Team Autonomy
Each team is best placed to organise and perform its work without interference from management. Groups of teams that share dependencies are best placed to resolve potential conflicts in their work. We rely on the rigour and discipline of teams to ensure that commitments are consistently delivered.
In A Nutshell
Every right is balanced by a responsibility. If we view Team Autonomy - a type of freedom for the team - as a right, then the balancing responsibility is for the team to display the right rigour and discipline as it does its work.
“When declaring your rights, don’t forget your responsibilities.”
When leadership assumes the right to lead, the balancing responsibility is to respect, serve and protect the autonomy of teams. This responsibility constrains the interventions that leaders can make in teams and work. Leaders need to recognise these constraints and understand how to work within them.
“Rights must flow from responsibilities and responsibilities from competence and capacity”
The group development model created by Tuckman demonstrates that groups need stability and time to become a team - even more to become a high performing team. An essential part of team autonomy is to protect the stability of the team.
If autonomous teams are to be fully in control of their work, then there should be no reliance on other teams to complete some aspect of the work. This means that the team has to be fully integrated - it has to embody all of the capabilities needed to deliver its work. Deliver work from the point where requirements are defined and refined to the point where the product’s services are available for use by the customer.
We observe that the only teams who can become high performing are those that are both stable and integrated. There is a strong relationship between the behaviours that support team autonomy and the principle of high performing teams.
Customer Focus
Focus on Customer Feedback
how do we receive feedback and how do we demonstrate we are acting on it
Focus on Commitments and Capacity
the team has the absolute right to decide how to balance the commitments it makes against its capacity
Team Focus
Focus on Useful Data
Focus on Technical Capability
Focus on Problem Handling Capability
Focus on Sustainable Rate of Delivery
Focus on Team Resilience
Focus on Fostering Individual Development
Focus on Fostering Emergent Leadership
Contextual Focus
Focus on Team Stability
Focus on Team Integration
Focus on Community and Practice
Focus on Shared Culture and Principles
Supporting Principles
We validate our work and our ways of working by seeking frequent feedback from customers, leaders, and other stakeholders. We respond rapidly and transparently to requests for feedback from others. Frequent feedback gives many opportunities to adjust requirements, priorities, and ways of working to better need stakeholder needs.
High performance is the expected norm for all teams. High performance is encouraged by a culture that emphasises the importance of Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose for everyone in the organisation. High performance is manifested through the rigour and discipline of teams and individuals and through the imperative to improve continuously.
Managers are appointed. Leaders emerge. Leadership is an emergent attribute of ourselves and of the people we work with. Leaders begin to emerge as they acquire, display and share mastery over their assigned roles. The circle of leadership starts small - within a team or other peer group. As depth of mastery and the ability to share it effectively increases opportunities arise to expand the circle of leadership more widely. Leaders choose when they expand their circle of leadership.
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