Danny Ryan – Case Study

V-Teamwork Alumni - Danny Ryan

Job Title: Director of Technical Training and Development @ Autodesk

Tell us what you do and what your work typically involves.

I’m responsible for providing technical training and development to over 3000 software engineers who work on developing and deploying Autodesk’s class-leading products. My responsibility also covers other disciplines including, among others, UX and localization. While our engineers need cutting-edge technical skills, they also benefit from honing their collaboration, teaming and leadership skills, so we recognize the value of programs that develop these.

What is it about V-Teamwork that works so well for technical leaders?

In several groups where we have deployed V-Teamwork, we have seen it as a very effective catalyst to accelerate the development of leadership and teaming skills in our global engineering teams. I have seen participants rapidly develop deep insights about themselves, and about how to work more effectively with others.

In the tech sector, change moves at such a pace that the regular leadership development approaches can be difficult and expensive to implement across multiple geographies. The way that V-Teamwork is designed makes it very effective for developing technical leaders that are globally distributed. It is virtual, iterative, agile and progressive. The opportunity for recurrent practice over time make it an engaging and effective model for truly understanding the critical elements of collaboration.

What about the program structure and delivery?

The unique fact that the program uses a rich gaming environment as it’s laboratory sets it apart from and engages learners more deeply than a classroom experience. The virtual nature of the program makes it convenient for dispersed teams to co-develop their skills. The extended learning cycle – reading, in-game action, reflection, and trying it out at work – builds real, lasting competency. A 10-week program on top of our busy schedules may seem like a lot, however compared with a traditional 2-3 program I believe that this is a superior and more effective way to develop teaming/leadership skills.

How has participating in V-Teamwork shown up in your engineers’ work? Can you give a specific example?

We had a situation involving a high profile dev team and a product owner of one of our flagship products where critical decisions about shipping a release were being made. The dev team members were technically talented but rarely spoke up to give opinions on the work of other people. After doing V-Teamwork, they had the confidence to speak up with a strong contribution and intelligently influence outcomes. The product manager really appreciated them voicing their concerns.It produced significantly improved outcomes with that particular shipment, and with future working relationships.

This is just one example of the impact it has had on our engineers’ working relationships and collaboration abilities. I see this program as a very promising way of developing engineering teams.

If you’re still not sure, here is a little bit more about us...

Our customers can't stop talking about us

 

After doing the program, executives, managers and team members are delighted at the way they can create a collaborative culture, hold people accountable and transform previously difficult relationships.

We’ve worked with some of the best in the business

 

Through our work with executives and managers at multinational tech companies and major government organisations, we know what’s involved in leading high-level, high-performing teams, and we’ve ensured that our program will deliver results for the most senior of managers.

Our expertise spans many disciplines

 

Our program is founded on world-leading research in behavioural science, games and gamification, biology of cognition, philosophy of language and somatics.

Our own team brings together more than a decade of experience in ontological and somatic coaching, action-learning methods, management consulting, organizational development, and user experience design.