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Agile development and project management have popularized the usage of self-organizing teams. But what exactly is a self-organizing team? And how can self-organized teams benefit Project Delivery? As an Agile Practitioner, it’s essential to know how self-organized teams can boost productivity by following the latest Agile framework like Scrum. 

First, let’s break down how the Scrum Team and other Agile teams are self-organizing and collaborating to reach the end Product Goal. This article will highlight the top 7 reasons for having self-organizing teams in today’s Agile project management.

1. Autonomy To Follow The Product Roadmap

Self-organizing teams have the autonomy to follow the Product Vision and decide how they plan to work together to meet the deadlines. The self-organizing teams take ownership of the Product Roadmap and ensure high development productivity. The team members participate in the decision-making process and ultimately get the work done as per stakeholder expectations.

2. Extreme Agility

Agility is the state of doing Agile, which means following the Agile methods. Today project management methodology is fast-changing with various Agile practices. Following the current trends, the self-organized team acts as an Agile Leader. Especially the Product Owner, who provides self-organized teams with Agile Training and Coaching. Thus the teams become capable of adapting extreme agility to concentrate on critical development tasks. The self-organizing teams follow the Product Strategy to complete the Definition of Done before the deadline.

3. Increased Customer Focus & Delivery Quality

Self-organized Agile teams are not dependent on the manager. Instead, each team member has dedicated User Stories and  Product Backlog Item (PBI) to work on. The self-organizing teams focus on what the Scrum Master assigns them to do as their Sprint Goal. The self-organizing teams tend to focus on introducing advanced features based on the stakeholders’ feedback. The Developers first understand what the customer wants and then work responsibly to deliver the final product. Thus the self-organizing teams have higher success rates by satisfying the customers’ needs.

4. Easy Team Management

In Scrum, it’s the Scrum Master who conducts Daily Scrum to assign work items to the team members. The Certified Scrum Master decides the team capacity, calculates the cost of working resources, and checks the status of active work items in each Sprint. As a result, the manager doesn’t have to manage the activities of the self-organized teams. Instead, the Scrum Team manages the team activities while the team members are solely responsible for completing the assigned activities within the given timeline. 

5. Common Product Goal

Unlike traditionally managed teams, self-organized teams work on the same Product Goal.  At the beginning of a Sprint, the Certified Scrum Product Owner explains the Product Vision to the teams. The Business Analyst builds Story Points after a thorough technical analysis. Next, the Developers get individual Product Backlog Item (PBI) to develop User Stories. In the end, everyone works with a common aim under the supervision of the Scrum Team and Project Manager. 

6. Increased Employee Satisfaction

It’s a fact that self-organizing teams have equal visibility on the overall project’s progress. Every team member has an equivalent workload in each Sprint. As the team capacity planning happens in each Sprint, the team members get to work at their own pace. Naturally, the self-organizing team members work collaboratively by establishing smooth communication. It offers increased employee satisfaction as well as increased team productivity.

7. Team Ownership Development

The self-organizing teams in Scrum are cross-functional. They follow the Agile framework to create higher value each Sprint. As the Scrum Team internally decides the developers' and testers' responsibilities, the team members take ownership to complete individual activities. The team members also participate in Scrum Training and Workshop to learn the best practices in Agile project management. As a result, the self-organizing teams keep upscaling their Agile knowledge while fulfilling all work responsibilities.

The Role Of Managers:

The Project Manager’s responsibility is to develop self-organizing teams by selecting the right professionals for each team. Now you know the reason for building self-organizing teams, you need to know the role of the Project Manager in the direction of the project’s ultimate success. Here are the top responsibilities:

• Confirm the Product Goal from the Product Owner.
• Clarifying the Product Vision to develop a unique Product Strategy.
• Facilitate effective team collaboration with Scrum.
• Remove predictable obstacles during Project Activity Planning.

Ideally, the project manager acts as the Agile Leader of all self-organizing teams.

Conclusion

How To Help Self-Organized Teams To Succeed

It’s not about throwing a group of professionals together to form self-organized teams. As an Agile Practitioner, you need to follow the below tips to drive the self-organized teams toward the Product Goal:

• Provide consistent Agile Training to help them adapt to the Agile framework.
• Coach and mentor the initial Sprint Planning to improve team collaboration and communication.
• Create an easy-to-follow Product Roadmap for the teams to follow.

You can build self-organizing teams and improve production speed with the right approach. It will help the project succeed faster, satisfying all customer demands.

Reference

1. https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/about-self-organizing-teams