2: Microsoft Corp, quite often considered the granddaddy of the computer software industry, was founded in 1975 by childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
(Fun fact: The company was originally based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, not Seattle!) Since its founding, the company has been on the forefront of software development. From MSDOS to Windows to Internet Explorer, Microsoft has pursued its mission to “empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.”72 Although Microsoft’s cloud-computing business continues to sizzle—growing by 93 percent in the most recent quarter—software development still plays an important role in the company’s strategic revenue mix.73 And software development is very much a team effort.
Build, which is the process of creating software from source code, is an essential activity in software development.
74 Any company in the software development business relies heavily on the effectiveness of its software build teams.
And Microsoft has invested resources in making sure its build team effectiveness is solid. What is build team effectiveness?
Microsoft defines it as “how reliably and efficiently the team produces builds.”75 The performance of company build teams leads to higher revenue, flawless product launches, higher customer satisfaction, and talent (employee) retention.76 Now you see why it’s so important for Microsoft to focus on build team effectiveness. So, how did it go about doing this? By researching impediments to build team effectiveness—which, by the way, have been found to be social, rather than technical—and creating ways for teams to work through those obstacles.
To understand how to make build teams more effective—
that is, high performance—it was important to understand what went on as these teams did their work. Part of the process Microsoft used in ensuring that its build teams would be high-performance was researching what happened in build teams. That exploration of the process and the people provided Microsoft with some very interesting insights, one of the most important which we just mentioned: impediments to team effectiveness were primarily social, not technical. The members of these build teams are intelligent, knowledgeable, and hardworking individuals who are very good at what they do. But in a team setting, those aspects don’t always translate to high performance.
One other important thing that Microsoft did was to create a “Role Excellence (RolEx) function.”77 RolEx is part of the company’s operational structure. It’s not associated with the HR or talent management functions. If HR is having the right people in the right place at the right time (remember this from Chapter 8), then RolEx is making sure that those people are able to function at high levels of performance once they’re in place. Team employees are given the integrated support they need to do what they were hired to do. What this means for software build teams is that they have the tools they need to contribute to releasing software on-time and on-budget. And that’s what any team needs to be a high-performing work team.

Discussion Questions

1. Does a software build team meet the definition of a work team? Explain.
2. Do you think a software build team goes through the stages of group development? Why or why not?
3. The chapter identified the four most common types of work teams. Which do you think probably best describes Microsoft’s software build teams? Explain.
4. Using Exhibit 9-6 as your guide, discuss how Microsoft creates effective teams.
5. What could other organizations learn about building high-performance work teams from Microsoft’s experiences?
Prepare a list of three key points you would use in making a presentation about building high-performance work teams.