Tell me about a time: people Flashcards
Tell us about a time when collaborated with other disciplines
Sit: The GovWifi team faced service assessment, a lengthy and high-stakes government assessment which would decide the fate of the team/product. We were a “Beta” product and needed to go Live in order to continue be funded
Task: Develop and implement a cross-functional technical roadmap that would ensure we would pass the service assessment
Act: As tech lead I collaborated with our technical architect, product manager, delivery manager, and lead ruby developer to identify the gaps between our system and the assessment criteria. I reached out to cybersecurity team to help us review our threat modelling actions and provide cyber security expertise during the assessment. I organised and facilitated regular check-ins with everyone, focusing on key priorities, blockers, and progress. I delivered updates to senior management as well as our teammates to ensure everyone was on the same page. I realised we needed to have a separate session with our technical assessor with the cyber security engineers present in order to clarify our security positions. I developed a communication strategy to handle his concerns, pulled in the right people for the session, facilitated the session, and followed up with the assessor.
Result: We passed assessment, got the funding, and created some really strong roadmaps to follow for the next year.
Tell us about a time you dealt with conflict or difficult interpersonal situations
Sit: I was in a meeting with a few colleagues. One of my colleagues continued to press an issue I’d indicated I wasn’t comfortable talking about. I felt trapped in the conversation and like my boundaries weren’t being listened to. It got increasingly uncomfortable, thankfully the meeting ended and we left.
Task: Follow the conflict transformation model I’d learned: breathe, ask, engage. Breathe. Ask myself what button was being pushed. Self reflect. Engage in a conversation with my colleague based on curiosity and openness. What part of the puzzle was I missing?
Act: I took the time to some deep breathing, focusing on the exhales to engage my sympathetic nervous system and help relax the vagus nerve. I took time during the day to reflect on what button was being pushed, what I would’ve done differently. The next day I met with my colleague to check in about the interaction, get an understanding of where they were coming from.
Result: It ended up being a really productive chat, we both learned something about each other. I learned that he struggled to read subtler interpersonal cues, especially in conversations where he’s focused getting an answer or finding a conclusion. We both reflected on what we’d do differently next time. I’d be a bit more direct about my discomfort and he said he’d make sure to check-in during intense chats to make sure the person he’s speaking to is still interested/committed to the conversation.
How do you approach managing underperformance
Sit: I was tech lead and after what had seemed like a strong joining process, one of our new joiners started missing or was late to standup and failing to update his work.
Task: Figure out what was going on, see how I could support him, and develop an action plan to course correct.
Act: We had regular 1-1s, something I did with everyone on the team. One of the questions I like to ask in 1-1s is: What has energised or challenged you in the last week? I ask this if the “how are you doing” isn’t working. I discovered the new joiner was bored with his work, it wasn’t challenging enough, and he was losing motivation. We agreed he’d feed this back to the lead engineer and talked about other work he’d find interesting.
Result: It ended up being a fruitful conversation. Once he’d chatted with the lead engineer and started leading on a more complex piece of work he became more energised and interested in standups. He also fed back about our Trello cards and I tweaked the template to make it a bit easier to update tasks.
Tell us about a time you helped others with their career development
Sit: My line-managee described themselves as an introvert and felt vulnerable about their public speaking skills, however knowledge sharing and going out into the community was part of the development track for promotion
Task: Work with them to understand their concerns, their goals, and if they agreed, begin to build their confidence.
Act: I got a better understanding of their discomfort through regular 1-1s where I practiced the vulnerability loop and active listening. I also learned they wanted to overcome this fear in order to help them progress in their career. Once we figured out where the vulnerability came from, I worked with them to develop a slow n+1 plan of public speaking. Start with pairing on a piece of work, extending it to a mob, then demoing to the team, then demoing the same talk to our SRE community, then taking the talk external. I provided support, specific praise, and feedback at each stage.
Result: They gave an external talk and continued to engage with the SRE community, efforts which helped them make the case for a successful promotion
Tell us about a time you changed culture for the better
Sit: I’d completed a course on conflict transformation as part of Unruly’s 20% time.
Task: I wanted to give back to the community and share the knowledge.
Act: I turned the course into a 5 part session on conflict transformation and taught the entire engineering team how to do conflict more effectively. I created visuals and put them around the office to remind people of the principles. I modelled the behaviour I’d learned during conflicts on the team.
Result: When conflicts emerged on our team I watched as colleagues implemented the techniques I’d taught, often leading to more productive conversations. The sessions were popular enough so that i was asked to consolidate them into a 30min talk for the whole company.
Tell us about a time you proposed an idea, got buy-in, and delivered something
Sit: I noticed on the teams I’d worked on that people were having ineffective conflicts. They’d speak cross purposes, not ask clarifying questions, and seemed to be more interested in providing their opinion than listening to another perspective. This was having an impact on team health and bonding.
Task: Identify a way to upskill my peers on conflict and help expand their communication toolbox
Act: I researched conflict resolution courses and identified a low-cost option which I could complete in my 20% time. However, this 20% time was meant for engineering practices, I needed buy-in from my team lead and CTO. I wrote a business case, presented it to both in our 1-1s. I proposed turning the course into 5-part sessions I would provide the engineering team using my background in teaching. I taught the entire engineering department how to do conflict more effectively. I created visuals and put them around the office to keep techniques fresh. I modelled the behaviour I’d learned during conflicts on the team and sometimes paused the conversation to encourage people to take a step back.
Result: When conflicts emerged on our team I watched as colleagues implemented the techniques I’d taught, often leading to more productive conversations. The sessions were popular enough so that i was asked to consolidate them into a 30min talk for the whole company.
Tell us about a time you changed culture for the better
Sit: We had a new engineer joining our platform team. I knew she felt nervous about joining, her previous team experience hadn’t been great. Our existing onboarding ritual felt insufficient for the team’s needs (or our new joiner).
Task: Create an onboarding ritual which centred trust, vulnerability, and the emotional side of joining a team, not just the technical needs.
Act: I’d recently taken a course on team culture grounded in anthropology. I combined the anthropology I’d learned with psychology to create a new onboarding ritual. It was based on psychology research around vulnerability (particularly the vulnerability loop), play/joy work, and lessons about confidence building I’d learned in teacher training. I surveyed the team before the ritual to get a sense of trust, confidence, and vulnerability to get a baseline so I could measure a before/after. I reviewed the ritual steps with everyone (including the new joiner) and absorbed their feedback into the ritual so everyone was invested. I led the ritual and re-took the survey after. All metrics increased.
Result: I led the ritual and re-took the survey. All metrics increased. We felt close as a team. I decided to layer the learnings by introducing elements throughout our team. Especially focusing on the use of play, laughter, and joy in adding practices that encouraged healthy team culture.
Reflect: We still get together every year and it’s been five years.
How do you share knowledge
- Understand the purpose: on-boarding an on-call team, on-boarding a new joiner to a system, teaching someone to code, pairing on a piece of work. What is the purpose, goal, expectations, assumptions.
- Learn about everyone’s learning styles through “first contact” 1-1s
Develop a lesson plan and learning path using Krashen’s Theory of Second Language Acquisition (Acquisition-Learning, Monitor, Input, Affective Filter, Natural Order). - Incorporate different types of learning styles into the knowledge share experience (listening, speaking, reading, visual, movement). Mix individual, pair, group work.
- Use traditional modes of knowledge sharing: pairing, mob programming, tech talks, tech roundtables,
- Use teaching tools: document, visualise, check-in, explain back
- Challenges: remote work. A lot of these tasks work more effectively in person but can be tweaked to work remotely
