InfoQ Homepage Self-organizing Team Content on InfoQ
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How to Improve Software Team Performance with Experimentation
According to Terhi Aho, experimentation is a way of thinking that guides action. By experimenting we can develop ways of working without a major change process. It can help software teams to solve problems in small steps, relieve their workload, and foster self-management.
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Fostering High-performing Work Environments for Software Development
According to Eb Ikonne, leaders should provide a motivating challenge or mission so that the software engineering team understands what success looks like. They can provide an enabling structure for effective teamwork, address things that negatively impact team success, and reduce or remove friction. Coaching can help people discover how to work effectively together.
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Why Stable Software Teams Aren't Always Best: Self-Selection Reteaming at Redgate
There are advantages to having the same group of people stay together, especially in achieving a time-bound software development project. However, in a world where we increasingly see product or stream-aligned teams who own long-living software from creation through to delivery, operation, and ongoing improvements, then optimising for very stable teams is not the best idea, Chris Smith argues.
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Creating Great Psychologically Safe Teams with Sandy Mamoli
Sandy Mamoli, author and coach at Nomad8, recently appeared on the No Nonsense Agile Podcast to discuss her experience in creating safe, high-performing and self-selected teams. Keith Ferrazzi, author of Competing in the New World of Work, also recently wrote about his experience with using empowering social contracts to cultivate great teams. Both emphasized safety and candour.
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Establishing Autonomy and Responsibility with Networks of Teams
Working in outdated ways causes people to quit their work. Pim de Morree suggests structuring organizations into networks of autonomous teams and creating meaningful work through a clear purpose and direction. According to him, we can work better, be more successful, and have more fun at the same time.
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Scaling Software Architecture via Conversations: the Advice Process
Andrew Harmel-Law recently published an article describing a decentralised, scalable software architecture process based on the "Advice Process". The Advice Process promotes software architecture by encouraging a series of conversations driven by an empowering, almost anarchistic, decision-making technique. It comprises one rule - anyone can make an architectural decision.
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Shifting to Asynchronous Communication in Software Teams
As some companies begin to go back to the office and embrace hybrid working, they are at risk of alienating those who wish to remain remote, which is looking to be a considerable number of workers in our industry. James Stanier suggests using more asynchronous means of communication and spending more time writing to each other rather than speaking in meetings.
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Manuel Pais on Team Topologies during COVID-19
Manuel Pais, co-author of Team Topologies, recently spoke alongside leaders of Capra Consulting who have used the topologies to move from hierarchical structures to empowered teams. We report on the journey and speak to Pais about team topologies in the context of COVID-19.
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Paving the Road to Production at Coinbase: QCon Plus Q&A
As Coinbase scaled both their number of engineers and customers, they needed more projects, faster iteration, and more control over their growing infrastructure. In developing their in-house deployment tool by looking at what developers were doing and trying to help them, they created a culture of self-service.
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Product Owner Is a Bad Bad Idea
The question of whether the product owner role is good or not clearly depends on a lot of factors, including team maturity, organisational maturity, organisational type, organisational complexity, and the product owner themselves. Some thought leaders are challenging the function of the role especially in these VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) times.
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Optimizing for Speed with Continuous Organizational Transformation
A rapidly scaling company needs different structures at different sizes. You’re continuously reinventing yourself as your company grows by iterating on structures, processes, and roles. Continuous learning is critical for organizational transformations to succeed and it requires a high level of organizational agility.
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How to Supercharge a Team with Delegation: QCon London Q&A
Delegating work can result in getting it done better and faster; it increases team autonomy and creates opportunities for learning. Delegation is a continuum: it begins by doing a task yourself and ends by having somebody else take on that task. James Stanier, VP of engineering at Brandwatch, spoke about delegating to self-organizing teams at QCon London 2020.
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Trust in High Performing Teams: QCon London Q&A
High-performing teams flourish in a culture of trust and safety. It’s important that trust come both from within and outside of the team, in order to avoid isolating teams from their stakeholders. Stephen Janaway shared his experience with trust in high performing teams at Qcon London 2020.
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How Leaders Can Foster High-Performing Teams
A leader can act as a coach, provide opportunities for ownership, and find out what motivates people to foster high performing teams. It also helps teams if leaders have powerful and meaningful conversations with team members and give vocal feedback face to face to team members.
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Collaborative Decision-Making in Self-Organizing Teams
Giving people the opportunity to express their full potential in self-organizing teams is the best way to make an organization thrive today, argued Lorenzo Massacci. At Agile Business Day 2019, he presented how teams that organize themselves can continuously make decisions effectively and efficiently.