How did this team adapt to Agility so quickly?

It was their 3rd two-week Sprint and they were reflecting on the deliverables they completed sooner than expected and then cohesively and comprehensively planned the next two weeks’ work. This plan gave their team lead confidence in their delivery and trust that it prioritised the most valuable outcomes for the business. And they did that planning in 20 mins.

So how did this team implement an Agility framework and have it work so well in less than two months? The short answer is that they fully embraced it, but let’s look at this team in a little more detail to understand their success. 

They had a coach

Since I’m writing an article about the success of a team I coached, we don’t want any proverbial smoke blowing; however, having a coach as a source of knowledge and experience helps establish a new way of working more effectively. Picking up a new recipe isn’t the only ingredient to a masterful meal; an experienced chef can guide a new crew through the kitchen.

Bringing someone into the team with Agile knowledge is an excellent way to achieve Agility quickly, and an experienced Scrum Master will facilitate and coach. Hence, they are in high demand, and this team has a great Scrum Master.

Desire and Self-Aware

Knowledge alone is not the only element for a team’s successful transformation to greater Agility. The desire to change needs to be there for change to happen, and that desire also needs to match the team’s ability to be self-aware. If they desire to be in a different state, they must also be willing to reflect on where they are now to understand their journey ahead. 

People and teams often find change difficult because they may fear self-reflection and consider themselves ahead of where they are, making the journey longer than expected. 

That journey is a backlog of changes, and being self-aware of where you’ve come from and where you are now, will make it much easier to plan for where they’re going.

Transparency, Honesty with Compassion

Changing how we work is enormous. It impacts our day-to-day working life, affecting a significant part of our lives. That may seem self-evident, but I say it because it is a statement we should not take for granted.

This team was able to raise and talk through any of the knowledge gaps they found while getting up to speed. They learned faster by creating an environment that made them fearless to put their hand up and acknowledge what they did not know or understand. That transparency also meant they found it easier to work through the parts of implementing Scrum that felt abnormal relating to their work.

People that embrace being transparent and honest with each other will see a change made faster. However, teams that can do that with compassion will also have a positive experience in the transition and therefore be more confident that the change will stick. 

Foundational Training

Having a coach or experienced Scrum Master helps bring knowledge to the team. However, establishing a good foundational understanding through group training is essential to set the squad on the right foot. 

The team was self-awareness enough to realise very early in their journey that they were “doing Agile” rather than “being Agile” during Sprint Review. Every team eventually becomes aware of this, but I had never seen it happen so early. 

They had the instruction manual for the Scrum framework, but for that realisation to happen, they needed to know what that statement of “being Agile” meant. That was only possible by having the foundational training upfront. 

However, Foundational Agile training is still beneficial at any point in a team’s journey. You never know when that penny-dropping moment will come while filling in the gaps.

Team Establishment

Straight after the foundation training, this team set aside an entire day to establish themselves via a team kickoff workshop. This workshop allowed time for the team to choose an Agile framework that suited them and their work and set the recurring events in place. They also decided on the group’s roles, clarified their high-level road map, defined a social contract, and gave themselves a name. 

By setting this time aside, they knew how they would work together and what they would work on, specifically, and they had established a cadence to achieve their goals. One of the most significant benefits is also simply connecting as people.

Define their mission

Everything we’ve established above is “how” the team would work, but the final piece to this team’s success was that they also had clarity on “what” and “why”. 

This team implemented Scrum because it was a tool they needed to do the job, but having a clear mission statement was what guided their decision-making. Clarity on what you’re doing and why you’re doing it will steer any team in the right direction.