Transitional States of Long Running Agile Teams

Teams that start to use agile approaches and techniques for the first time seem to experience several transition states as their approaches mature and they begin to evolve from reactionary teams into proactive teams.

Below are some of the transitional states observed in over 10 teams over a 2 year period, typically in the finance sector.

Reactionary State

When teams first start using agile for the first time it is not uncommon for them to be a little overwhelmed with learning new agile techniques, responding to customer feature requests and matching the organisation expectations with regards performance, especially if there is a belief that the teams will be higher performing now that they are using agile.

This initial state can induce sensory overload on teams who naturally fall into a reactionary mode of working as they jump from one issue to the next to meet the demands. This reactionary thinking may manifest as short term thinking of 1-2 Sprints ahead at best, practices are quite mechanical as the muscle memory builds, and tension points are experienced when things are not quite right.

In this state the Tuckman's model of forming and storming seem to rage in the team as they work through the "known knowns" and the organisation focusses on speed of delivery as the main driver for getting things done.

Attentive State

In this state the reactionary storm has passed and teams now begin to enter a period of calm and norming in the team with a consistency to their agile rhythms and their work. The backlog feels like it is under control and the known knowns have been largely delivered.

Issues are dealt with objectively and efficiently and the team work cohesively together to get things done.

The wrinkle is that most if not all of the backlog items have pretty much being done by this stage and the team are beginning to touch on an unexplored category of known unknowns. To handle this the team may have to learn new skills that augment and complement their now efficient agile skills in order to understand more about their customers and these new feature requests.

New skills and techniques such as Story Mapping, Empathy Mapping and Impact Mapping for example may begin to be used as the team try to interact more with their customers first hand and learn more about their needs and what features will resonate with them.

There may also be a marked change in the motivations of the wider organisation where previously their "why" of agile was to deliver faster, however, in this transition state the organisation may well begin to think about "value to market" as a more appropriate driver for agile.

Proactive State

Tucman's model of performing In this state there is a marked transition as the team begin to learn about how to discover the unknown unknowns with rapid prototyping, Design Sprints, and low fidelity customer testing to try multiple ideas and gain data on which of those ideas resonate strongly.

An experimental approach begins to take shape as the teams begin to get used to trying new ideas.

Organisations in this state provide a safe environment in which the teams are enabled to experiment and discover the unknown unknowns.

The strategic thinking is with an evolutionary strategic direction that is constantly refined with customer and technical feedback.

The technical stack may well focus on efficiencies with a continuous improvement on automation

This state may also entertain market disruption and develop disruptive skillsets and build the confidence necessary to author new ideas into the market.

supportive flexible

References

1. Development Sequence In Small Groups, Tuckman B. W., Psychological Bulletin, Vol 63, No. 6, 384-399, 1965