Build teams over doing agile
As agile has been adopted by more and more companies as their mainstream delivery approach, it has become clear that just doing agile is not enough.
Many companies are disappointed with the outcomes they see by adopting agile. Often this happens because of the lack of understanding that ultimately agile is a mindset shift and without the shift in mindset you just end up doing mediocre agile. Alternatively companies that embrace the mindset (even unconsciously), can be successful even if they don’t “do agile” by the book.
So if we all know that JUST doing agile doesn’t work, but embracing the mindset can… what’s the alternative?
At Campaign Monitor we focus on building teams
Even though Fujio Cho identified that underpinning the success of Toyota was a key cultural focus of “First building people, then building cars” many agile adoptions focus primarily on “how to build cars”.
So what’s different about how Campaign Monitor “does” agile?
Firstly doing agile is not considered the goal. We hardly refer to agile in day to day delivery. We also don’t have a specific agile end state we are striving for.
We don’t do pure Scrum, nor do we do pure Kanban, but I would still say we are agile, and always getting better at it.
Underpinning our delivery approach is an underlying drive to learn and continuously improve, a desire to create as much autonomy as possible for our staff, and to forge highly engaged teams and not settle for groups of individuals. We believe by enabling these three factors we create more effective and resilient teams that deliver better outcomes.
Personally I believe the foundational mindset of agile is the focus on learning. By creating a focus on learning, all other values / practices / tools / approaches can be incrementally adopted when teams are ready.
What could be more agile than a team constantly seeking for better ways of working and delighting customers?
When attempting to adopt agile it is easier to start with laying a simple but solid foundation, and then building on top of that foundation rather than trying to teach everything at once.
Instilling the desire to learn leads to a better foundation.
A focus on learning however can only get you so far.
Without creating a supportive team environment where trust and respect pervades, the safe but vigorous debates you need to trigger effective innovation won’t happen.
When was the last time you reflected on whether you really had a team?
In my experience leaders often fail to take the time to reflect on whether their team truly feels like a team.
Its easy to think, just because the group you are responsible for is called “Team X” or “Team Y” the people in them must be a team.
But have you ever actually asked them?
I often observe that in many so-called teams, although the individuals do similar work, they do not share a common goal.
Sure they all might be there to “increase revenue” or “enhance the product” but it is possible at a personal level, they do not feel that success or failure for any individual means success or failure for the team.
In other cases, even if success is measured as a team, they may lack the ability to support each other because they do not understand the “rules of the game” and what it will take to win as a team.
Finally the most difficult to create, but also the most relevant to a healthy learning team is the empathy required to truly trust, respect and support your teammates when vigorous debate is required to get better as a team.
So what do you do if you want to check if you have a team?
Ask each individual these four questions:
Do you feel like you and the other individuals in this group are part of a team?
Do you have a common goal, and what do you think it is?
If you succeed/fail in achieving that goal, does it means the others in the team have also succeeded/failed?
If another team member is in need of help, how could you help them?
The answers to these questions should give you an idea on how much of a team you really have. Be aware that if any one person feels they aren’t part of a team, you probably don’t have one...
Welcome this information. The knowledge that something is missing will allow you to refocus on building the team they deserve.
Forging a team
Although the mainstream view is that individuals should be dedicated to a team, I find this too simplistic in reality.
I do agree that the more focused an individual the better, but in the event they have multiple teams or groups they belong to such as a guild or tribe, the after work basketball team or even the family unit at home, the most important thing is that the individual understands the value that team delivers and how committed they are to achieving the shared goal of that group.
In Campaign Monitor our team members are part of a small cross-functional product development teams. Within these groups each Delivery Lead spends dedicated time whenever a significant team structure change happens to build empathy as a team (eg. when a couple people join the team — we run an empathy session).
The output of the empathy sessions results in an artefact called a Social Contract. This effectively defines the rules of the game based on the perspectives the team have on what great team looks like.
Every team is a little different, and the different dynamics of individuals on each team will result in a different social contract.
For discipline oriented teams, whatever they are called, the challenge is usually around lack of clarity around their shared purpose and the rules of the game.
For our Delivery Leads this looks something like this
“Improving trust in our product teams by increased transparency and the creation of amazing teams” and we win and succeed as a team by “aligning on good practices and discovering next practices”.
Your team goal will be different depending on your context but discovering your shared goal (the one that actually means you care about whether your team mates are succeeding or failing) and spending the time to build empathy with each other can be the difference between having a team or a group.
Long term, teams ultimately outperform groups of individuals so taking the time to ensure you have one is well worth the investment.
How can I get started?
Getting started with agile doesn’t always mean you need to pick a framework and apply it dogmatically. In some cases, doing it this way means you end up have teams that “do agile” without “being agile”.
Instead, start with building amazing teams focused on learning. A basic learning cycle will help a team that supports each other “be agile” over “doing agile”.
Following these 5 steps may help you do just that.
- Talk to the individuals on your team and assess if you really have a team.
- Spend time to help them discover their shared purpose as a group.
- Run an empathy session to help them create a picture of what great looks like to them.
- Create a social contract to define their “rules of the game”.
- Finally, whenever your team changes, be ready to do it all again.
Feel free to leave me a comment if you need some help or would like to discuss the activities you can do in any of these spaces.
I’d also love thoughts on the topic and what you’ve personally found works in forging great teams.
Good luck!!!
