The Making of a Self-organizing Team

If agile is a mindset and a way of working or living, how can your team bring it to life??

The following values are an agile team’s non-negotiables: transparency, continuous learning, constant customer focus, and self-organization.? In this story, we will focus on the agile value of self-organization.? Learn about the making of a self-organizing team from the example of Team Swift from Aspen Business Solutions, Inc. . ?

First off, is agile relevant to you and me? Jan of JG Summit DTO briefly talks about the agile way of working:

About Team Swift?

Team Swift is comprised of various subject matter experts who joined season 5 of Launchbox, the Gokongwei Group corporate innovation program.? During the program, the team experienced how self-organization was crucial to its transformation to become a high-performing team.? Team Swift’s story is rich with insights about alignment and autonomy.?

Here's how Team Swift started:

Season 5 of the Launchbox program was 4 months of action learning, where teams solved existing business challenges using the agile and design thinking frameworks.? At the end of the program, Team Swift streamlined the process of media payments and reduced the turnaround time for paying media vendors.? There are three things we can learn from Team Swift about self-organization.?

1) Knowing Your ‘Who’ and Your ‘Why’?

Start by understanding your target audience - who you are solving the problem for - and their core problem. When everyone understands who benefits and why this matters, it fosters a sense of ownership. This empowers team members to manage their responsibilities and timelines effectively, driving them all towards the shared goal.?

For Team Swift, it was clear that the team existed to improve the process for media payments and reduce turnaround time for processing invoices by analyzing their customers' workflows and identifying repetitive, time-consuming manual tasks. The team knew it was doing this for their customers: the media agency employee issuing the invoice, and the Aspen employee processing the media billing.?

Rose of Team Swift explains how the clarity of their ‘who’ and ‘why’ guided their work:?

2) Holding Regular Check-ins with the Team?

Regular check-ins are more than just status meetings.? Aside from sharing each team member’s progress, these check-ins are opportunities for team members to communicate what they need from teammates to do their job well. Teammates listen to each other during these conversations; trust and genuine connections are developed.??

During the?Launchbox?program, learners had check-in sessions with their JG Summit DTO coaches and Aspen mentors to ensure they were on track and to address any blockers. Teams worked in 2-week sprints, so they first planned what they needed to deliver, and reviewed at the end of 2 weeks to check if they achieved their goals for the sprint.? These regular cadences strengthened teams' efforts to achieve their shared goals.?

Listen to Rose talk about Team Swift’s cadences and check-ins:?

Their Coach Jan witnessed the check-ins' impact on the team:

3) Not Depending on Managers to Instruct How to Work?

Did you know that Team Swift started as a team of silent workers? Knowing the team’s ‘who’ and ‘why’ motivated the team members to go beyond what was asked.??

Because of the trust and deep connection instilled among members, even the shyest in Team Swift developed the confidence to speak up and recommend solutions on how to do things better. Because they knew their shared goals, members knew what they needed to achieve and learned to prioritize initiatives.?

Hear it straight from Arnel:?

Plus, Elvie inspired us with her thoughts on taking the initiative and embracing continuous learning:

What’s A Normal Day Like for Self-Organizing Teams?

It’s been months since Team Swift graduated from the Launchbox program, and Team Swift has embraced these as it expands the reach of its solution, to reduce payment turnaround time for other transaction types.?

Melanie describes the dynamics of the team:?

Self-organization produces creative team members who work towards a common objective. Team Swift achieved its goals because alignment and autonomy were key to its self-organization.?

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