“Knowledge workers have to manage themselves.
They have to have autonomy”, leadership guru Peter Drucker states in his Management
Challenges for the 21st Century.
So what is a self-organizing team? In many situations teams
will be comprised of a group of people working together but not really dependent
on what the others do to complete their individual tasks. Teams
should have four main qualities:
- Collaborative tasks to fulfill a defined mission. Tying it to the overall vision, mission and strategy.
- Clear boundaries in terms of information flow and alignment with other organizational teams, resources or decision-making policies. Roles, responsibilities and interfaces must to be defined.
- Authority to self-manage within these boundaries. Must adhere to the overall organizational governance.
- Stability over some defined period of time. Possibly defined in a project lifecycle or some other overarching documentation.
In addition to these
qualities,
five essentials of self-organizing teams are:
- Competency: Individuals need to be competent for the job at hand. This will result in confidence in their work and will eliminate the need for direction from above.
- Collaboration: They should work as a team rather than as a group of individuals. Teamwork is encouraged.
- Motivation: Team motivation is the key to success. Team members should be focused and interested in their work.
- Trust and respect: Team members trust and respect each other. They believe in collective ownership and are ready to go the extra mile to help each other resolve issues.
- Continuity: The team should be together for a reasonable duration; changing its composition every now and then doesn't help. Continuity is essential for the team.
Self-organization is not just
about the whole team. Each
team member will need to self-organize and figure out what to
do and how to do it. Every day, everyone on the team has to coordinate their self-organization
with the rest of the team. This is normally accomplished through daily meetings
such as the “Daily Standup”.
These teams are not out there on their own, operating
in a bubble or silo. Their efforts must be coordinated with other
self-organizing teams. As all teams, self-organizing teams must produce a
product or service that creates value for the organization and its customers.
They are accountable to make their progress visible, and work within the
governance of the organization.
References:
- Peter Drucker
- Sigi Kalternecker & Peter Hundermark
- Nitin Mittal (Infosys)
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