Team Agility
In the end it is people that deliver projects. Not by themselves by any means, as plans, risks, change control and other processes and associated tools all need to combine for success. Especially if you take a systems thinking approach. Here in 2022 it may seem strange anyone ever thought otherwise. But when I started out 30 years ago the project management toolbox contained only the hard stuff, the mechanistic tools and techniques. The people stuff took a long time to break through. For a start the people stuff such as; communications, leadership, teams, was referred to – scathingly by many – as the soft stuff. Many managers whether in projects or business-as-usual simply found the soft stuff erm…..hard and tried to ignore it. Here is a little story.
And so to the soft stuff and teams
Fortunately, today the so-called ‘soft’ tools and techniques are well recognised, even if not yet embedded as well as they may be. Team building is common place, even being the subject of comedy sketches and animated films such as: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUXdrl9ch_Q (if still on YouTube). Although what you feel about the final video…..
There are many team development models of long standing such as the Tuckman model below. Originating in 1965 it remains valid and was updated in 1977 with the adjourning stage representing how a team is stood down. Its relevance to projects is clear as this diagram shows. Project teams are finite and the model demonstrates how performance varies with the growth of the team. Value comes from realising that these are the stages a new team will go through. Knowing this leaders can take actions to speed a team through to the performing stage.
Agility and Teams
Then along comes agility where behaviours are a good 50% of the approach. Teams become central and Tuckman fits very well. Although another idea as been added called swarming, which represents the self-organising collaborative behaviours of agile teams.
Self-organising teams neither happen nor are sustained by accident. I have blogged before about the importance, no the criticality of an organisational landscape supportive of agility.
No such landscape, no self-organising teams, no agility, no value creation. Simples. ?
As for team agility, In Agile Beyond IT I indulge in a little fantasy where:
And then I wake up. But wait a minute, if this is where I want to get to, as the old saying about getting to Carnegie Hall has it, we have to practice, practice, practice. Not just as a team but also in the organisation. If the Tuckman model can help leaders take action to speed through to the performing stage. So can agility be a model for identifying actions for achieving the benefits from self-organising teams as rapidly as possible. Again it is about creating value which from a self-organising team looks like this:
Like I said earlier other models are available. I would also like to float one of my own on which I would love feedback.
The self-model
Around 2008, I started to think a lot about team-building techniques. These usually focused on the group, how to bring them together and meld them into a team, e.g. Tuckman. ?But I wondered whether there was a viewpoint from the individual. In looking at teams I realized that an individual progressively gives more of them-selves to a team the longer they are in it and the more value their place in that team. I doubt I am the only one to have noticed this but I could not find a model that suited.
The self model is my attempt to show how an individual may progressively sublimate themselves to a team.
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Incidentally, Sigmund Freud considered sublimation a sign of maturity that allows people to behave in civilized and acceptable ways. This process can lead people to pursue activities that are better for their health or engage in behaviours that are positive, productive, and creative. This is particularly suited to working as part of a team.
What arose from observations, reading and conversations is the following model. At present it is only supported by anecdotal evidence but could suit some post-graduate research – hint.
The model proposes the stages a person goes through from self-centred to self-submergence as they sublimate themselves as a member of a team and becomes increasingly effective. My thought is that, in the same way that the Tuckman model can be used to speed progress to the performing stage. Organizations could use the self-model to more rapidly bring a new person into an established team. Or help an individual integrate into an established team.
Some years ago I collaborated with a recruitment company specialising in recruiting ex-service people into roles in the commercial sector, often project management. Given the difference in cultures - in the non-military world folk do not respond naturally to 'orders' - I developed an interactive course for project leadership in the commercial world. Clearly bringing a new project manager up to speed more rapidly in their new environment should create value.
So…..any comments? Has the idea got legs? Is it ridiculous? Has someone already published something similar/better which I have missed?
Agility, teams and organisations
If agility is a way of working then the Covid 19 pandemic has forced organisations to practice degrees of agility in how they operate. Twenty years ago the tools to enable the home-working we recognise now, simply did not exist. Collaboration and video conferencing tools at home! Combined with fast internet speeds undoubtably lessened the reduction in economic activity. One serendipity was for a software company where part of the advice it received on set up was to be significantly virtual in its operations, which paid dividends during the pandemic.
The issue being faced now is the question of what IS the new normal? There is a range of reaction from; ‘I’m desperate to get back to the office’, to, ‘I can’t go back to the office’. The factors are complex from the mental heath benefits from personal interactions to the personal work-life balance decisions individuals are increasingly making. ?Resourcing is already a challenge as evidenced by daily stories about under-staffing in aviation and hospitality sectors. I have personal experience of hotels which looked after their people during lockdown mostly retaining them. Loyalty, and the lack of it is two-way. Agility might just be forced permanently into an organisation’s culture as the only way to both recruit and retain staff.
Look for the win-win say I.
Teams are part of the ‘project management team’
At the start I acknowledged that teams – people – are part of a holistic project management approach consisting of People/Process/Tools and operating both inside projects AND in the organisation hinterland. Project management communities are nothing new, e.g. Centres of Excellence. What the adoption of agility requires and forces, is the integration of these project communities with the Business-as-usual to create a new operations. Examples would include project management training as part of core training for any manager. I would like to see project management as a core part of every MBA. It makes NO sense to teach an executive how to develop a strategy but not how to lead strategic change! Other well tried and trusted components might include:
All these will increase the level of capability, whether agile or not. But remember that agile businesses are more profitable than non-agile ones*. And sector disruptors such as Amazon in the retail sector, are becoming the normal business model – and have embraced agility.
As Yoda said ‘do or do not, there is no try’.
Live long and prosper – oh wait that’s Star Trek not Star Wars.
Adrian Pyne
Author.
2 年Team suppleness should not be called "agility", the latter involves motion.