How To Build A Self-Organizing Agile Team: Complete Guide

Introduction to Self Organizing Team

A self organizing team is a group of individuals who collectively take ownership of goals, decisions, and processes. They collaborate, share responsibilities and adapt to changing circumstances without external direction. In order for the teams to self-organize, the external environment should enable them to experience autonomy to decide, collective ownership to dissolve siloed working, shared decision-making to respect everyone’s opinion, develop cross-functional skills and competency for building effective solutions and a mindset to continuously improve.

The benefits are endless if we attain such a state. We have observed, in our capacity as an agile transformation services firm, that the agile self organizing teams show maximum tendency to innovate. They develop the ability to think outside of the box. They are aligned to the end-goal and collaborate through each step of the process from identifying the problem to creating solutions that last and satisfy customer needs. Team effectiveness is usually measured on the scale of productivity and in case of self organizing teams, we have observed that the productivity is relatively higher and we believe the key reason for this is their ability to make better decisions and provide greater job satisfaction.

There are a lot of popular Frameworks that promote such traits like Scrum, Kanban, Lean approaches and various others that fall under the Agile umbrella. Promoting, sustaining and scaling agile self organizing teams is a big factor in a successful agile transformation journey.

What is a Self Organizing Team in Scrum?

In Scrum, a Self Organizing Team is a cross-functional group of 10 or few members who collectively take ownership of goals, decisions and processes. There are 3 focused roles – One Product Owner, One Scrum Master and Developers. This group of people are self managing which gives them autonomy to decide who does what, when and How.

An Agile self organizing team assumes comprehensive responsibility for all product-related activities, encompassing stakeholder collaboration, requirements verification, maintenance, operations, experimentation, research and development.

Empowered by the organization, the agile self organizing teams self manage their work, ensuring adaptability and responsiveness to changing priorities. By working in focused Sprints at a sustainable pace, the Scrum Team achieves enhanced concentration on priorities, improved consistency in delivery and increased productivity and efficiency. This structured approach enables the team to thrive, drive innovation, and deliver high-quality products that meet stakeholder expectations.

Why are Self Organizing Teams Needed?

In organizations who are looking to be future-ready we suggest they start cultivating the traits to develop self organizing teams instead of an indispensable layer of people, process, practices and other governance structures. The key benefits of self organising teams are as follows –

1. It fosters a culture of innovation and resilience to develop adaptability
2. Cross-functional trait improves productivity and efficiency
3. Close collaboration enhances employee engagement and satisfaction
4. Shared decision making increases accountability and ownership
5. Flat structure reduces bureaucracy and decision-making latency
6. Shared ownership of goals enables faster response to change and uncertainty
7. Autonomous mindset and self-sufficiency drives continuous learning and improvement

How to Build Self Organizing Teams?

To build something, one needs to break that barrier which is creating hindrance in its pursuit. We have observed that trust is the most important aspect without which aspiring for inculcating a self organizing culture in the organization is a utopian idea. This is followed next by the ability to resolve mutual conflicts. The bias that forces people to defend their turf even when they are wrong and a lack of integrity adds load on other members in the team and makes the overall culture heavy and lacking accountability and ownership. It is important that the teams should collectively decide, stay accountable and stay away from command and control, this doesn’t occur from outside of the team. The teams are the main drivers of a self organizing culture within the organization, which should be encouraged and enabled by the top leadership.

Traditional Team Vs Self Organizing Team

Self Organized Teams in Agile – An Example

Let’s take an example of the importance of a self organized team in agile from one of our agile transformation journeys as an agile consulting firm. Team Maurya, a software development team at one of our client’s places, was tasked with delivering a critical project within tight deadlines. They met a typical challenge that traditional teams usually face in terms of requirements clarity, insufficient resources and stringent deadlines.

We did a two day session with the team on the fundamentals of agile and felt that a lack of self organizing culture was a major roadblock for the teams to adopt agile ways of working and leverage agility. We decided to pivot our approach to coach them on the fly.

We did a quick session on building the norms for the team. Few we marked as non-negotiable and here are some of them –

1. No work will be assigned to anyone and everyone has to pull the work i.e. team members to take collective ownership of the project goals.
2. The order of priority will be mutually agreed based on incremental solutions and we need not to context-switch. In exceptional circumstances, 2 tickets max.
3. If we do not know something, then we will add tickets to learn and factor that in our estimations. Managers in due-time arrange for external mentors or trainers to guide. i.e. cross-functional skills were leveraged.
4. For all decisions, there are members who will be for and against. Hence, decision-making was distributed among team members.

We knew that it is good to bring the agreement but the real challenge is putting them in action. So, we took certain steps –

1. We asked team members to voluntarily form sub-groups to tackle specific tasks.
2. A developer and QA engineer paired up to resolve testing bottlenecks.
3. The team lead facilitated open discussions on progress and roadblocks.
4. Also, the team lead wasn’t supposed to ‘answer’ till he questioned everyone so that the juniors could have their say in problem solving and decision making.

And like this many other changes were introduced. In a few weeks we started seeing the impact on the results –

1. Project delivered on time with high quality solutions and for a few lower priority work we managed to negotiate with sponsors
2. Team members developed new skills and felt more confident to extend support to each other
3. We had a retrospective after the final release and saw a spike in trust vote and team appreciating each other and also the external support.

How Should a Self Organizing Team Work?

Self Organizing Teams thrive through collective ownership, open communication and distributed decision making. If you have ever participated in ‘The Marshmallow’ activity then you may know that in this challenge, the team must build a freestanding structure using limited materials (straws, tape, and paper) to support a marshmallow.

Teams build a structure to support a marshmallow, leveraging cross-functional skills and adapting quickly. No single leader dictates; instead, members collaborate, share ideas and learn from failures. For instance, one member might focus on structural integrity while another concentrates on stability. By working together, they create a resilient structure that supports the marshmallow, demonstrating the power of self organization in action.

Importance of Self Organizing Teams in Agile

Self Organising Teams are pivotal to Agile success, driving productivity, innovation and employee satisfaction. To support this statement, let us share the insights from the published survey results and reports by various known bodies who are actively observing the functioning of agile ways of working on the benefits of having agile self organizing teams.

Sources on benefits on self organizing team	Insights
15th State of Agile Report (2022)	71% of respondents cited self-organizing teams as critical to Agile adoption
Agile Survey 2020	25% higher productivity
Harvard Business Review	30% increased innovation
Gallup’s State of the American Workplace	45% improved employee satisfaction
Agile Trends 2020	Deliver 35% faster time-to-market
Agile Quality Survey	Achieve 28% higher quality software
Agile Human Capital	Experience 22% lower turnover rates
2022 Scrum Master Trends Report	82% of Scrum Masters identifying it as essential for team success

Conclusion

Self organising teams are the cornerstone of Agile success, unlocking unprecedented levels of innovation, productivity and employee satisfaction. By embracing autonomy, collaboration, and continuous learning, organizations boost adaptability and resilience, foster a culture of ownership and accountability, attract and retain top talent and drive business agility and competitiveness.

As we look into the future, self organizing teams will become the norm, empowering organizations to thrive in an ever-changing landscape. This approach aligns perfectly with the new generation’s mindset, which craves autonomy, purpose-driven work, collaborative environments and continuous learning and growth.

By embracing self organizing teams, organizations will stay relevant in the digital age, attract and retain top talent, ultimately representing a mindset shift towards a future of work where empowered individuals collaborate to achieve extraordinary results. Agile consulting firms like Benzne, place a lot of emphasis on building a culture of agile self organizing teams to have a long term sustainable and scalable agile transformation at your organization.

FAQs:

1. How to coach a team to be self organized?

The question “How to coach a team to be self organized?” inherently contradicts the principles of self organization. Coaching implies guidance, direction and control, whereas self organization requires autonomy, empowerment and freedom. It’s a paradox, as coaching can inadvertently undermine the very essence of self organization. At Benzne Agile Transformation Services, we prefer to replace ‘Coaching’ to guiding principles where consultants can help organizations in building the right environment and guiding principles to enable self organization..

Instead of coaching, focus on creating an environment that fosters self-organization. This means:

1. Providing clear goals and objectives, then stepping back
2. Encouraging collaboration, open communication and shared ownership
3. Empowering team members to make decisions and take calculated risks
4. Fostering a culture of continuous learning, experimentation and feedback
5. Removing barriers, bureaucracy and unnecessary constraints

The key to creating self organising teams in agile lies in letting go of control. Trust that your team members have the skills, expertise and motivation to excel. Allow them to discover their own solutions and approaches, let them learn from failures and successes and enable them to develop their own processes and workflows.

2. Which agile principle best relates to self organized teams in agile?

The agile principle that best aligns with a self organized team in agile  from the agile manifesto is, “The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.” This principle emphasizes the importance of empowering teams to take ownership, make decisions and collaborate to achieve common goals in a self organizing team in agile.

3. What is the goal of a self organized team in agile?

To summarize, following should be the goals of a self organized team in agile –

1. A self organized team in agile is more resilient and adaptable
2. Self Organizing team in agile is more innovative and responsive
3. Self organized team in agile is more productive and efficient
4. Self Organizing team in agile is more fulfilling and enjoyable

4. How can a scrum master build a self managed team?

A Scrum Master builds a self managed team by empowering decision making and fostering open communication. This encourages collaboration and ownership among team members, allowing them to take charge of their work.

The Scrum Master develops problem solving skills within the team, providing guidance without direction. They remove impediments, facilitate retrospectives and encourage feedback. By modeling Agile values and principles, a self organizing team in agile learns to work independently.

As trust grows, the Scrum Master gradually releases control, allowing the team to self organize. Celebrating successes and learning from failures reinforces autonomy and motivation. With time, as the team gets more autonomy, the team becomes self managed, efficient and effective, delivering exceptional results. Small, new age tech start up having autonomous teams are example of self managed team.

5. What is the difference between self managing and self organizing Scrum?

Self managed teams operate independently, outside traditional hierarchical structures, without a single leader holding absolute authority over their work. A team with complete autonomy is an example of self managed team.

Self organising teams are a subset of self-managed teams, distinguished by shared decision-making authority, rather than complete team autonomy that has some external influence or guidance.