Do you enjoy Self-Organizing team?

December 26, 2007 by sureshkrishna

There days many organizations practicing Agile processes are expecting team members to be multi-talented and be able to work in variety of situations. More frequently we hear the terms like "Self-Organizing" or "Self-Managing" teams in the Scrum world.

In the software development we have learned that the software is becoming more and more complex as the variables technology and requirements change (thus the upfront planning has become famous). In the traditional project management, the project manager used to take the responsibility of the Risks, Complexity, Deadlines, Release Plan, Testing, Documentation and etc... On the contrary the self-organized team is set of individuals with different skills and mostly complementing each other. This team is organized and re-organized depending on the project pressure, schedules and deadlines. This team wears different hats depending on the situation. This team works on a simple rule that "Tell me what to do; But not How to do" and sometimes even the baby steps.

The team knows how much work can be done in a specific sprint. Nothing is as de-motivating as someone else commiting on your behalf. Its very encouraging to fulfill the responsibilities that you have committed to. Teams can be cross-functional and to such an extent that a developer might do testing when there is a crunch on the testing resources. He might even help a sales engineer to train the customer and make a POC. Every team member works towards a useful or tangible task for a day. This reflects in everyday scrum meeting by the three self-organized questions

• What did i accomplish from yesterday morning
• What do i want to achieve till tomorrow
• Are there any stumbling blocks for my work

Self-organizing teams are definitely different from the conventional Manager Managed teams; but its a definitely wonderful tool for greater productivity and a fresh breath of air for many.

I am sure many of us would have definitely had great experiences in working with Self-organizing teams. Do you enjoy working in a self-organizing team ?

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