Snow Melts First at the Edges

Famed Intel CEO Andy Grove once wrote, “When spring comes, snow melts first at the periphery because that’s where it’s most exposed.” He was referring to the fact that when trouble starts to arise in your organization, the people on the frontlines, in the trenches, are the ones to spot it first. In the context of managing large, hybrid/remote software development teams, this insight is critical. 

With the rise of remote work and the growing size of software development organizations, dev leaders are finding themselves further distanced from these crucial frontlines. We no longer have the ability to walk down the hallway and check up on a new hire’s progress, or read the body language of an overworked team, or catch wind of the latest developments in the organization. In this new environment, managers have lost a key piece of connectivity with their team. 

This gap in connectivity can make it difficult to have a complete understanding of what’s happening within the organization. Managers’ insights become heavily influenced by anecdotes and the most recent information they hear – rather than feedback from the people doing the work. This detachment can lead to unforeseen surprises that catch managers off guard, such as a key employee threatening to quit or a technical issue that has snowballed into something much larger and is threatening to derail the product roadmap. As a result, managers spend more of their time fighting fires than proactively managing the way they want to. 

This is why we created DevClarity Pulse – to avoid the preventable problems that often take up so much time and energy. We help fill in the communication gap that’s been created in the modern workforce. Stay in touch with all edges of your organization, no matter how large or how remote, with DevClarity Pulse.