Technology teams are stakeholders, not cost centers

The definition of a stakeholder is: a person with an interest or concern in something, esp. a business.

Currently, technology teams are looked at as cost centers. With the definition above, I argue that technology teams are stakeholders, not cost centers, and should be viewed that way by the business and the technology leadership.

The reason I say this is because there is a symbiotic relationship. Given the scenario a business is dependent on a technology team, technology teams cannot be present without support of the business.

As a result, technology teams should view themselves as stakeholders, in which they are providing value back to the business, which would hopefully grow through technology product and operational efforts ( see http://acceleweb.blogspot.com/2013/09/product-oriented-technologists-vs.html). From there, investments occur back into the technology team in terms of employment, growth, higher budgets, increased compensation/incentives, and business knowledge/understanding. This allows for an increased demand for technologists at the organization level, and in turn, at the industry level, which raises the value of technologists as a whole.

As a result, I view technology teams as stakeholders, not a cost center. With this lens, the way a technology team member views themselves individually changes dramatically, which I would hope increases productivity and ROI from the technology teams out there. If the teams understand that they are providing value back to the business, instead of just a cost center that bleeds dollars, I think there would be higher motivation from the team itself to do better.

People scaling in technology teams

In technology, we discuss scaling up technology to support traffic and growth. What is not mentioned, however, is a concept called people scaling.

People are the most expensive part of any tech organization. They are compensated for their thoughts and ideas to build and maintain systems and software for the business. So, when it comes to technology scaling, there is an upward dependency on people scaling.

What exactly is people scaling?

People scaling is :

1) Freeing up time from your most valuable people to open up capabilities from them to increase innovation and operational efficiencies.

2) Removing dependency on one core individual to be the brain of the whole team and dissipating that responsibility through the tech organization. Not only will this allow the team to grow, but it will also allow more thought-leadership to come from the core individual and provide mentorship/growth to the rest of the team.

3) Opening up time for the team to solidify existing systems so that there's no angst or lack of sleep in the organization from downtimes or slowdowns.

4) Increasing time for technologists to think through new and innovative ideas, do proof of concepts, and present these ideas to business. I believe for organizations that have a strong technology presence to succeed, it's important to have new ideas to not only come from product or business teams, but also from technology. For this to happen, the technology team needs to have time to work on these ideas to determine if they are feasible. This work should not be done outside of the work hours in their personal time, but during work hours, where they can collaborate with other technologists and not take their own personal time to do company work.

5) Keeping the team consistent. For an organization to stay competitive, the team must be as stable and consistent as possible. A team that has been there a long time understands the business, the technology, has history, and formed relationships with key business partners and with their own team members. Any change in the team has an exponential ripple effect the takes time away for training, expectations management, and ramp-up.

Instead of organizations properly people scaling technology teams, usually it's just hire more contractors or consultants.  Contractors and consultants are good to add to the team for support, but they should not be added until the organization has properly scaled up its own people to be able to provide more time back to the organization without asking the team to work unreasonable hours.

At AcceleWeb, Inc , we understand this and maximize our people effectively to be able to do more with less.