The Myth and Magic of Self-Organizing Teams
Where are those fantastic, self-propelled teams that were promised by agile? Where they were missing, we took action. It was sometimes difficult. Along the way, not all the pegs fit into their corresponding holes. In many respects, we had been our own worst enemy by allowing poor behaviors and poor teams to manifest themselves before and after scrum. In hindsight, Kelley Blue Book applied an informal intervention model which was useful to address our team deficiencies. Self-organizing teams didn’t just happen - we had to help them along.
Building upon a limited scrum implementation during 2005-2006, Kelley Blue Book fully implemented the scrum methodology for product development in early 2007. Over 20 scrum teams have been formed to date. The most challenging aspect of this journey has been the teams themselves. Some teams were staffed with consistently highly-skilled individuals. Some were not. Others were staffed with individuals who naturally behaved well in scrum. Others were not. Some teams represented much development experience and subject-matter expertise. Some did not. Individual team attention to standards, practices, accountability and process varied widely. The reality is that we took existing engineering and product organizations and fit them into scrum.
This session will review specific team constructions and deficiencies as experienced at Kelley Blue Book. This will lead into a discussion of the levels of intervention which have been applied to support team health. Those intervention levels, in order of escalation, are:
- Facilitation – assuring the process of scrum and the tenets of agile
- Coaching – 1-1 and group sessions to reinforce and encourage appropriate behaviors
- Leading – Directional messages, organizational communication, reinforcement of standards, practice and tools
- Managing – Counseling, disciplinary action, team member moves, team reconstruction
The presentation will conclude with examples of how each level of intervention has been applied and with what results. Q&A will follow.
This experience report will be shared via a PowerPoint deck followed by a Q&A period.
High-level session outline
• Overview of Kelley Blue Book scrum implementation approach
• Examples of team challenges
o Non-agile members
o Skills deficiencies
o Personality conflicts
o Offshore (see session by Ed Uy & Nikos Ioannou)
o Contractors vs. FTE team members
o Testers vs. whole team QA
o New hires
o Process gaps
o Poor quality output
o [more…]
• Review of the intervention levels
o Facilitation
o Coaching
o Leading
o Managing
• Examples of applied intervention
o Team-building
o Team-busting
o Member moves
o Coaching sessions
o Termination
o [more…]
• Conclusions
• Q & A