How to Handle a Team Re-organization

I just lost one of my top analysts to another team.

I had just promoted them too.

I didn't get a say in the decision and I felt the impact immediately. We lost a key skill set, have one less person for ad hoc work, and are leaving company initiatives unsupported.

This is a common situation that you'll experience in your career, if you haven't already. What's uncommon is handling the situation effectively, ensuring your team performs at a high-level, even with one less person.

This is how I handling my team re-org.

1-on-1 communication with stakeholders

My stakeholders don't know the details of the situation.

They have their own problems. If I do nothing, they will be blindsided. They won't get the support they're used to, in-flight projects will be stalled, and they'll wonder what the hell is going on.

Instead, I'm meeting one-on-one with my stakeholders that worked closely with the analyst I lost. I'm explaining:

• The details of the re-org.
• How it impacts the support they get.
• What's happening with in-flight projects.

Then I'm asking questions to understand how I can support them:

• What's your top priority?
• What can we deprioritize?
• How can we best support you?

Now expectations are clear and I know exactly how to support my stakeholders.

We all win.

Ruthless de-prioritization of unimportant work

After I've met with my key stakeholders, I need to review all the work across my team.

For the important work, I will spread it out across the remaining team members. For the unimportant work, it will be deprioritized.

I'm putting less work on each team members' plate so they can go deep on the important stuff and ignore the unimportant.

The key is to communicate the priorities to my boss and stakeholders so everyone has the same expectation.

Leaning on other teams for support

I get into the trap of letting my team do work that other teams should do.

We can move fast and have the skills to do it, but it's no longer a best practice. Stakeholders can handle their own ad hoc requests. Data engineers should build the data models and pipelines. Product managers can wait for us to prioritize their work.

I will pushing work back on other teams every chance I get.

It will be a painful change for them but a required change for my team's sanity.

Build a business case for a new hire

I want to hire a new analyst.

I need to make the case to my boss that we should hire a new person. This is how I'm doing it:

• Write a document stating my case.
• Include examples of work that's not getting done.
• Identify work on our backlog that a new person will handle.
• List the body of work that the team is responsible for.
• Recommend the position and title I want to hire for.

If I do my job right, my current, smaller team will be effective and I'll be on track to adding a new team member.

A re-org isn't the time to complain about circumstances out of our control.

It's the time to act.