The Guest – Daniel Gebler, Founder & CTO, Picnic
Daniel Gebler is the Chief Technology Officer and Founder of Picnic, the world’s fastest-growing online supermarket. Daniel has vast experience working across leadership roles leading engineering teams, and is currently responsible for the product and technology roadmap at Picnic. He also holds an MBA and a PhD in Computer Science.
Enabling Cross-Departmental Collaboration
Enabling collaboration between business and software departments in a company is crucial for achieving optimal results and driving innovation. Such collaboration ensures that software development aligns with the strategic goals and objectives of the business, leading to the development of software solutions that meet the specific needs of the organisation. But how is that alignment achieved? Which actions should companies take at the organisational and cultural levels to enable their teams?
Daniel joins us to discuss the intersection of tech and business teams, and how to optimise the collaboration between these departments. Some of the topics covered include:
- What are the necessary skills to work at the intersection of tech and business
- The effects of scaling on leadership at an organisational level
- Actions and values that can foster collaboration among teams
- The reverse mentoring method
What are some of the typical problems you see arising between technology and business teams within an organisation as you start to scale?
“The challenges are different at every growth stage. In the beginning, you need to bring tech and business close together, you need to have cross-functional teams. Over time, as you’re getting bigger, you’ll have multiple business and tech stakeholders, and you need to make balanced decisions considering all aspects.Then, in the third phase, where we are now with more than 15,000 people working at Picnic, the real change is that you have all kinds of external stakeholders that you need to include in this entire planning process. So, the coordination becomes even more complex, where it’s not only bringing business and tech internally together but also with external players.”
Daniel Gebler | Founder & CTO at Picnic
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