How do you know you have a great agile team? This episode reveals the secret sauce that makes high-performing Agile teams tick. From the power of predictable delivery to the pursuit of relentless quality, we dissect the various elements that contribute to a team's success. We go beyond the typical metrics to understand what it takes for a team to own their processes and evolve their work environment to reach new heights of excellence.
This week's takeaways:
Join the conversation and share your insights at feedback@definitelymaybeagile.com – your input could shape our next big topic. Subscribe today and learn more about agile teams
How do you know you have a great agile team? This episode reveals the secret sauce that makes high-performing Agile teams tick. From the power of predictable delivery to the pursuit of relentless quality, we dissect the various elements that contribute to a team's success. We go beyond the typical metrics to understand what it takes for a team to own their processes and evolve their work environment to reach new heights of excellence.
This week's takeaways:
Join the conversation and share your insights at feedback@definitelymaybeagile.com – your input could shape our next big topic. Subscribe today and learn more about agile teams
Welcome to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where Peter Maddison and David Sharrock discuss the complexities of adopting new ways of working at scale. Hello, dave, how are you today?
Dave:Really good, peter, good to be chatting again, and I think the intention was, if I'm just summarizing what we're about to talk about, let's see if it actually matches what we talk about. But we just had we wanted to start by looking at answering the question of how do you know you've got a decent Agile team? And just look at you know what are the characteristics Very quickly, what you might look to if you're, if you're told you're going into an organization, you're told there's an Agile team over here, how do we know it's a great Agile team or not a great Agile team?
Peter:Well, you look to see if they have a scrum master right, isn't that the answer?
Dave:that Take the boxes and look at the methodology that they may or may not be using and make sure they hit all of those. That's certainly that's one way of doing it right, and I think it's misleading because there are some. I mean, we've both worked with amazing teams that didn't quite match all of the characteristics that we might expect of them. I can still remember one of the best teams I worked with was this is years ago, but hyper distributed. Every individual was in a different time zone and the time zone stretch from Eastern Europe to the West Coast of the US and that team absolutely knocked things out of the park. They were a tremendous team, yet everything told us that could not possibly happen.
Peter:So what were the characteristics of that team?
Dave:You thrown it straight back at me. Well, here's the one thing that I'm always going to look at, which is how is the team performing? And, at the end of the day, the team is there to get things out of the door. So you know, the first one is are they predictable, reliable or predictable?
Peter:But before you go down, one of the things, even prior to that, is can they even tell you? That Is one of the first like do they measure? Do they look at their performance? Do they look to see? Can they even tell you if they're performing? Because that's another one which I quite often run into which is like yeah, they're an agile team. It's like cool, show me the data.
Dave:Yes, absolutely so there's so certainly there's expectations. You can't be an excellent team if you're not measuring what you're doing excellently, and I think predictable delivery I refer to it as predictable capacity or predictable delivery I think is huge because it has that's the ripple that goes out into the organization.
Dave:If you're a team that people can rely on.
Dave:You're halfway there If you say you're going to do something in a few weeks or in the month of whatever it might be, and you get that done and it's done at a high level of quality, meets expectations and so on, and then you're halfway there. So predictable delivery and what else. I'm going to look for a certain like they care about quality and their own quality. So what I mean by that is they don't just deliver what they're asked and kind of shell up their laptops and leave, but they're continuously challenging one another on the quality of the work they're doing. Are they doing it correctly? Are they building in to what they're building the foundations for success in terms of build quality in the sort of things that we know about the technical and it's difficult to measure. It's not as simple as just how many defects are leaving the sprint or carryover stories or anything like that. These are all distractions. When you talk to the team, when they're talking about planning and retrospecting, are they continuously challenging the team to do better and perform at a higher level?
Peter:with a high level of quality Right, and so, of course, that's again something that they have to be able to measure. How critical do you think it is that the team can own the delivery practices and production to be a functioning agile team? Are you just laying that down? So that's a.
Dave:Oh, totally. We, of course, both of us would agree. I am sure that that is incredibly important, like if you're going to hold back a team from ever being a performing team, lock down their environments and prevent them from building out tools, changing the environment, doing any sort of influence, having any influence on how they get stuff done. Well then, how are they going to get?
Peter:better Because you restrict their ability to learn, and so, actually, that might actually be another characteristic of a great agile team, one that is continually looking to learn and investing in learning and ensuring that time is spent on learning as a part of their day-to-day activities. That's a key piece, as well, of a really good team.
Dave:Absolutely yeah, and you want them, and that you don't learn once and then carry on not learning. Learning on a team it's a continuous thing. They're always challenging and pushing the boundaries of what they're dealing with and trying to experiment with it so that when it comes to some new change that they have to deal with, they've already practiced at how to go and accommodate it. So it's not something like a skill that you stick in the drawer and you only pull out when you need it. It's atrophone by the time you do that. It's something that's happening all the time.
Peter:Yes, yeah, there's an interesting conversation. Very often we have these conversations we're talking about the organization surrounding the team and all of the pieces that need to be in place for them to be successful. But if we think about the team itself and what's on it, one of the topics of conversation we've had before which is an interesting one is the how static is the membership of the team, Like, how often does the membership of the team change and what the impacts of that are on its performance. I think there's an element there where I think high-performing teams have considered what the impacts are of new people coming into their team or going out of their team. They've thought about what they do and where they're looking to evolve to Like the really good one, looking at like where, who do we want to be tomorrow?
Dave:Yeah, and I think there's an, as you're describing, that you're beginning to describe a team that is in control of their own destiny. So, and what I'm thinking here is a team that is really valuable. To sort your thinking out, if I'm wanting to get the team to work on a problem, they're not just going to accept it and go, yes, we'll do what you're asking, but they're going to come to the table and challenge your thinking. And again there is. I can challenge your thinking by saying I'm more, I know more than you. You should listen. Therefore, let me point out where I know more than you. That's not what I'm talking about. These are teams that roll this. They're really interested in the problem, they want to solve it and they're listening to what you bring to the table and then putting what they can bring to the table and they're seeking the best solution. So they have. You almost talk about elegant solutions and integrity and how the teams work and when you're dealing with those teams.
Peter:Yes, so there's that sense of ownership, right, and the organization has given them the autonomy to be owners, whereas we've talked in the past about the part where the team being held accountable but they don't actually have the autonomy to own things. So you end up with the friction point there.
Dave:Well, and the way when you're saying that they expect you to own your half of whatever it is that they're solving?
Dave:So there's an expectation and they'll hold you accountable to that. And I think this is this actually speaks to organizational cultures which are really dynamic and challenging places to work in, because everyone's going to hold you accountable and if you have an off day, you walk out going oh my goodness, I wish that had not gone the way it went. But you're looking at everybody's continually challenging or validating that, or you know, the thinking has been meticulous and careful and well thought out, and it's not just I came out of a meeting and said I need to do this.
Peter:And I think that actually, when we start to touch on that cultural piece, there's that the part there around people don't throw blame when things go wrong. It's a okay, what happened? What's the work that needs to be done, what do we need to do to recover from this? And the focus is on the work, not on the individuals and the people, and so the the the well function teams will focus in on the work, and so I mean that is a difference in behavior that you'll see Now, we always skip and that's a whole other conversation because there's always a part where, well, sometimes, yes, the other things need to happen, but in a well functioning team, the focus is on the work, not on the individuals, and as I was.
Dave:I was thinking you were wrapping things up. Then I want to get one final thing in which is and we sometimes forget that I certainly know I do. I'm very task oriented. At times I just end up focused on what needs to be done and I forget. A huge indicator of great teams is how much fun they are and the camaraderie and the sort of just the general demeanor of the team. The mindset on the team is is a well, it's a safe place to to work, but it's also there they're making sure they get a decent balance of, you know, laughs and fun on there as well.
Peter:Yes, yeah, so I'm going to challenge you now. That was a lot I was going to.
Dave:I was going to pull this one around and suggest you wrap this one up.
Peter:Oh, I have to remember all of that. Okay, I remember the last one, and teams have just got to have fun.
Dave:Yes, End of story. There we go.
Peter:We can end of story Like well to a certain extent, a lot of these other things build up to that. To have fun, that you've got to have an like a team where they are focused on the work, not on the blame. If people are blaming each other for things when they go wrong, then they're it's not going to be a healthy team and that they're going to be in a bad way If they are. If you're also looking, then, at like the continual learning and an understanding that the team thinks of itself as a team and is looking at like where do we go? How do we evolve? How do what happens when new people join? Who do we need to join us? Like what does that look like?
Peter:And they're actually having that conscious conversation. If they, they have to. They have to be able to own their delivery all the way into. Fortunately, they have to be able to actually have ownership, which requires the autonomy from the organization. So they've got to be able to operate in that way and so that they can start to deliver. And and I know I'm forgetting a couple we had right at the start, so I'm going to leave those to you.
Dave:So a couple of things that I'd add in. They know what success looks like and they're predictable and reliable and getting there. So we talked about measuring. Ultimately, a high performing team has to be able to deliver very, very well right, so we need to measure that. They need to be reliable. They need to be able to get things done. There's a quality aspect which we turned into a learning conversation. Are they growing? Are they continually challenging one another to to deliver a great product, whatever they may be working?
Peter:Yeah, I think. I think that's a really good oversight. If you can see these things, then you know you've got a good agile team and now I don't have to worry about what methodology they're using.
Dave:Or are they doing X or they're doing Y? They're going to. If it's important, they're bringing it into the process anyway.
Peter:Right yeah. So let's take the word agile, and then you know you've got a healthy team.
Dave:Yes, that's a great way of looking at. So what does a healthy team, a highly productive team, look like?
Peter:Yes, awesome. Well, with that, I'd like to invite all our listeners to hit subscribe and send us Feedback Feedback definitelymaybeagilecom. Always love to hear from our listeners and if you want to be on the podcast or you want to get involved at all, then reach out and look forward to hearing from you Till next time. Thanks again, peter, until next time. You've been listening to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where your hosts, Peter Maddison and David Sharrock, focus on the art and science of digital agile and devops at scale.