7 Habits Of Highly-Effective Teams
Introduction
Anyone familiar with the self-help book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens? Well, I hope I don’t get sued for copyright infringement in this post as we explore what makes for a successful development team.
Openness
Honestly, it’s a red flag if a company doesn’t list “Open” as one of their core company values. Some people find it crazy to speak up when they don’t think something is being done right, but I’m of a completely different mindset. If you don’t speak up and be honest about various things, then it’ll never change, right? Might as well try to be the voice of reason to spur such change.
Ownership
Every team member should be accountable not only for the work they’re doing, but anything they think can be improved as well. If there’s an opportunity to optimize something, go for it. Everything will still run through the proper peer review paradigm, but allowing for more enablement of developers goes a long way for everyone involved.
Idea Sharing
Team demos and KTs should be a regular practice. This helps put everyone on equal footing in regards to one another. Self-sufficiency goes hand in hand with the ownership point above as well as making team members more open. Funny how it all comes full circle, isn’t it?
Recognition
The contributions that team members make should never go unnoticed. Celebrating each other’s achievements bring an overall better aura to the team. A better aura will lead to stronger output over time (I’m no statistician but I feel like there has to be some correlation here).
Whether it’s in your sprint retrospective or a company’s recognition tool, make it a point to brag about your teammates. It can only help you down the line.
Understanding Impact
It’s important that team members are a part of the meetings with various collaborators and stakeholders when it comes to defining new epics and initiatives. The team can offer their own take and prioritize the work accordingly. Knowing the impact of your work makes the team grow a lot more naturally than simply putting your head down and trudging along.
Unity
It’s still possible to be isolated despite being on a team if the work is segmented as such. Teammates should be encouraged to work alongside each other and play off each other’s strengths not only to drive home the most value but to grow each other as well. Repeat this process over and over again and the other values, most notably ownership, will start to come naturally.
Flexibility
This might be shocking to some, but things don’t always go according to plan. Perhaps a solution to a problem won’t go exactly as planned, or something just comes up out of the blue. These things happen all the time, and good team members will be able to take a deep breath and go with the flow. Adaptivity has to (sometimes unfortunately) be a normal part of the day to day work.
Conclusion
Hitting on the seven values above makes for a stronger team, regardless of the skillset of the team members themselves. Creating a tight-knit and proper culture will do wonders.
