Does your team struggle with ...
A team is a complex adaptive system, and that can make managing or working on a team challenging. There exists a natural tension between a team, it’s members, the organization, and their customers, and it is critical to ensure a proper balance is maintained. If that team is not in harmony they are likely in conflict, which will result in stresses and issues for all.
The tendency is for management and leaders to place controls and constraints on a team to instill compliance and behaviours, but there is another way.
We believe teams and their leaders should focus on managing the work and the value they deliver through the products and services they provide, not on managing the people on the team. Effort should be made to build and nurture team-based systems that encourage both personal and team growth, engagement, collaboration, a commitment to customer focus, and the adoption of a continuous improvement mindset.
In simpler terms, if we really want our teams to predictably deliver and work at a sustainable pace indefinitely, then leaders and managers should design, build, and nurture a supportive, agile team-centric self-correcting model that constantly seeks the balance between supply (work effort) and demand (customer needs).
Read on to learn more!
The challenge
Teams are the engines that leverage collaboration to deliver value and solve customer problems. Unfortunately, the importance of teams often gets lost in organizational bureaucracy, politics, and finance decisions that tend to impose constraints.
Instead of treating teams like cost centres that require constant oversight, leaders should subvert efforts to supporting team success. We’re not suggesting free reign, but rather a fundamental shift in the way teams are viewed, supported, and managed. It means defining a “ring fence” of expectations for the team to operate and align within, set clear goals and outcomes, and then empowering them to be creative within those boundaries.
If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.
Henry Ford
When you find a way to align team members and you support their quest, chances are the team will exceed expectations. The whole is often greater than the sum of its parts1, which is the fundamental driver for preferring teamwork and collaboration over independent contribution.
Organizations, leaders, and managers need to evolve their approaches to build, cultivate, and grow a high performance, engaged, agile team that solves problems. We believe they should create stability for teams, provide focus by allocating and dedicating sufficient capacity, give them a transcendent purpose, and build and manage an effective working system focused on eliminating systemic impediments to success.
A natural outcome is that Agile processes promote sustainable development and sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.2
The challenge
Teams are the engines that leverage collaboration to deliver value and solve customer problems. Unfortunately, the importance of teams often gets lost in organizational bureaucracy, politics, and finance decisions that tend to impose constraints.
Instead of treating teams like cost centres that require constant oversight, leaders should subvert efforts to supporting team success. We’re not suggesting free reign, but rather a fundamental shift in the way teams are viewed, supported, and managed. It means defining a “ring fence” of expectations for the team to operate and align within, set clear goals and outcomes, and then empowering them to be creative within those boundaries.
Eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure are deficiencies in the systems and process rather than the employee. The role of management is to change the process rather than badgering individuals to do better.
W. Edwards Deming
When you find a way to align team members and you support their quest, chances are the team will exceed expectations. The whole is often greater than the sum of its parts1, which is the fundamental driver for preferring teamwork and collaboration over independent contribution.
Organizations, leaders, and managers need to evolve their approaches to build, cultivate, and grow a high performance, engaged, agile team that solves problems. We believe they should create stability for teams, provide focus by allocating and dedicating sufficient capacity, give them a transcendent purpose, and build and manage an effective working system focused on eliminating systemic impediments to success.
A natural outcome is that Agile processes promote sustainable development and sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.2
The opportunity
This is where the opportunity lies…you can evolutionize your approach and your agile team.
We provide the skills, practices, methods, and the means for you to support and nurture team growth, performance, and success.
We leverage industry-proven Lean, Agile, and Innovation practices to show you how to:
- make commitments and promises you can be confident with.
- deliver a smooth flow of predictable value.
- engage with your team to build trust.
- align on values, needs, and approaches.
- build a high-performance, mutually respectable team.
- manage capacity and work at a sustainable pace indefinitely.
- lead decisions and solutions using a systematic, empirical-based approach.
- provide your customers, stakeholders, and peers with amazing experiences.
- leverage the knowledge, power, and enthusiasm of the people working within your system.
- identify blockers and impediments including root cause so you may systemically tackle them.
Design and effectively manage a predictable and sustainable delivery or service model, align it with your organizational goals, and gain transparency and visibility as to progress.
Implement effective agile team-based metrics that provide real insights so effective team-based decisions align with organizational goals.
Cultivate a supportive team-centric environment that builds trust and encourages collaboration and engagement.
Embrace a continuous learning and a customer focused service-delivery mindset that spans from teams to the entire organization.
Simply put – we will work with you to evolutionize your teams through collaborative and effective, fit-for-purpose practices, methods, knowledge, measurements, and improvement approaches.
Let us help you to evolutionize your agile teams today!
- Aristotle
- “Principles behind the Agile Manifesto” – https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html