A workshop to understand the roles, practices and factors influencing self-organization in agile teams. Ericsson’s High Performing Team Environment (HTE) network Learnathon (learning marathon), February 2015.

1. self organizing agile
teams
roles, practices, factors
Nikos Batsios, Agile Coach/ScM @ IXG, PDU Mobile Core
Ericsson’s HTE Learnathon, 4th & 5th February 2015

2. based on
• a grounded theory on “self organized agile teams”
Dr. Rashina Hoda
• a single confirmatory case study on a new agile
team, through participant observation for one year
and individual interviews - personal study

3. how agile teams organize themselves in
practice?
after the workshop it is expected that you will
better understand the various roles, practices
and factors affecting self-organization and you
might get a few insights how you could enable
self-organization

4. –Jurgen Appelo M3.0
“self-organization cannot be a best practice. it is the
default practice of any system, including teams.
but what happens, also happening in the right
direction? ”

5. –Jurgen Appelo M3.0
“command and control is a special case, our
attempt to steer self-organizing systems
towards a direction that stakeholder considered
to be valuable”

6. let’s self-organize

7. principles of self
organization
• minimum critical specification
• requisite variety
• redundancy of functions
• learning to learn

8. conditions for self
organizing capability
• autonomy
• cross fertilization
• self-transcendence

9. informal, transient, implicit, spontaneous self-
organizing roles on agile teams

10. imagine that a new agile team is formed in your
organization!
which spontaneous and informal roles (other than those
described by a specific framework) do you think that this
agile team should handle that will help them to self-
organize? which responsibilities should take care?
your view as team member, agile coach, manager matters.
(5’)

11. <mentor>
• provide initial guidance and support
• getting team confident
• encouraging continued adherence
• encouraging self-organizing practices

12. <co-ordinator>
• coordinating customer & stakeholders collaboration
• coordinating change requests
• managing customer & stakeholders expectations
• encouraging self-organizing practices

13. <translator>
• overcoming the barrier language
• using translator tools

14. <champion>
• securing senior management support
• propagating more teams

15. <promoter>
• understanding customer and stakeholders
concerns
• securing customer involvement

16. <terminator>
• identifying threatening team members
• removing members from the team

17. tips
• consider Richard Hackman’s 60-30-10 principle
• 60% of team effectiveness is related to team
design
• 30% of team effectiveness is related to team
launch
• 10% of team effectiveness is related to
continuous coaching

18. “balancing acts”
practices that enable self-organization

19. what challenges this newly agile team might face in their
journey to self-organziation? what practices could enable
self-organization?
(5’)

20. balancing freedom and
responsibility
• collective decision making (collective estimation
and planning, collective deciding team norms and
principles, self-commitment and shared
responsibility on team goals)
• self-assignment (boards, ownership)
• self-monitoring (daily meetings, information
radiators)
• clear roles responsibilities, boundaries, purpose

21. balancing cross-functionality
and specialization
• need for specialization (multiple perspectives)
• encouraging cross-functionality (group
programming, seek opportunities to work outside of
their area of expertise, shared responsibility,
rotation)

22. balancing continuous learning
and iteration pressure
• self evaluation (retrospectives, reviews)
• self-improvement (pair in need, learning spikes)

23. tips
• work on the agile mindset (goal is to learn, learn from
failures)
• a team assessment could help to identify team’s
strengths and weaknesses
• a team launch to define purpose, norms, agreements
and values will help team to set their direction
• using OKRs could help to define their measurable
goals in alignment with the organization goals

24. factors
influencing self-organization

25. which do you think are the factors in the environment
a team is operating that can influence the success
of a self-organized agile team?
(5’)

26. mangement support
• organizational “collaboration”culture that embrace feedback,
transparency, openness, trust, synergy, partnership, interaction.
such values are deemed important to achieve and sustain
responsible autonomy
• negotiating contracts
• financial sponsorship
• team stability, hiring-removing members based on their fit into
an “agile” culture
• understand the benefits of being agile for business drivers and
trigger required changes

27. customer & stakeholders
collaboration
• gathering and clarifying and prioritizing
requirements
• securing feedback
• changing mindset
• demos and e-collaboration

28. tips
• understand your culture and “tweak” it to make it
work in an agile environment
• train management, customer, stakeholders on
agile methods and the benefits of being agile
• pilot ensuring their support and involvement

29. inspiration
• Hoda, R., Noble, J., Marshall, S. Self-Organizing Roles on Agile Software Development
Teams. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), Vol. 39, Issue 3, Pages
422-444, 2013 (pdf)
• Hoda, R., Noble, J., Marshall, S. Supporting Self-organizing Agile Teams What’s Senior
Management Got to Do with It?. In A. Silitti, O. Hazzan, E. Bache, & X. Albaladejo
(Eds.), Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming (Vol. 77, pp.
73-87). SPRINGER-VERLAG BERLIN, 2011
• Hoda, R. Self-Organizing Agile Teams: A Grounded Theory. PhD Thesis ,Victoria University
of Wellington, New Zealand, 2011 [PDF]
• Agile Undercover: When Customer Don’t Collaborate. Agile Professionals Network (APN),
Auckland, August 2013 [Slides]
• High Performance Team Coaching, Peters & Carr (book)
• Objectives and Key Results (refer to Learnathon folder)

30. thank you