The Agile Pocket Guide: A Quick Start to Making Your Business Agile Using Scrum and Beyond

Chapter 3

Your Agile Team

Your Agile Team is successful because of the unique individuals who make up the team. These members are the heart and soul of your success. Some things to encourage your team with are the continuing autonomy and freedom you give them to do great work. This self-organization is a principle that brings the team together in unity, in that they are generalists and specialists at the same time. The team has the right to take requirements and specifications and build pieces of the total system in the way that they see fit.

There are two ways to approach managing your Agile Team: task-oriented and relation-oriented. Your success as a team Leader hinges on the help you can give to team members as they learn to relate to each other, not just on the help you provide for tasks you assign. The amount of support you give your team and the communication methods you use are just as crucial to your team's success as improving the lack of collaboration and feedback that they probably endure in a non-Agile environment. One of the most important but often forgotten steps is the need to actively listen to your team. As a Leader, you should plan to learn from your team, and one of the best ways to learn is to listen to what they have to say. The best teams are small in size, five to nine cross-functional members work together like a charm!

Teams organize work and tasks among themselves using the following qualities and/or skills:

• Accountability: Team members are held accountable ...