Enabling Self-Organization in your Agile Team

A self-organized Agile team is touted as the “engine” that rapidly and responsively turns product backlog items (user requests, stories, requirements, etc.) into valuable working software. This software drives results for your business and its customers. 

In practice, this team dynamic can be elusive; often thwarted by titles, hierarchy, and compensation systems that reward specialization. Here we’ll discuss the steps you can take to improve self-organization on your Agile team and advance your skills.  

What is Self-Organization? 

Scrum, Kanban, and the Agile Manifesto each make clear mention of self-organization (A.K.A. self-management) as an integral aspect of their framework, manifesto, or method.  

“Self-organization is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system” 

 A flock of geese is frequently used to illustrate some of the essential attributes of a system that is operating in a self-organizing manner.  

• Geese know where they’re going – migrations are driven by a need to find a suitable climate, sufficient food, and a place to nest. 
• Geese respond to the environment – wind, weather, and environmental factors inform the path and pace at which the flock moves. 
• The flock has a leader – the lead goose is at the forefront, reducing wind resistance and enabling the flock that follows to draft off of each other. 
• Leadership rotates – the birds take turns being in front, falling back when they get tired and allowing a new lead goose to fly to the front. 
• Structure is fluid, rather than rigid – the flock moves fluidly as they stay connected to each other and in tune with the movements needed to fly efficiently. 

The business benefits that arise from a team that is operating with a strong level of shared ownership and agency are many. These include increased innovation, employee engagement, improved product quality, and efficiency gains.  

Establishing an environment that supports and sustains this powerful team dynamic begins by understanding five key factors that amplify a team’s ability to self-organize.  

Five Factors that Enable Self-Organization 

Galvanizing goal – a clear measurable goal that is visible to all team members and stakeholders alongside the freedom to execute and deliver on that goal elevates a team’s thinking and collective actions. “Drive subscriptions by 20% in the Ontario market” or “Decrease concept-to-cash lead time to 3 months” are examples of clear goals. “Deliver these 14 requirements by the trade show” is not.  

Critical Mass – the “local interactions” that contribute to emergent order in a self-organizing team require a nucleus of at least 3 people who are exclusively focused (i.e. 80% or more allocated) on the release, goal, or product mission. Part-time team members can be part of the mix, but the core team must be able to give its full attention and energy to the task at hand. If you’re not going to invest in a core team, you might as well hire a project manager.  

Visible Scoreboard – make it clear to the team and to stakeholders what it looks like to make incremental progress and advance towards the stated goal. Customer feedback, throughput, lead time, and product adoption rates can all be featured as information radiators that are in front of the team and available to stakeholders.   

Strong Container – a designated time and/or area within which teams can plan, collaborate, and focus together is critical to self-organization. If a physical team room is available and can be a daily meeting point for the team, great! If your team is virtual, set up an obeya (Japanesese word for big room) in Miro or Mural and have the congregate in that space. Scrum teams operating in sprints have a temporal container that can enhance this vital factor.  

Freedom to Operate – granting the team the authority to make decisions (and mistakes) is vital to its ownership and agency. Managers who are used to being more involved and integral to the team’s process and decision-making may need to shift their approach and intervene less to allow the team to discover its own stability and strength. 

Yes, these enabling factors can take time and effort to establish, often requiring changes to process and management support as well as the addition of tools and other resources. While you’re working on that front, consider three steps to get your team started with self-organization. 

Three Starting Steps in Self-Organization 

1. Describe what self-organization looks like – “what will you see and hear that tells you a team is self-organizing?” is the very first question I ask an Agile team. I have them describe, in writing, the observable behaviors and other attributes that belong to a self-organizing team. People innately know what this looks like. Whether it’s a family, a sports team, or a parish- people know what it looks like. Let them tell you.  
2. Choose a single attribute & practice it – of the list generated in step #1, invite the team to choose an attribute of self-organization that would provide the most impact (consider having them dot-vote to democratize the decision-making). Then, for the subsequent 1 or 2 weeks, practice embodying that attribute. Rinse and repeat.  
3. Decompose work to drive collaboration – traditional work breakdown approaches decompose larger work ideas or initiatives into stages and deliverables that correspond to skill or specialty area (e.g. analyze, design, build, test). To keep deliverables customer-centric and culminating in working software, it’s crucial for collaboration to occur by early integration and to focus on building functionality that can be used and tested by customers.  

Embracing self-organization isn’t easy. You may encounter bumps and friction – both internal and external to the team – as you venture down the path. Yet, the payoff is tremendous and can result in huge benefits for the business, team, and customer. 

To learn more self-organization Agile team techniques, check out NextUp’s upcoming Certified ScrumMaster, Certified Scrum Product Owner, or Team Kanban Practitioner trainings!