Many moons ago, my eye caught a tweet by Michael (GeePaw) Hill, on the topic of motivating teams. That tweet turned into a longer thread where he explained his framework, which he called RAMPS.

Over the years I’ve often referred back to his framework during interviews and discussions, and would like to share it here too.

Rhythm

In my 15+ years of software development, the most productive times have been when everything was “just ticking”. The product owners had a new idea, they hashed it out with the solutions team, things got broken down, and slotted into the backlog, and it felt like new features just got built with ease. There was rhythm.

Everyone knew what to expect from one another, there wasn’t too much pressure to deliver, and at the same time the stakeholders trusted the team and knew there wasn’t idle time either. The balance was just right.

A few key things GeePaw mentions under this point are:

• Everything breaks when there is enough tension, and that goes for your team too.
• If you’ve been burning the candle at both ends for months on end, your team won’t have any urgency left.
• Periods of tension, need periods of relief.

Autonomy

Autonomy is the one that is most important to me personally. As humans, we need to feel that we can make some choices. Some, because as most things go, none of us have complete freedom (wouldn’t that be nice!).

The idea here is that you give people freedom within some boundaries. Give them a seat at the table when you’re brain storming a new feature, have them chime in with some left-field architecture suggestions, let them pick the tool or technology they want to use.

A few key things GeePaw mentions under this point are:

• Resist unnecessary pressure to standardise (normally starts to surface as organisations grow and teams have to interact).
• “Catch them doing something wrong, then bless it.”.
• It’s telling trusted people that we trust them to help us solve problems, without telling them how.

Mastery

Most, if not all people, want to improve and grow. It could either be at a personal level or professional level.

As you get to know your team members via 1:1s, you’ll start to get an idea of where their interests and growth areas lie. Your job is to look out for those opportunities and match them to the right individuals.

A few key things GeePaw mentions under this point are:

• Encourage people to try things out that are different to their day-to-day.
• Rotate tasks between specialists and non-specialists, and give them an opportunity to succeed at it (which likely means a bit of extra time).

Purpose

Purpose is probably the most difficult one. It’s the instilling of a shared feeling that everyone is pulling in the same direction, and that the direction matters.

In my opinion, a big part of the purpose motivator happens during hiring. You have to be at least partially sure that this human can, or will be, pulling into the same direction you and your team are heading.

A few key things GeePaw mentions under this point are:

• The classical up-the-chain-over-and-down-the-chain approach of hierarchical control is a real purpose-breaker. You want to avoid it.
• If your team lacks a sense of urgency, I bet they don’t lack a sense of deadline. They just think it’s unreachable or undesirable.
• Purpose is the ideas & language through which your team sees themselves, as individuals & teams, the brushstroke of their self-portrait.

Safety

Last but certainly not least, is safety. Safety to make mistakes, safety to speak truth to power.

In my experience, this happened once I had built a good relationship with my team members, and lead with trust. Always assume good intentions, and eliminate any uncertainty.

A few key things GeePaw mentions under this point are:

• First, it enables what we call courageous curiosity. The will to ask a question and get a real answer, however hard, and work with it.
• Second, it lets us bring people together who are not all alike, and those differences are the wellspring of creativity.
• Third, it lets us see our shared purpose from the widest possible view, which gives us myriad more ways to contribute to it.
• Safety is not caused by rules, so be slow to add rules.

Connecting the dots

The grand summary that GeePaw puts succinctly is:

• Lacking safety means lacking ideas
• Lacking purpose means no where to go, so no extra mile
• Lacking mastery means people are drones, and their achievements locked
• Lacking autonomy means no freedom to make it worse, or BETTER
• Lacking rhythm means tired or bored
• “No urgency” means everything but purpose is lacking
• Shared purpose alone is not good enough to keep a team motivated

Head over to GeePaw’s blog and read this RAMPS intro as well as the series.

👋 Ruan – co-founder of Prescience