Topic: high-performance teams

Agile 2009: A reminder of why each team needs leadership

Throw the book out! Last week I presented at Agile 2009 a workshop for those new to Agile entitled: The Agile Game: An Experiential Workshop. I love this workshop because it allows those new to Agile to experience the rhythm of an agile project in action and learn first hand many of the practices in a non-threatening, non-technical, and fun way. I have used this workshop for clients a number of times and it works. The feedback from this session was overwhelmingly positive too. Comments such as, “Fun game, good to demonstrate how teams do and don’t work together” and “Very, very, practical way to get concept through” are always great to see.

Recently I had been wondering if Project Management was a questionable career choice. I have spent the last couple of years surrounded by talented individuals who seemed to be able to work fine without me. The test is always when the project manager (me) goes on vacation. Has the team fallen apart? Are they forgetting all of the practices they were doing? Is stuff getting delivered to clients? I was finding that I had a backlog of chores when I came back, but overall things were still humming along.

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Building a High Performance Agile Team: Assume You Will Be a One Hit Wonder

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One thing about agile teams is that they constantly strive to get better. In my experience an Agile team takes 2-4 iterations to work through the forming stage. By iteration 10 or so the team is past forming and storming and is well into norming. At this stage the team is often moving fast enough or better than expected for the business’ needs. Now the team faces a dilemma: How to become a high performance team and why.

If you don’t keep improving and innovating your competitors will.  However, there is another reason to keep improving that is often missed.  The current success might be temporary or an anomaly.

Don’t fall into the trap of a one hit wonder.

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