For the purpose of this post, I’ll first establish the meaning of the word talent.
With talented software engineers, I refer to all that can get the job done without the need for micro management. In other words, talented software engineers are able to push the agenda forward even if the lead is for whatever reason not there for long periods of time. Such engineers will pursuit new technology paths and try to introduce to the team the ones they found interesting. This concept is completely irrelevant to seniority. Instead potential is the key element in my opinion.
Let’s assume the following situation in an organization. For the purpose of my example, the situation is oversimplified to help focus on my point. There is a team of 10 members, 5 that are talented and 5 that are not. Finally, one of the talents decides to leave the team.
The impact of this decision is approached by most as a loss of capacity and knowledge. Quite often the “no one irreplaceable” is also heard to help move one. What most fail to recognize is that suddenly there are less talented people compared to ones that are not.
In the following example, one after the other the talented members decide to leave. This is how it looks in numbers.
| Not talent | Talent | Sum | Not talent (%) | Talent (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 5 | 10 | 50 | 50 |
| 5 | 4 | 10 | 56 | 44 |
| 5 | 3 | 10 | 63 | 38 |
| 5 | 2 | 10 | 71 | 29 |
| 5 | 1 | 10 | 83 | 17 |
And this is how it looks in terms of quality ratio in the team.
The problem is that each time one of the good ones leaves, the quality ratio of the team changes to the worst. This is because, non talented members require lots of “hand holding” and this causes frustration and friction When this lasts for too long then it can result to yet another talent leaving. And the situation worsens with every iteration.
Now lets take a look what happens if the organization had 10 talented people and then people decide to move on. This is how it looks in numbers.
| Not talent | Talent | Sum | Not talent (%) | Talent (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 100 |
| 0 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 100 |
| 0 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 100 |
| 0 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 100 |
| 0 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 100 |
And this is how it looks in terms of quality ratio and capacity.
In this case, the team’s capacity got reduced but the quality of the team remained the same. This is because, although the workload increases all can get the extra job done. Such a situation is more easily repaired because when on boarding new members they find a productive and interesting environment.
When talent drain starts it can get very serious for the organization. It’s very wrong to approach this only as capacity issue. When the talent starts leaving, this means that the quality of the organization starts dropping and when the process is left unhandled then the damage will eventually grow beyond repair and the organization and the developed product will suffer. Talent drain is like the organization is bleeding. Understanding the cause and stopping it should be any management’s highest priority.
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