Why Should You Care?

If you work in an industry that benefits from people working in small, cross-functional teams, then this book is for you.

If you are a CEO, CTO, head of projects, VP of engineering, agile coach, head of marketing, or any other kind of manager who wants to structure your organization or department into small teams, you will learn why self-selection is the fastest and safest way to do so. You will learn how to prepare for and organize a self-selection event, how to convince your fellow managers that it’s a good idea in the first place, and how to communicate with your self-selection participants to make sure everyone is on board and ready.

If you are a team member, developer, tester, UX designer, or business analyst, you will read about what it feels like to be part of a self-selection process and what the consequences are for your daily work. You will learn how to influence your colleagues and your bosses to be open to the idea of self-selection. You will be able to provide your boss with a plan for how to facilitate a self-selection event and evidence that the system works.

This book describes a process that will work whether you need to form teams from scratch, want to improve the design of existing teams, or are on the verge of a big team reshuffle. How do you know that the teams in your organization represent the best possible combinations of people? How do you know that everyone is working in the team they would like to work in? There’s only one way to find out: ask them; then let them decide. By giving your staff choice through self-selection, you allow them to establish the best designed teams, and you will get the most out of your company.

Self-selection is a great way to get going if you don’t have fixed teams yet or to revitalize people if you feel your organization or teams are stuck in a rut.

We’ve seen self-selection work time and time again with teams building software, websites, and apps, but we’ve also found that these principles translate to other industries and fields where people can or should work in small teams, such as marketing, sales, human resources, and even finance.