Making It Real

At the end of a self-selection event, you usually end up with a lot of paper and hopefully a set of self-selected, fully skilled teams. But so far this information is just a collection of diagrams. You now need to go about making it real.

After the event, the participants often have a lot of questions about what’s going to happen next, when they can start working in their new squads, and whether this is actually for real or if there will be some last-minute management decree that changes some of the teams that have been designed.

In the immediate aftermath following a self-selection event, it’s crucial to confirm that this really is an accepted process and that everyone’s choices will be respected. The organization needs to be aware that any change decreed or decision overruled by management will erode the foundation of trust and empowerment you just established, and in fact, the company would be left worse off than if you had used management selection from the beginning. Therefore, protecting the outcome of your self-selection event is critical.

The first thing to do is follow up with each of the newly formed squads. It’s important to discuss ideas and concerns and, perhaps most important, to find a date members can start working together. We usually run a meeting with each of the squads using the Lean Coffee^[9] format, which is a useful way to run an agenda-less meeting, where the topics for discussion are established by the squad itself. This allows us to manage expectations and to hand over responsibility to the squads to make it happen.

You should meet with each new squad as soon as possible, ideally the very next day. It’s vital that you build on the momentum you’ve created and don’t let people go back to their regular jobs without closure from the self-selection event. You need to set the expectations for what will happen next.

You can expect some or all of these questions during these Lean Coffees:

• When can we start and what happens to our current projects?

  People are simply wondering “What now?” Do they continue with their current work? Do they need to finish it as fast as possible or hand it over to someone else?

• Are we adequately resourced?

  If there were any gaps in your newly created squads, people will be wondering how and when they will be filled. “Does everything we have established get put on hold until we recruit new people? This could take months!”

• What about logistics?

  For example, how will the seating arrangements be configured for the new squads? What are the time and date of the squad’s first meeting?

It’s a great sign of engagement when people are concerned about their current work and don’t want to abandon existing projects. It would be a far more dire situation for the company if they didn’t care at all. However, ongoing projects often create a web of dependencies where everything is dependent on everything else and there’s no obvious place to start.

At Trade Me we were a bit like a tightly wound ball of string with no visible thread; we needed to cut into the ball to make a start. We had to consider the new hires who had been suggested as part of the selection process. Nobody wanted to wait for those people to arrive, but equally nobody wanted to start before the squad was fully skilled. In general we pursued the earliest starting point regardless of what talent were waiting for.

Kick squads off as early as possible. There will never be a perfect time, so if in doubt, go for sooner rather than later. Establish the new squads and let them cover for those who haven’t started yet. It’s not a big deal because it drives the kind of cross-functional “team-first” behavior you want to see.