Zombie teams

This is a little story about a “zombie” team I was given and how I was able to disband it and save the team members.

The Team

I started my role in this company as a senior engineering manager. As I normally do in my first week, I met with my teams, teamies and their stakeholders.

I noticed a few key issues with one team:

The team was required to fix bugs and add features to a platform that was destined to be replaced “sometime in the next year” by another department.
Stakeholders didn’t have a clear mission for the team beyond keeping the lights on.
There had been frequent changes of line manager.
Individuals on the team were cynical, demotivated, or just burnt out.
Weekly traffic light reporting often had this team at red, but sometimes orange. Because of the company culture, I believed the team was under-representing their disillusionment.

I came away with a clear impression that this team was on life support, and that keeping them together until the new platform was launched wouldn’t result in their performance improving, and would likely result in one or more resignations.

Next Steps

I proposed disbanding the team in the next week’s stakeholder meeting, and was able to gain understanding and agreement about the scope of the problem and the need for action.
I created a draft proposal, outlining the issues above, risks and opportunities. I included some leads about other teams I’d move people to.
I announced my plan to the team and drew their cautious agreement.
I negotiated with other managers and stakeholders to find teams who could take on new members.
I facilitated the team and stakeholders collaborating on the proposal document to negotiate the transition details and mitigate risks.
Through asynchronous collaboration, the team and stakeholders developed a plan to create a new part-time micro-team which would cover critical bugs only, ensuring work was not completely abandoned.

This process took less than two weeks.

Outcomes

An overnight morale boost—teamies felt heard, were pleased with responsive action, and enthusiastic about doing work that aligned with their interests and the mission of the business.
Other teams had extra capacity for more valuable work.
Longer term, every teamie stayed (until the lay-offs anyway.)

🚩 Do you have a zombie team?

Some signs to look out for:

A significant mismatch between this team’s morale and other teams in a similar space.
A pattern of burnout, cynicism or negativity in individuals and in the team.
The team has developed a learned helplessness, default cynicism, or sees themselves as “other”.
The team lacks a clear vision or is unable or refuses to get excited about a vision.
Importantly, measurable work on psychological safety, improving processes and changing workstreams doesn’t result in a change of team performance or attitude.

If you do have a team like this, don’t stick to small changes or simple hope. Be bold and take radical action.