Ok, strap in for a good one. There’s a lot here, but I think it is important that we take a step back so that we understand why we are focusing on teams. I won’t be able to address everything related to the topic, but I’m hoping you will get enough to whet your appetite and understand what we are trying to do.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
—H.L. Mencken, journalist, writer (1880–1956)
Before we talk about the Team as it relates to the project key, let’s look at the theory behind teams. Our work is complex. By complex I mean, it is predictable with a lot of surprises. We will look to Complexity Science for some answers.
I believe we have three main goals with our work:
- Deliver value
- Innovate where possible
- Delight our customers
The problem is that it is difficult to do any of them unless we are in a safe environment with all the resources needed to accomplish the work.
Management 3.0 guru Jurgen Appelo says this about how we deal with complexity:
“Our minds are wired to favor what I call “linear thinking” (assuming predictability in cause and effect) over “nonlinear thinking” (assuming things are more complex than that.) We are accustomed to stories being told linearly, from start to finish. School taught us linear equations and largely ignored the much more ubiquitous nonlinear equations simply because they’re too hard to solve.”
So even though we know that our work is complex, we want to simplify it and pretend that it is predictable. The truth is that it is not completely predictable. If it was, machines would be doing all our jobs. So what do we do? How do we handle complexity? You use complexity to fend off complexity. Put by another smart guy named William Ross Ashby, “Only variety can absorb variety.”
So the trick is using complexity to deal with the unpredictability that is inherent in the work we do. How do we do that though? Complexity theory suggests it is with a Complex Adaptive System (CAS). Stick with me here…I promise not to nerd out too much. A CAS is a complex, self-similar collection of interacting adaptive agents. CASs are made up of parts that make up a system that show complex behavior while adapting to a changing environment. More info from Michael J. Mauboussin (full article here: http://hbr.org/2011/09/embracing-complexity/ar/1):
A canonical example of a complex adaptive system is an ant colony. Each individual ant has a decision role: Am I foraging? Am I doing midden work? Each one also interacts with the other ants. A lot of that is local interaction. What emerges from their behavior is an ant colony.
If you examine the colony on the colony level, forgetting about the individual ants, it appears to have the characteristics of an organism. It’s robust. It’s adaptive. It has a life cycle. But the individual ant is working with local information and local interaction. It has no sense of the global system. And you can’t understand the system by looking at the behavior of individual ants. That’s the essence of a complex adaptive system—and the thing that’s so vexing. Emergence disguises cause and effect. We don’t really know what’s going on.
Why is an ant colony the first example you think of?
Complex adaptive systems are one of nature’s big solutions, so biology is full of great examples. Ant colonies are solving very complicated, very challenging problems with no leadership, no strategic plan, no Congress.
Once you’re aware of how the structure works, though, you’ll see these systems everywhere—the city of Boston, the neurons in your brain, the cells in your immune system, the stock market. The basic features—heterogeneous agents, interaction, and an emergent global system—are consistent across domains.
Hmmm…what construct do we have in MSIS that is made up of variety of parts making up a system that shows complex behavior while adapting to a changing environment. I submit to you that the Team does all of those things. You are fighting complexity with complexity with people/brains (heterogeneous agents), making decisions (adapting), and where decisions evolve over time as more is learned (emerging). The Team.
Hopefully you’re still with me. Let’s move on to roles.
Roles on a Team
“First and foremost, Agile recognizes that people are unique individuals instead of replaceable resources and that their highest value is not in their heads but in their interactions and collaboration. Agile calls for small teams where different roles (developers, designers, testers, and so on) form cross-functional units, preferably colocated (located in the same room). These teams are then required to self-organize, meaning that no method or process is imposed on them. They are trusted to get the work done in ways that they think are best, assuming that they know how to do that, with accountability for their results.”
Jurgen Appelo
We have chosen the word Team very carefully here. Think about teams in the sense that most of us think of teams…sports. Start with football. What is the makeup of the team? Besides the obvious offensive and defensive players, you have people that have domain expertise. On the offensive side you have guys that are supposed to be fast, run crisp routes, and catch anything they can touch. You have offensive linemen who learn to block in many different ways to protect the quarterback. They are usually monsters in size as compared to the wide receiver. Running backs and full backs are usually not the tallest guys on the field. They have tree trunks for legs and either bulldoze ahead looking for openings the offensive line makes for them or they dart left and right looking for open daylight. Different functions all working together to move the ball down the field. Let’s look at basketball.
We have a Center who is usually the tallest on the team. They hang out under or near the basket looking for rebounds or they get fed the ball for close shots. You have guards who are usually the shortest on the court. They have the best dribbling skills and move the ball around well. They typically can shoot well too. Forwards have a mix of skills, can shoot, pass, and dribble well. Again, different strengths all working together to get the job done.
Hockey, volleyball, water polo, baseball, and so on have the similar ideas. There are people that have more knowledge/skill in certain areas, but collectively they have what the team needs to do the work.
This isn’t just for sports teams. Quiz Bowl teams would be lousy if they just had people that were good at history. Cheer teams would collapse if you didn’t have a couple burly cheerleaders to form the base of the pyramid.
In the military, squads are broken up into “teams” of people with expertise that is needed to accomplish the mission.
From wikipedia: The creation of effective fireteams is seen as essential for creating an effective professional military as they serve as a primary group. Psychological studies by the United States Army have indicated that the willingness to fight is more heavily influenced by the desire to avoid failing to support other members of the fireteam than by abstract concepts. Historically, nations with effective fireteam organization have had significantly better performance from their infantry units in combat than those limited to operations by larger units.
Now at the risk of firing up too much testosterone in the fellas, here’s a little bit about the makeup of a typical fireteam.
According to US Army Field Manual 3-21.8 (Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad, formerly FM 7-8) a typical United States Army fireteam consists of four soldiers:
- Team Leader: Provides tactical leadership for the team at all times with a "Do As I Do" attitude. A team leader is equipped with either an M16 rifle or a M4 carbine, and holds the rank of Sergeant or Corporal, although occasionally a team is led by a Specialist or Private First Class.
- Rifleman: Is the baseline standard for all Infantrymen'. They are equipped with the M16 rifle or M4 carbine. The rifleman is usually assigned with the grenadier to help balance the firepower capabilities of the automatic rifleman.
- Grenadier: Provides limited high-angle fire over 'dead space'. A grenadier is equipped with an M4/M16 with the M203 grenade launcher (or newer M320 grenade launcher) mounted to the weapon.
- Automatic Rifleman: Provides suppressive fire, and is the most casualty producing person in a fireteam. An automatic rifleman is equipped with M249 Squad Automatic Weapon.
You can see that each person has a role. They may be able to find success by themselves, or with others with similar capabilities, but the real power is in the fact that they have all the roles that they need to get the job done. They have a guy with a big machine gun, a guy that can make things go boom, and some guys that have a little more of a surgical strike capability.
Even the A-Team show proved that every team needs a planner/leader (Hannibal), the brawn (Mr. T), the smooth ladies man (Face), and the crazy guy who flies planes (“Howling Mad” Murdock).
Being a self contained team with all the necessary roles to accomplish the task is ideal. Camaraderie and dependence on each other is powerful. A team that locks arms and goes into the battle/project together has a greater chance of success than a group of disparate folks that aren’t invested with each other.
Team Size
Studies vary on what the optimal team size is. It’s generally accepted that somewhere between 5 and 12 people is optimal. I’ve heard 7 plus or minus 2. The point is you want enough diversity and domain knowledge on the team to get the project done.
I think we can all agree that one person is not a team. A basketball team with only one person would be tough. Baseball with just a pitcher may survive on defense if you had an ace, but my guess is you wouldn’t score much. Can you consider two people a team? Well, maybe.
I consider my wife and I a team. We work on stuff together consistently. We work in a complex environment. We have some diversity in our thinking. It seems to hold up. However, consider what happens when my wife is sick. I’ll fill in the gap for you. The house comes to a screeching halt. Why? Well, with her out of commission, I am left to fend for myself. I have to make all the family related decisions myself and do all the housework based on what I know. What does that mean? Well, typically it means that my kids don’t get clean clothes, healthy food, or guidance to make sure their homework gets done. I guess I could just sit on the couch and not do anything until she gets better, but that seems like waste.
What’s the solution? Backup wife. Well, that’s probably not going to fly, but think about what happens on typical projects. People get sick, they take vacation, they get interrupted. If your teammate is not around you absorb the risk, may become blocked, potentially leave some good ideas on the table, fight the complexity alone, and deal with many other problems alone. You also become the single barrier between yourself and potential failure. Not the safest situation. (See http://www.industriallogic.com/blog/anzeneering/ for more on safety in IT.)
Teams are important. They help us fight the complexity that is present whether we want to acknowledge it or not. So what does all this mean for us? It means that where possible we should form teams with all the roles necessary to deliver our project work. Our definition of team is consistent with research and the reasoning above. For us a team is 3 or more people working together consistently to achieve a goal.
How does this relate to the Project Key? Well, that part is easy. It is simply that you should know who your team is and what roles each person is playing.
For fun I’ve included some nifty team quotes for you.
“The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime.”
Babe Ruth
“Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”
Vince Lombardi
“I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.”
Mia Hamm
“I’m not asking you for ten, twenty, thirty million dollars. I'm just asking for a little bit of help. Just get me a little bit closer and I will get you that championship team. I mean, this is why I'm here. This is why you hired me. And I gotta ask you what are we doin' here?”
Billy Beane
If you’re interested in reading more, Jurgen Appelo’s book Management 3.0 is a great read and an excellent resource.
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