Would a Real Team Help?

Introduction

Imagine you are trying to get a good set of work done. A month's worth of work. Maybe a year's worth. Important work. Difficult, important, need with some urgency.

Would having a "real team" help?

There are of course alternatives. A workgroup is one alternative: a bunch of people who do work mostly independently, do work together a bit, and in some way (eg, with a PM or a process) they pull it all together to finish the work. See The Wisdom of Teams by Katzenbach and Smith for a detailed definition of a workgroup. And of a real team.

Another key reason to ask this question: A lot of agile people and others assume a real team is the answer, or key in the solution. But they don't have a real team (yet). Or some "members" don't want to be in a real team. Or, the managers and the organization are not willing to establish the conditions for developing a real team.

So, an important question to ask.

Discussion

I really like real teams. But that is kind of irrelevant if you can't get one. Or won't.

Advantages or Benefits

The following are some possible advantages or benefits. By far, not all, but some.

Two Heads are Better than One. An old aphorism. And I think especially true for knowledge work. I think typically no one person knows "everything" needed to do this work well. Maybe we do have a "most knowledgeable" person, but usually we need the knowledge from everyone, and if we create knowledge together, and share it, we will be more successful.

Coverage of skill sets. We tend to get better coverage of skill sets at the beginning with a real team. But this is possibly minor compared to a workgroup. What is far better with a real team is collaboration and shared development of the skill sets. Because they are a Team, they all (we hope) feel an incentive to develop skill sets that will help the team be more successful (we sometimes use the words cross-functional and multi-functional to start to describe this).

Complex Adaptive System. This is a benefit we do not talk enough about. The TEAM needs to be adaptive. Commonly our work and the whole situation is complex and there's a lot we don't know. We need everyone "with the eyes open", looking to understand the situation. And by gathering that intel (maybe think of it like soldiers in a SEAL team approaching an enemy -- if that metaphor works for you) -- and by being a Team, we want the intel and we share the intel. And then, as a Team, we decide how to adapt towards being more successful.

Esprit de Corps. Our work is challenging, and in some ways dispiriting, mainly in the sense that our problems and failures can be kind of depressing. Being in a Team means that if I am stuck, my teammates will help me. And if I get discouraged, my teammates will buck me up and encourage me. We certainly hope in a real Team we are all fighting distractions and paralysis by over-analysis. The effects of all these things are many, but let's focus on faster delivery and a delivery we can be proud of.

All Going the Same Direction. If we have a real Team, and if we communicate well (which, again, we should want to do), then it is far easier to change directions and check to be sure everyone is now going in the same direction. You can see that this makes the Team more effective. That should mean faster delivery and more business value.

One PO Dedicated. In terms of Business Value and clarity of "requirements", it is important and useful to have one dedicated PO who gets to know each member of the Team, what they know (or don't), how they communicate, how to "read" and whether they really understand. If the Team is small enough (I say a total of 7 people), the one dedicated PO makes sense, and can make those benefits happen in the Team. This is very important. Morale is higher. And they waste less time doing the wrong thing, there's less re-work, more progress toward the goal, and higher Business Value (if the PO is good). These benefits can be attained to some degree in a workgroup, but, relatively, can be optimized in a real Team.

Key Conditions

To get these benefits you need some key conditions to be true, or you need to build toward them:

• Dedicated Team. Ok, it is not absolutely true that you must have 100% dedication from every person on the Team. But the higher the better. That's what you'd expect from a professional sports team, right?
• One Mission. Again, not absolutely required, but certainly beneficial. Also, even a workgroup would benefit from this.
• Everyone wants to be in the Team. They want to be in a Team. And in this particular Team. (And we do want some positive conflict.) (In my experience, a decent percentage of people prefer being an "individual contributor" rather than in a Team. Watch out.)
• Everyone is motivated. This is a choice by each Team member. Do not have unmotivated people in what you want to be a "real team."
• Everyone agrees to the "way of working." At least they all agree to try it for now, and have a chance to adjust in 3(?) months.

There is another one I want, but I think it is not required, at least by comparison to a workgroup (or any other approach - as far as I can imagine it at the moment): active continuous improvement. Although when I mentioned "complex adaptive systems" it is, in at least some ways, implied.

Conclusion

This was a partial and short discussion of a Real Team approach. And why you might or might not want to try it.

If you already are trying a Real Team approach, you might want to discuss these points with the Team. That discussion woudl help the Team become more effective.

We will try to cover this topic in a longer form later.

What is the most important thing I did not say (yet)? About this topic. (I am quite conscious of things I omitted to keep this short.)

Read. Think. Experiment.

PS. Note that I never used the word agile or scrum in the discussion above