The Effects of Unused Opportunity

Kurt S. Karpov
Sep 7, 2018 · 5 min read

Designing The Team

Organizations are responsible for providing the authority to members of a team to succeed. Experience has shown that organizations that place emphasis on constructing a complete team to achieve success from the start do not experience challenges with their work streams as often.

This seems like a logical outcome and we can see this in practice through the use of the agile principles developing value workstreams. What we find more often than less though is when the team is initially formed a key position within the team stands vacant. This may be the result of staffing restrictions, the expediency of need, or skills shortage, but it is a hole in the team’s overall capabilities.

In practice, we see this as a missing a key member of the development team such as a scrum master with the wrong skill set, incomplete development team, or an absentee Product Owner. This missing component of the team creates a situation where others see opportunity in chaos that is the team to gravitate towards and increase their own selves within the organizations. Most of the time at the cost to the team that is struggling.

Defining Opportunity

Opportunity in an organization is just as it would be in any other setting. The focus in this situation lies on how others see an opportunity for personal and professional gain.

op·por·tu·ni·ty (noun)

  1. a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something.
  2. a chance for employment or promotion.

When the decision to remove a crucial component of a team is made an opportunity is created. This result ripples across the entire engagement similar to dropping a boulder into a puddle. To visualize this in the workplace we can use the position of Product Owner. Removing this key role from the workstream disconnects the value creation of the team from the need of the organization. This is the opportunity that becomes visible to others. Without this value connection any workstream associated begins to lose its clarity and commitment of its team members.

The effort, lacking the value connection to the organization will sooner or later start to meander through the enterprise, very similar to a gazelle aimlessly roaming the plains in search of food. This loss of association is a key point that uncertainty turns to opportunity. This opportunity, when viewed by those in an organization outside of the team, acts as a gravity that pulls others to become involved. Similar to the lost gazelle, eyes within the organization will begin to focus like those of a lion on this project and look to lead it astray. This gravity, due to the opportunity available, compounds the complexity and adds resistance to the forward momentum of the effort.

Building Gravity

What happens when this outside interest does turn into action from others within an organization? What happens when that first person that no one knows shows up at a meeting? When this does occur, there are those that are generally good willed and looking to elevate the greater good of the team. Traditionally this is not the norm though.

Continuing along, when those outside of the team approach the opportunity created by an imbalance of capability a leading indicator of events to come can be seen as an increase of focus about the team at meetings within the organization. In some of these meetings, the RACI Matrix (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) indicators will begin to show red regarding team performance. This is the indicator where managers and aspiring leaders in the organization can begin to target the team.

These outside advancements begin to pull at the core vision of the effort. As the pull becomes a strain, tensions begin to increase as more people start to show at meetings or you lose your voice with leadership as others begin to usurp your role and strategize with them. Some outsiders may aim to pick up a stray team member or find opportunities to transition team members to their own development teams. These real efforts come to consume the project and team into their own purviews for an increased omnipresence. What started as a quick skills gap or personnel fill evolves into a reorganization effort and shift in organizational technological focus. People view this in an organization as a lion sizes up a gazelle in nature. The outcomes are roughly the same as well. In nature, it is rare to see a member outside of the pack rarely able to contribute to the overall betterment of the pack.

Addressing the Pull

Regardless of the effort, we have put in trying to prevent outside influence and a stall of the workstream, we can find ourselves here; a project without a Product Owner, a work stream with no understanding of value, or a team that is constantly on hero sprints. The stress is there. The opportunity is there. Everyone in the organization believes they can add to a turnaround, or somehow steer this to success is knocking at the door. Attila the Hun is here and we are the Romans.

The how we got here though is not an important factor. The past is the past. As the blast radius does begin to increase so do the number of people that gravitate towards this forlorn effort. The key here is early identification and understanding of the issues that will plague the effort.

Where we need to connect and communicate once these are observed is at the leadership layer. While you may have some control over the day to day efforts, leadership provides the authority to operate as well as ability to manage the team to success. Identifying and knowing the risk at hand early in time allows the ability to align for the inevitable. Doing this we are able to apply the right leverage and start making the first moves to right the ship.

Keep the Momentum

Our ability to understand and know when and what to do is, in fact, is why we as skilled members of the strategy and execution profession are here. Identifying the problem is easy. When something happens that provides opportunity, others will provide resistance regardless of their intentions. Where we need to get to is ensuring the right pieces are in place to reverse the pull of opportunity.

So what are the lessons we have picked up along the way here? What is the “Keep” from this experience?

Each role in the execution team is a key component of the whole.

  • Teams are crafted to provide complementary capabilities and responsibilities. When one of these roles are missing, the team is less effective.

Opportunity calls. Reduce intrusion through maximizing value.

  • If the team is capturing all opportunity there is less interest for those outside the team to gravitate towards it.

Leadership and vision come from the top.

  • The further away from decision-makers, the more challenging changes are to make.
Kurt S. Karpov
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