Joelle Tegwen: Breaking Knowledge Silos Through Strategic Skill Sharing

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Working as a Scrum Master on a team rewriting an old application, Joelle faced a significant challenge: experienced developers were located in India while new, experienced developers brought in locally lacked familiarity with the medical domain. Drawing inspiration from The Phoenix Project, she implemented a skills matrix to address the knowledge silos that were preventing new team members from contributing effectively. 

Using a teacher-student model, initially frustrated leaders who had to work with "students" discovered within 2-3 sprints that they were also learning new things and no longer carried the pressure of being the only ones with critical knowledge. The new team members brought fresh ideas that improved the codebase, and when the team eventually grew too large, the skills matrix facilitated smooth self-selection for team reorganization. What started as a solution to get new hires productive evolved into a comprehensive approach to knowledge sharing and team scalability.

Self-reflection Question: Where do knowledge silos exist in your current team or organization, and how could you implement structured knowledge sharing to transform those constraints into learning opportunities?

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About Joelle Tegwen 

Joelle helps teams build products that customers love in a sustainable way and with high-quality. She creates environments that foster high performing teams improving their interactions. Her background in science and passion for cognitive science complement her work. Joelle's non-linear, 15-year career in software development has provided her with diverse perspectives.

You can link with Joelle Tegwen on LinkedIn.