Today, just before I was going home for the day, one of my team called out to me and said “you’ll be glad to know you were right!”

Wow! I wish I had recorded it! Because I’m sure there won’t be many times now as I transition from a technical role to a leadership role where I’ll be right on technical decisions. 

We have a major project on right now to migrate and upgrade many things and a challenge came up during the project. It was called out in one of our stand ups. The technical decision made by the team member was to build a new file server rather than migrate the existing. He explained his reasoning and they were all valid points for making that decision. 

I then raised my concerns such as the extra considerations needed for the change in the project scope, the extra work migrating other services on the server, the problems I’ve had in the past with DFS and so on and so on. It was very clear I was opposed the decision but I have empowered my team and they have taken ultimate responsibility for the success of this project… and against my better judgement, I allowed them to carry on. 

Needless to say, the issues with the new file server were more than the issues with the existing file server and that’s why I was right.

Even though I was right, and felt that I would be right from the start, it is important for the team to know that it is ok to try and fail. And that while they continue to learn from their failures, I will always have their back. 

Until next time.