks, and connections influencing the flow of work and communication in your team
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Culture Index Report
Delivering deep understanding of your engineering culture, uncovering strengths to lean on and weaknesses to work on
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Recommendations
Tailored and prioritised recommendations for your team, based on the findings in the reports and where you want the team to be
Ask us about the Engineering Ecosystem Audit
If you’re interested in learning more about conducting an Engineering Ecosystem Audit for your department, drop us a line.
Prefer to talk?
Book a call directly