Great work for juniors

Setting the foundation for organizations that thrive in the long term

Junior member involvement forms the foundation for an organization that thrives in the long term, but it’s also really hard to get right.

I won’t pontificate on the “right way” to involve juniors because I don’t know. However, I have three observations about work that tends to be a good fit for juniors, and some ideas on how to identify such work.

What makes great work for juniors?

1. Meaningful for the team

I tend to get more done and do better work when I’m motivated. If I’m not motivated, well… the opposite is true. Interestingly, this also seems to be the case for other people! So, a motivated team is probably a good idea.

But what causes motivation? I’ve noticed that understanding the importance of a problem tends to make it more exciting. If your team understands the “so what”—i.e., why solving the problem will have a positive impact—your team will do faster and better work.

Even if the impact will be far in the future, having some purpose-based “north star” to steer towards clarifies the direction and importance of what you’re doing.

2. Clear starting point

The easiest place to get stuck is going from zero to something. With a blank canvas, where do you paint the first stroke? With a blank page, what is the first word you write? It’s intimidating!

A solid anchor makes taking the first step easier. Whether it’s an outline of some ideas, a sketch of an architecture, or list of places to look for information, having something to start from makes it easier to hit the ground running and avoid stalling out at nothing.

This doesn’t mean everything must be clear and well-defined, and it certainly doesn’t mean the anchor is an immovable basis for everything else—quite the opposite! Flexibility in where to go is what makes problem-solving exciting, and the process of solving a problem will almost always reveal better ways to frame and approach it.

3. Not on the critical path

Letting down your team is a rough feeling. If your work is the one thing standing between success and failure for the team, it produces an uncomfortable looming feeling of dread (at least for me). What if I don’t do a good enough job? What if I delay the project by working slower than I should? What if I can’t complete the work? It’s stressful to work on stuff that causes big problems if it goes sideways!

There’s also the practical matter that anyone new to a team (of any experience level) will need time to acclimate to the team’s sense of taste. Whether it’s design, writing, analysis, or anything else, each team makes different subjective calls on their voice and style. So, work that requires alignment with the team’s sense of taste is generally hard to get right as a newer member.

How to identify great work for juniors?

Unfortunately, it’s hard to find work that fits within these constraints. Work that is meaningful to the team is often on the critical path, and clearly defining any work is challenging. But it’s not impossible!

Where to look

Work that has patterns — creative pattern-based work provides a historical bank of great examples that form an instruction manual without over-constraining the result. Things like blog posts, demo datasets, and sample projects provide a good mix of clarity and creative freedom.

Improved information and tooling — improving tools used by the team is impactful and clear. This may include technical work, like automating a manual process or building new instrumentation to take better measurements, but it may also include organizational work, like building a sitemap of resources used by the team or consolidating knowledge that’s scattered in various places.

Groundwork for new directions — as outsiders, juniors provide a valuable source of inspiration. They have fresh ideas for how to tackle hard problems, and provide a unique perspective that others on the team can’t offer. This could mean building a proof of concept using a new technology, writing a proposal for a new initiative, or otherwise looking in new directions for the team.

How to curate ideas

Deciding what to do should never be a scramble—especially for a junior. The first work done by a junior will shape their perception of the team, and that perception will impact how they think and work for years to come. A great project sets the stage for a career of positive contributions—and a poorly-thought-out project wrecks it.

So, make sure you are ready to welcome a junior with great projects on day one! Consider adding a “good intro project” tag to your issue tracker, making a channel in your chat system where folks post ideas, or starting a document (perhaps a spreadsheet or wiki page) with a list. Make sure you have a good place to capture intro project ideas when they pop into mind, and actually use it.

Along with the project ideas, write brief phrases about why the work is meaningful and where to start. This will naturally help refine and organize possibilities so that you are ready to pair up your team’s next junior with a great project.

Pairing people with work

A good project for one person could be a terrible project for another. I like to frame the problem as pairing people and projects, rather than assigning work to people (or people to a project). Assign implies a one-directional mandate without feedback, while pairing implies a mutually positive outcome.

As an aside—you can fire ideas that are underperforming. In the process of doing work, it’s natural to discover the work is not worth doing because it’s no longer relevant or will take too much effort. Switching projects is allowed. Ideas don’t have feelings and can be re-hired at a later time. But it’s a lot harder to re-hire a person.

One way to improve the quality of the pairing process is giving people agency in selecting their work. Consider making a shortlist of top ideas, with the final decision in the hands of the person doing the work. A passionate team that’s enthusiastic about doing good work will accomplish great things.

Of course, no advice is universal—but perhaps some of these thoughts are helpful.

What do you think? Did I miss anything? I’d love to hear your perspective!

Alnis