Journey to Full Stack delivery teams.

Episode 2 : Our Options, first approach and why this didn’t work

Episode 1 Summary:

Episode 1 describes how we started with a mix of component teams, why we wanted move to full-stack teams and the initial approach we were taking; now I’ll tell you why this approach didn’t work

As mentioned in my previous article, we had decided to go more for a conversation approach with people rather than a big get together and run a self-selection event.

So that didn't work, but thats OK! It’s ok to fail and then try something different.

The feedback

After the meeting and over the next 3–4 weeks, we started to get the following feedback.

• We hadn’t made it clear earlier on that this would be brand new teams so it may have come across as people just had to join an existing team with existing process and so on.
• People felt there hadn’t been enough transparency; we thought there had but even if we had been as upfront and honest about everything as long as there was a feeling that people hadn’t been told things then this part had failed!
• Some feedback was that people were being nudged (not pushed but a gentle nudge) to choose an area, even if people didn’t think this personally if they believed someone else was being nudged then this would still evoke feelings of dictating where people go.
• It hadn’t been a big group decision where everyone had been able to chat with each other openly together and decide as a group apart from that initial session
• Not clear enough on the why, this needs to be done very well no matter what how you communicate anyway.
• Worries about timelines, people were busy finishing projects off and felt they were going to be rushed into moving.

Main learnings and what we needed to do differently

• Next time it will be “Creating new teams” right at the start and that teams will set themselves up with ways of working sessions as a new group.
• Run this as a Self-selection day/half-day (more on that in the next episode)
• Explain in more detail why we are doing it, both the short term and the long term. Start with Why
• Be very clear this won’t be easy, and it won’t be perfect, reflect on the why and get feedback on any long term issues with a plan to work through them where possible.
• Make sure everyone realises that we will consider current projects rather than just picking a date and sticking to it, any timelines are aims rather than must-have dates.

So whats next?

We decided to do what we talked about and should have done from the very start, run a proper self-selection event, myself and the lead scrum master chose to work together to cover all the angles and do this event right!