I’ve worked with lots of agile #teams, and some of the symptoms of a well functioning high-perfoming teams that I see are: 👇
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They start their daily standups on time.
They tend to laugh a lot and have fun.
Everybody in the team gets to express themselves.
They correct and edit each other when they go off track.
They try out new things with appetite. But they are quite willing to admit those things didn’t succeed.
They often don’t care very much if it looks like they’re working hard.
They talk about how “we built” or “we failed”, rather than “I built“ or “I failed”
They have lunch together, or some other time within work hours where they talk about other things than work.
They welcome more junior members of the team, and enjoy mentoring them.
They share responsibility for communicating with outside stakeholders.
They don’t agree on everything.
They debate between short term benefits and long term strategy. They reach compromises.
They question each other on topics like accessibility and inclusivity in design and development.
I’ve seen some great teams have some seriously stubborn people in them. They can be great when the team needs reminding of why they came up with a certain rule: specifically so the team wouldn’t compromise when they were in a hurry
Good teams often fight for independence to make their own decisions
If they are remote, they try new ways to make everyone equal, even if it means compromising the experience of those people that are in a shared space
They respect agreed decision making structures, but argue their points
If someone on the team is ill, the others figure out how to get by without that person.
They have quiet time. In whatever amount is valuable to them.
They get each other tea/coffee/water.
When people pair on a task, the less experienced person is usually the “driver”
They don’t have to give positive feedback every time they give negative feedback.
Team members generally know what every other team member is working on, and what kind of issues they’re having
They talk about technical debt, and teach stakeholders about it
They take turns dealing with boring or time consuming tasks
In meetings, they put their phones down or close their laptop lids when they’re listening
They have a say in who joins the team
Documentation is updated whenever errors are spotted, by the person who spots the error.
It’s not ok to notice a problem, and not do something about it, even if it’s not in an individual’s immediate area of responsibility
