A Framework for Understanding Agile Teams
Whatever the methodology, the ability to scale small agile teams within a larger organization is crucial to succeeding in competitive software markets. Lots has been written about this subject, but most of the focus has been on helping teams collaborate, or how to improve release engineering practices. These are important functions, but not the hard problem that face small teams and their leadership when it comes to making critical team decisions. The crux of scaled agile is developing a team self-awareness and culture of feedback not only for individuals, but one that allows teams to adapt quickly.
Having an understanding of your team’s role within the Organization and contribution to the Product and Market is difficult because it requires not only an understanding by the team of how they are performing but also an organizational culture that can coach teams to be more effective for the Product they are developing. The following framework lays out a set of tools for Product managers, and leadership to work constructively to improve a teams performance in a way that is appropriate to their contribution. By using this 2x2 framework Product Managers and stakeholders can asses their work collaboratively and constructively and focus on identifying improvements that will have the most impact for your Product strategy. This is done simply be getting a relative assessment of the teams process discipline, and how focused they are on user value delivery.
Teams performing in the bottom left, focus on creative exploration. In my field, enterprise software, this not the ideal contribution but for creating media, gaming, AR/VR and other artistic focuses this may be your pipeline for finding and cultivating new ideas in cutting edge new tech. When a band rents a house in the country side to record an album they are taking steps to eliminate the need for process discipline.
Of course, creative teams that deliver generate a more direct impact on actual users and have a greater impact on the market and product. Even our hypothetical band jamming out in their house in the country side are eventually planning to produce an album. As teams focus more on delivery, but remain light on creating process they enter the creative innovation quadrant. This is the quadrant most teams find themselves in before their organization starts to scale. Startups, creative agencies and even freelancers are often successful by focusing on delivering software to users and eliminating unneeded process. That said, even startups and agencies often find that a lack of process can be taxing on individuals and this becomes increasingly apparent if you are growing quickly.
If you are growing quickly, it’s appropriate to invest in organizational functions that legitimize product decisions and improve the delivery rates despite increasing complexity. Many Organizations put the cart before the horse and invest in release engineering and ops practices to scale, but it is equally important to establish practices that legitimize feature work and remove bias from assessing priorities. This means focusing on process, more so than user value delivery and is labeled the systemized exploration quadrant. This is the contribution that UX Research, Data Science and even full scaled R&D investments brings to your Organization. If you are investing heavily in research, developing a common UX Practice becomes a valuable contribution and safe guard to ensure that you are building the most valuable features for your users.
Finally, you come to the top right quadrant, which at scale is often a majority of the engineering investment for your software product. These teams are the providing that magical combination of systemized innovation. Systemized innovation is the sweet spot for large scale software products. Having teams that are rapidly gathering feedback, and delivering updates are what most executives are after when they envision what Digital Transformation looks like. That said these teams need to be mindful of contributions from other teams and their role within the organization. If the product or feature the teams support is meeting expectations, it might be time to focus on more research or other products.
Product Managers and leadership should focus on what kind of contribution they are looking for, and what improvements better fit their product vision. In a perfect world all teams slowly move up and to the right, but in the real world focusing on moving along one axis at a time is more realistic and effective. As Products and teams evolve this framework can help drive productive conversations for staffing and performance.
Of course all this also requires a baseline of cultural, and professional maturity within your organization. Ensuring that employees have appropriate HR infrastructure and professional direction from their managers is a pre-requisite to scaling agile effectively and understanding your teams role is only the first step.
