While it’s not the case for everyone, some organizations’ tech teams see their workloads slow down a bit in the summer months. Knowing that their team members and clients will likely be out for extended periods for vacations, tech leaders often avoid starting new or complex projects in the middle months of the year.
Tech teams that are fortunate to have a little breathing room in the summer can use the additional time to turn their attention to a variety of tasks and initiatives that may get short shrift during busy periods. Below, 20 members of Forbes Technology Council share their advice to help tech leaders and teams make the most of the “spare” time they may have in the summer months.
1. Give Team Members Added Trust And Autonomy
Operations will inevitably slow down in summer, and some leaders might have a knee-jerk reaction to put on pressure to maintain high levels of productivity. That’s not necessarily a bad move until the pressure becomes babysitting. Instead of micromanaging, trust your team and give them autonomy over their work during the summer months so they feel refreshed during the higher-delivery months. – Muamer Cisija, Symphony
2. Tackle Maintenance Chores
Anytime you have a slow period is a good time to focus on erasing technical debt and creating proper specs for current and upcoming projects. To summarize my advice in one word: maintenance. – Chris Hewish, Xsolla
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
3. Spend Time On Upskilling
Summertime is great for upskilling. Many cool tech festivals happen in summer, which is a great opportunity for teammates to travel, rest and explore the world while gaining new insights and discovering upcoming trends or the latest tools. Tech events are also a great source of inspiration, so make sure you incentivize your team to attend them, either through reimbursements or minimum bureaucracy. – Konstantin Klyagin, Redwerk
4. Consider Your Team Members’ Personal Plans
A lot of people will have kids out of school and vacations and other summer activities planned. This isn’t the time to put the pressure on if you don’t have hard deadlines. Allow your tech team members the time to refresh and regroup, then be ready to hit it hard in the fall and winter. – Rohana Meade, Synergy Technical
5. Focus On Fostering Collaboration And Teamwork
In my experience, a tech team needs to properly plan, communicate, develop skills, work together and maintain a work-life balance to be ready for fall and winter demands. Maximize your team’s output while putting them on the right path for the challenges ahead by assessing and planning, conducting training and developing programs, communicating and aligning, and fostering collaboration and teamwork. – Sunny Pokala, Amtex Systems
6. Support Your Team’s Work-Life Balance
While it’s important to ramp up for the fall and winter workload, it’s equally crucial to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Encourage your team members to take breaks, practice self-care and recharge during non-working hours. Supporting work-life balance promotes overall well-being, prevents burnout and ensures sustainable productivity throughout the year. – Manan Shah, Avalance Global Solutions
7. Be Diligent About Planning
To avoid spreading my team too thin, I ensure we’re diligent about quarterly planning and weekly tracking, as well as setting contingency plans. Not only are our outcomes easily trackable on a weekly basis, but we can also be agile and adapt to new information and pivot resources where necessary. Visibility into everyone’s vacation calendar is also helpful! – Liz Li, Velocity Global
8. Engage In Learning And Experimentation
The months of September and October tend to be crunch time for businesses to show growth, with software teams ramping up work. Knowing this, use the summer to get your mental house in order and enjoy spending time off recharging. Take advantage of the quieter periods during the summer by experimenting, learning new things and figuring out what you need to be as productive as possible in the fall. – Rob Zuber, CircleCI
9. Prep For The End-Of-Year Holiday Season
The holiday season (October through December) can drive a significant increase in demand for technical goods and services, particularly for consumer-facing organizations. There is a certain amount of preparation that technical teams need to perform to be ready for the holiday lockdown period. Teams should focus on product quality, infrastructure scalability and reliability, and security testing. – Paul Trulove, SecureAuth
10. Minimize Your Cyber Risk
Minimize your potential attack surface by managing exposure to risk that could lead to material impact. You don’t have to block every move, but it’s crucial to preemptively block the ones that matter. Identifying all attack paths and applying business and security context to effectively prioritize remediation of the threats that are the gravest concern takes those moves off the board. – Dan Singer, Epiphany Systems
11. Take A Closer Look At Artificial Intelligence
My advice: Pick and interact with an AI-powered tool that you use in everyday life (an AI-assisted development tool, for example), to understand AI’s business impact in terms of employees’ ways of working. In parallel, get up to speed on the technology concepts. Finally, use the summer months, when you’re disconnected from the day-to-day grind, to reflect on how your own product portfolio could benefit from artificial intelligence. – Demed L’Her, DigitalRoute
12. Plan And Communicate Expectations For The Coming Months
Use the summer to build team cohesion and improve skills, because it’s psychological—teams expect some downtime in summer. Plan ahead, outlining tasks and projects for the upcoming months. Communicate expectations early to reduce surprises and encourage balanced workload management. The skills and team trust built during slower times can greatly ease the transition into higher workloads. – Indiana (Indy) Gregg, Wedo
13. Try Some Cross-Functional Role Playing
Designate a day in which members from different teams temporarily switch roles. For example, a developer could spend the day with the customer support team, while a marketing specialist explores software testing. This exchange allows individuals to gain firsthand insights into the challenges and triumphs faced by colleagues, promoting empathy, cross-functional understanding and collaboration. – Avani Desai, Schellman
14. Thoroughly Review Your Data Pipeline
It’s crucial to gain a comprehensive understanding of the origin, storage, usage and movement of your organization’s data. Assess and address potential security gaps before the holiday season arrives, bringing with it a surge in data volume and network traffic. By taking proactive steps now, you can prevent these gaps from evolving into security vulnerabilities and potential incidents. – Todd Moore, Thales Group
15. Give The Team Time To Learn More About The Business
Let your team members learn the business. It’s one thing to have technical skills; any CIO can upskill folks for fall and winter work. Most probably budget team time for that. However, it takes more time for folks to learn how the business works. – James Stanger, CompTIA
16. Accelerate Or Deploy Digital Transformation Initiatives
Any anticipated downtime in the calendar year should be utilized to accelerate or deploy digital transformation initiatives. Implementing automation technologies, optimizing network connectivity infrastructure and improving security models are all time-consuming processes, but once in place, they will help ease workloads during busier periods in the year. – Sander Barens, Expereo
17. Build Up Your Team’s Capacity
The summertime work lull is great for engaging in capacity building as a “secret weapon.” It’s all about pumping up your team’s talents and resources. Brush up on skills, streamline the workflow, rally the troops with team bonding, promote health and secure the right tools. This isn’t a quick fix; it’s a longevity game. It not only helps in “the now,” but also fuels long-term resilience and sharpens efficiency. – Felipe Fernandes, Pi Tech
18. Hold A Reflective Session With The Team
Organize a session where team members can reflect on the projects and experiences from the previous year. Encourage open and honest discussions about successes, challenges and areas for improvement. This exercise helps the team identify patterns, learn from past mistakes and implement strategies to enhance productivity and overcome potential hurdles in the upcoming workload. – Mani Padisetti, Digital Armour
19. Explore ‘Reverse Mentorship’
To prepare teams for the fall and winter workload, I recommend adopting our unique “reverse mentorship” program. By pairing senior and junior developers, we foster skill set exchange and empower continuous learning. This cultivates a strong foundation for success in upcoming challenges. – Vinita Rathi, Systango
20. Shift To More Independent Work
Summer is when “social programming” becomes less “social.” Vacations, leaves of absence, summer internships—all of these activities interfere with peer reviews and standup meetings. As such, summer could be the perfect time for more independent work—such as modular refactorings, static code analysis and so on—with the aim of reducing technical debt in time for the peak season. – Sergei Rodionov, Axibase Corporation
Read the full article here
