Performance Circle: Teaming
Employ agile team agreements that align with values across all leadership and organizations.
Conduct regular retrospectives throughout their organization, and beyond the development team, to identify successes and improvements.
Deploy coaching and mentoring beyond development teams.
Adopt visual information management techniques throughout the organization.
Clearly separate roles from titles and job descriptions.
Strive for a ceremony-based, high-trust culture that embraces agile values.
Objective
As an agile leader,
I want teams and functional areas to learn and master self-organization and agile ceremonies and techniques,
So that the entire organization can benefit fully from agile adoption.
Holon: Organizing
Organizing is a holon within the Teaming performance circle. The Organizing holon contains the actions and ceremonies required to implement self-organization, interface with non-agile teams, and define the roles of project managers, product owners, and for other roles not defined by any agile framework.
Objective
As an agile leader,
I want to support an agile infrastructure of people, processes, and tools,
So that agile teams have everything needed to be successful.
Performance Level Outcomes
Organizing Performance Level Outcomes
Adopting Level Outcomes | Transforming Level Outcomes | Mastering Level Outcomes |
|---|---|---|
1. Physical space and culture are conducive to team collaboration, communication and focus. 2. Teams have the right mix of cross-functional experience necessary to support agile development. 3. Teams establish standards and ground rules. 4. Teams clearly establish roles and accountabilities. | 5. Teams establish charters consistent with the culture and values of the agile organization. 6. Ceremonies and techniques are available to all projects. 7. Teams begin to own their agile environment. 8. Team environments reflect agile values. | 9. Teams self-organize based on the organizational agile culture defined, and leaders can measure performance. 10. Projects optimize performance using accessible tools and techniques that are visible organizationally. 11. Agile teams integrate or synchronize with other teams and groups as needed to become a Team of Teams. |
Action 1.0: Establish Agile Team Environments
Develop a work environment that supports our agile values, like Focus, Collaboration, Humor, Openness. The physical environment will promote recruitment, retention, performance, creativity, and quality of life. Mixed spaces provide fluidity between collaboration, communication, privacy, and focused development.
Ceremonies/Techniques
Agile Digs
Use Agile Digs to create “neighborhoods” in the workspace that allow team space for group work, and space for individual work. Use the Agile Digs strategy to ensure everyone has a “home-space” that does not have to be booked in advance (e.g., “hoteling”). Fill the space with white boards, charts, visual information indicators, and information radiators.
Action 2.0: Establish Roles and Accountabilities
Develop a shared vision and unified expectations of how the team operates. Team members must know what is expected of them and what they can expect of other team members, stakeholders, and leaders. Roles and accountabilities can be reflected in team charters and organizational value statements. If roles and accountabilities are not clear and supported by all, productivity and creativity will be lost in favor of conflicts, misdirection, failures.
Ceremonies/Techniques
Roles and Accountabilities Game
Use the ORR game to gain an understanding of what teams perceive as their roles, and how they define the associated accountabilities for each. Help teams, including leaders and functional group members, self-subscribe to accountabilities.
Action 3.0: Promote Self-Organizing and Cross-Functional Teams
Establish an infrastructure for self-organization that incorporates and shares best practices, lessons learned, and process improvements throughout the community. Provide clear visual information to ensure a common vision and true transparency. Observe people and places in action to verify agile values and opportunities to adapt and improve.
Ceremonies/Techniques
Shared Vision (Obeya Room)
Use agile values Obeya Rooms to observe your teams sharing and verify the organizations agile values in a visible and transparent way.
Gemba
Use Gemba Walks to see teams in action to understand how well they are living your agile vision.
Kaizen
Use Kaizen boards to help teams and the whole organization manage continuous improvement efforts. Use Kaizen to allow all teams and leadership to understand improvement priorities and success.
Holon: Growing
Growing is a holon within the Teaming performance circle. The Growing holon contains the actions and ceremonies required to provide a training, mentoring, and learning environment.
Objective
As an agile leader,
I want to provide a training, mentoring, and a learning environment,
So that teams can take full advantage of agile ceremonies, methods, and techniques.
Performance Level Outcomes
Growing Performance Level Outcomes
Adopting Level Outcomes | Transforming Level Outcomes | Mastering Level Outcomes |
|---|---|---|
1. Immediate and future training needs are identified. 2. Teams regularly review training status. 3. Trained mentors are present to increase team performance. | 4. Team effectiveness is measured. 5. Training is visible in the team environment. 6. Teams determine training needs. | 7. Learning is based on team effectiveness measures. 8. Training is constant, consistent, and readily available. 9. Team member competency is evident and demonstrable. |
Action 1.0: Identify Training Needs for Agile Teams
Provide teams the opportunity to identify their training needs and opportunities in real time. Training needs are identified and planned at project initiation, but also may arise during sprint planning, retrospectives, and other ceremonies and activities. Ensure training needs are met by inspecting and adapting to the needs of teams.
Ceremonies/Techniques
Dot Voting
Use Dot voting to allow teams and leaders to vote their preferences among a set of choices to gain buy in and acceptance on decisions.
Action 2.0: Develop an Organizational Training Backlog
Develop an Organizational Training Backlog to ensure that training opportunities are assessed, prioritized, and available when needed.
Ceremonies/Techniques
Product Training Backlog
Use the training product backlog to develop a prioritized list of organizational training needs and to allow resources to contribute to the list. Training backlogs help organizations track and deliver the necessary training that teams crave.
Action 3.0: Establish a Mentoring Program
Establish a hands-on coaching/mentoring program to promote agile values and share best practices from training and process-related experiences. Provide expert coaches and mentors in real-time agile development environments to get the best return on training investments.
Ceremonies/Techniques
Arc of Conversation
Use the Arc of conversation to remove biases and actively “hear” what your teams need to meet the organizations objectives and make the most valuable decisions on training, and process improvements.
Action 4.0: Assess the Effectiveness of Training and Mentoring Programs
Assess the effectiveness of training through visual confirmation, where trainers, mentors, or other stakeholders observe trainees and mentees using new skills and exhibiting desired behaviors. Conduct Training Retrospectives to assess the effectiveness of the training and mentoring program and make improvements.
Ceremonies/Techniques
Confirmation Retrospectives
Training Retrospectives
Use Training Retrospectives to identify what the teams thought went well, what did not go well, and what should be change in the training delivered, before investing further. Using Training Retrospectives ensures you are getting the measurable value expected from your investment.
Holon: Governing
Governing is a holon within the Teaming performance circle. The Governing holon contains the actions and ceremonies required to provide a strong agile governance infrastructure for both product and process performance.
Objective
As an agile leader,
I want to provide a strong agile governance infrastructure for both product and process performance,
So that as the business changes, our agile values remain in alignment.
Performance Level Outcomes
Governing Performance Level Outcomes
Adopting Level Outcomes | Transforming Level Outcomes | Mastering Level Outcomes |
|---|---|---|
1. Agile roles and accountabilities are understood by team members. 2. Teams identify improvement opportunities. 3. Agile leaders and team members understand agile values. | 4. Team members share roles and accountabilities when needed. 5. Team outputs inform performance and organizational improvements. 6. Team objectives and key results are assessed for alignment with agile values. | 7. Roles and accountabilities are flexible to meet current team needs. 8. Agile leaders and development team members collaborate to drive continuous improvement. 9. Agile teams are self-governing and agile leaders encourage and support team governance structures. 10. Team objectives and key results are aligned with core organization-wide agile values. |
Action 1.0: Align HR with Requirements for Self-Organizing Teams
Review all Human Resource policies, processes, and procedures to ensure they are aligned with agile values and relevant agile roles and techniques.
Ceremonies/Techniques
Organizational Roles and Accountabilities Game
Use the ORR game to gain an understanding of what your teams perceive as their roles and how they define the associated accountabilities for each. Help your HR leaders understand the agile team’s roles and align policies and procedures with those roles.
Action 2.0: Clarify Team Structure and Reporting Relationships
Empower teams to develop their own self-organizing rules and guidelines in their team agreements within clearly established organizational parameters.
Ceremonies/Techniques
State of the Team
Use a State of the Team meeting to understand what teams have accomplished and need from other teams and leadership. Using State of the Team allows leadership to understand a global view of all teams’ status and progress.
Action 3.0: Empower a Cross-Functional Group to Deliver Continuous Performance Improvement
Empower team members and leadership to become agile process owners with accountabilities for the care and feeding of selected agile goals and techniques. Train and provide the owners with guidance to make the techniques better, and let them lead the process improvements and communication of changes to the organization.
Ceremonies/Techniques
All Hands Raised
Use the All Hands meetings to promote visibility into your successes, strategy, and to promote your agile culture. Using the All Hands meetings allows leaders to see firsthand the talent of their teams, and to inspire the desired agile values.
Action 4.0: Assess Internal Initiatives to Ensure Alignment with Agile Values of the State
Apply and communicate agile values in real time when observing ceremonies and behaviors. Observe outcomes, deliverables, and behaviors to see that they reflect agile values. When observing, are they transparent, open, fun, focused, collaborative, etc.?
Ceremonies/Techniques
Retrospectives
Gemba Walks
Use Gemba Walks to see the improvements that teams and agile process owners have made based on observations and actions. Provide coaching and feedback where needed.