What are the best strategies to ensure Scrum teams are self-organizing?

Making a self sufficient team, requires three fundamental things - Clean roles - Expectation - Clear communication management plan Roles and expectations are primary building block to run it smoothly but to make a rapid progress communication management plan is a highly effective practise. Since the pillar of the scrum teams are Product manager, Scrum master and Development teams in a triangle. Most of the time PM and SM are spend their time on communicating and facilitating the work. Hence a structured communication management plan became an integral part of self sustaining and sufficient team.

Setting clear roles and expectations is vital for team self-organization by providing a defined framework for responsibilities and decision-making. It ensures alignment with the team's goals and values, fostering a shared sense of purpose. Clear expectations promote accountability, empowering team members to make informed decisions and collaborate effectively towards common objectives.

Creating an environment that encourages autonomy is key. Start by defining clear goals, providing necessary resources, fostering open communication, and empowering team members to make decisions. Additionally, you want to ensure everyone understands their roles, and regularly reviews and iterates on processes to support the self-organization.

1. Make the work visible - Leverage ALM tools like JIRA, Azure DevOps, etc. to bring the visibility of every team member's work to every other team member. Example: create quick filters with names, set up explicit policies to move the work between stages, and co-create the Definition of Ready and Definition of Done with the team. 2. Establish a pull-based mechanism - Where team members can pull the work themselves rather than someone assigning the work to them - which if starts getting piled up impacts motivation and productivity. 3. Let the team be the owner to re-establish some of the defined guidelines during the course of execution. This should not happen frequently though. 4. Reward and recognize instantly - Don't wait!

Create a productive and supportive ecosystem. Self-organizing works best when guardrails are clear and well-supported by the teams. There is hardly total freedom, so some orchestration is going to be needed. Unmanaged freedom can result in confusion and anxiety. Therefore, a self-managing team thrives best under evolutionary top leadership.

Trust is fostered in the way the team deals with setbacks and/or failures. When a server goes down, when a launch deadline is missed or when a sale is lost because of a bug, that's when the Trust and Communication of a team is put to the test. One technique to make even the most difficult conversations more productive is to practice what are called "Blameless" Root-cause analyses (RCAs). Focus less on the individual and more on the problem. Focus less on "could've", "should've" statements and align on what can be done better next time.

When team members trust each other, they feel more comfortable sharing ideas, taking on responsibilities, and expressing concerns. Trust forms the basis for open communication and encourages collaboration, allowing team members to collectively determine the best ways to organize their work, distribute tasks, and adapt to changing requirements. In an atmosphere of trust and collaboration, team members are more likely to engage in self-organization willingly, leading to increased flexibility, creativity, and overall efficiency in achieving project goals.

O stakeholder é o maior interessado no resultado positivo do projeto. é imprescindível entender suas expectativas para poder refinar as entregas dentro de um prazo coerente.

Here's why it matters and how to achieve it: 1. Build Trust: Encourage open communication, honesty, and reliability among team members. Trust allows for better collaboration, risk-taking, and the ability to handle conflicts constructively. 2. Promote Collaboration: Create an environment where individuals feel valued and supported. Encourage teamwork, knowledge sharing, and mutual respect to leverage diverse skills and ideas. 3. Embrace Accountability: Foster a culture where team members hold themselves and each other accountable for their commitments, promoting reliability and dependability within the team.

Key idea: promote safe environment, transparency and common objective; and trust and collaboration will arise. It is no easy, neither fast but it is JUST it!

I have yet to find someone who enjoys being micromanaged. When team members are empowered with the authority to make decisions and given autonomy in their tasks, it fosters a sense of ownership and accountability. This autonomy allows individuals to leverage their skills and expertise, leading to more creative problem-solving and innovation. This all promotes a collaborative and adaptive environment, as team members can respond promptly to challenges without constant supervision, ultimately enhancing the team's ability to self-organize and achieve its goals.

Partindo da premissa "transparência" e informa??es disponíveis, o time torna-se autossuficiente, tendo a real no??o de sua capacidade de entrega e colabora??o.

Give your team the power to make choices and decide how they work. This makes them own their tasks and find the best ways to solve problems. Set clear goals and expectations. Back their choices, and don't micromanage. This helps everyone do their best.

If team has the freedom to think clearly and they know they have the authority to do it then it can empower them to take right decisions at right time. Clarity in any sense can help the team to work in right direction

Here is where the role of the Scrum Master bears its key responsibility. Understanding how to intervene, making the right questions and steering the team to have the proper conversations. What appears to be a frequent challenge is to make this way of working coexist with the traditional mindset of control.

Both of these facilitate continuous improvement by allowing the team to reflect on and adapt its processes. Encouraging experimentation fosters creativity, innovation, and a sense of ownership among team members, contributing to a more adaptive and self-organizing dynamic.

O time, dentro do contexto de autonomia, passa a explorar melhor as possibilidades e desenvolve uma vis?o mais abrangente das atividades. Dessa forma, as entregas passam a ser mais assertivas, ágeis e produtivas.

Encourage learning and experimentation. It's like running a creative workshop where discovery is key. ???? 1. Continuous Learning: Urge team members to explore new skills through courses or workshops, adding fresh ideas to the team's arsenal. ???? 2. Experimentation Culture: Support trials of new tools or approaches, seeing each as a potential breakthrough, regardless of immediate success. ????? 3. Safe Space for Failure: Foster an environment where mistakes are stepping stones to mastery, not setbacks. ???? 4. Embrace Feedback for Growth: Regularly seek and incorporate feedback, improving a shared journey. ???? This approach transforms the team into agile learners and innovators, constantly evolving in their quest for excellence. ????

Accept that things might go wrong during experimentation and avoid over-engineering while emphasizing reusable automation for speed. Places to explore automation in the backend and front-end are data validation in configuration files or code. Concretely, it is useful to have standard automated ways of adhering to data protection rules, etc.

Offering a curated collection of learning resources such as books, articles, and online courses allows Scrum Masters to explore topics aligned with their interests and challenges.

Acknowledgment and rewards serve as positive reinforcement, motivating team members to excel in their roles and contribute to the team's success. Recognition enhances a sense of belonging and boosts morale, creating a positive team culture where individuals feel valued and appreciated. Bu acknowledging and rewarding achievements, team members are more likely to take initiative, collaborate effectively, and self-organize to achieve common goals, as they recognize the impact of their efforts on the team's overall success.

Recognize and reward achievements? It's like giving a high-five for every goal scored. ??? 1. Spotlight on Success: Applaud project completions in team meetings or feature standout achievements in internal communications. ???? 2. Incentivize Excellence: Offer bonuses or extra vacation days for major milestones, or sponsor professional development opportunities. ???? 3. Personalized Praise: Send a thank-you email for innovative ideas or treat a high-performer to lunch. ????? 4. Gamification Fun: Implement monthly awards or leaderboards for friendly competition and recognition. ???? This approach turns achievements into celebrated moments, boosting morale and motivation. ????

It is very natural when being part of a society that human beings need assurance and recognition. Acknowledgement for the right actions and corrections at the right time by a mature leader is a time tested formula for a successful team.

you can recognize and reward achievements in a scrum team in a way that supports and enhances their performance, motivation, and happiness.

To help a self-organizing team, it’s important to praise their achievements and give them rewards. Praise shows appreciation for their hard work, and rewards motivate them to keep doing well. Using simple ways like appreciation and giving feedback, along with more tangible things like bonuses and opportunities for career growth, makes the team happier and more engaged.

Some ways to get started:- 1. Assign an experienced developer as a mentor to guide junior team members in using a new programming language, offering one-on-one sessions and code reviews to enhance their skills. 2. Conduct monthly workshops on Agile best practices, such as effective sprint planning or user story mapping, led by external Agile coaches to keep the team's skills up-to-date. 3. Implement bi-weekly peer review meetings where team members constructively review each other's work, focusing on improvement areas. 4. Have team leaders facilitate goal-setting workshops at the beginning of each project, encouraging team members to define their own objectives and key results, promoting a sense of ownership and autonomy.

Coaching the team should be an on-going exercise. The team may reach maturity levels set by an organization, however continual learning does help the team members grow in skill-sets and abilities. It's the job of the leader to mentor the team, get feedback and coach them towards bettering themselves.

As a leader, there's nothing wrong with sitting in on stand-ups and showing your support for a team, but save your feedback for project demos and retrospectives. Trust your team to self-manage their own, day to day activities.

To expand on the feedback, feedback loops are key. Facilitated sessions, for self-organized teams, such as retrospectives (e.g. rose-bud-thorn), are highly valuable to foster the collaboration required.

The tools from your toolkit used to support and coach will likely look different in each situation - as each team differs in experience, personality, and connection. A feedback cycle is important to reevaluate what the team needs at that time to achieve high performance.

Apart from the strategies mentioned, Scrum teams need to cultivate a culture of continuous improvement. This involves regularly reflecting on their processes and outcomes, seeking feedback, and implementing changes to enhance efficiency and quality. Additionally, promoting a mindset of shared responsibility and a willingness to adapt to new challenges contributes significantly to a self-organizing team's success. Encouraging a healthy work-life balance and prioritizing sustainable work practices also fosters long-term productivity and team well-being.

To ensure Scrum teams are self-organizing, defining clear roles and expectations is crucial. Foster trust, collaboration, and open communication channels within the team. Delegate authority and autonomy, encouraging learning, experimentation, and skill development. Recognize and reward achievements while supporting and coaching the team. Establish a feedback loop for continuous improvement, align team goals with organizational objectives, and promote diversity of thought. Create a culture of accountability, knowledge sharing, and cross-functional collaboration. Regularly assess team dynamics and empower members to contribute ideas, cultivating a positive and inclusive team culture.

Scrum teams are expected to conduct retrospectives every sprint, and these sessions are vital to providing feedback (good or bad). Self-organizations can't be only about positive reinforcement. They must also consider things that can be improved. I would highly recommend modifying section "5. Recognize and reward achievements" to be not only about achievements or adding a new section about the need to embrace feedback loops during retrospectives and whenever feedback is needed. Feedback is also mentioned in section "4. Encourage learning and experimentation" but it still feels like a section about feedback loops would be helpful as a strategy.

One thing I find helpful is to ensure that retros are prioritsed, creating a space for regular feedback within the team. Discuss whats working and whats not working. Make sure that you are continuously improving, that could be reviewing the definition of ready, has volocity dropped are sprint health cheks prioritised. Everyone is accountable to ensure the team is moving forward in the right way so protect safe spaces at all costs.

While there exists numerous strategies for cultivating self-organizing teams, my emphasis lies on those often overlooked yet critical in today's fast-paced work environments specially in contemporary remote work environments. Creating a fail-safe atmosphere is paramount. This entails fostering an environment where failures are viewed not as setbacks but as integral components of the journey toward success. By instilling this mindset, teams are more likely to experiment with novel approaches. This, in turn, paves the way for cross-functional training and role rotation – pivotal elements that are often overlooked but play a crucial role in elevating the team's capability to operate autonomously.