This document discusses self-organizing teams and how they function. It defines a self-organizing team as one that determines its own processes for responding to its environment, rather than having processes dictated by management. Self-organizing teams operate like complex adaptive systems and emerge behaviors through the interactions of independent agents. While control is still exercised, it is more indirect and subtle. Effective levers for guiding self-organizing teams include selecting the external environment, defining performance, managing meaning, choosing people and reconfiguring networks, and energizing the system. The challenges of not adopting self-organizing teams include relying on traditional top-down management and needing frequent direction and attention.

1. Leading a self organised
Team
@Shripadtaralkar

2. What is a self-organising team?
Self organising does not mean
• The team gets to decide what goal they pursue
• Even necessarily who is on the team
“Self-organization is about the team determining how they will respond
to their environment (and management can influence that
environment).

3. CAS
“Complex adaptive systems
are a 'complex macroscopic
collection' of relatively
'similar and partially
connected micro-structures'
– formed in order to adapt
to the changing
environment, and increase
its survivability as a macro-
structure.”

4. Example: CAS
• Ant colony or bee hive
• Flock of geese heading south
• A family preparing, eating,
and cleaning up after a meal
• Us right now
• A crowd queued up to get into
a concert or sporting event
• Cars on a highway
• A software team

5. “Self-organisation does not mean letting
people do whatever they want to do.”
“It means that management commits to guiding the evolution of
behaviors that emerge from the interaction of independent agents
instead of specifying in advance what effective behavior is.”
—Philip Anderson, The Biology of Business

6. Regulated control

7. To be sure, control is still exercised;
but, it is subtle and much of it is indirect.
—Peter DeGrace & Leslie Stahl Wicked Problems,
Righteous Solutions

8. How Effective are They?
As one of the principles behind the Agile Manifesto states,
“The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge
from self-organizing teams.”
 Better, faster communication
 More trust between client &
product team
 Less conflict
 Increased motivation
 Informed decision-making

9. Shape the Path
• Self-organization is not something that happens one time
• A team is never done doing it
• The team continually re-organizes in a sense and-respond manner to its environment
• As you see the team self-organize you can influence, but not control or direct, its
path
• We can view this as the evolution of a team

10. levers of influence
1. Selecting the external environment
2. Defining performance
3. Managing meaning
4. Choosing people & Reconfiguring the network
5. Energizing the system
- Philip Anderson, “Seven Levers for Guiding the Evolving Enterprise.”

11. How do you do this?
Environment
• Enlarge or shrink teams
• Enlarge or shrink the responsibility boundary of teams
• Change team membership
• Create new teams or groups

12. How do you do this?
Nurture Diversity
• Don’t require consensus
• Creativity comes from tension
• Quiet disagreement is not as good as fierce debate that leads to behavior change
• Ask hard questions
• Then expect teams to find solutions

13. How do you do this?
Enforce Collaboration
• Encourage communication between teams and groups
• Who isn’t talking who should?
• Add or remove people from exchanges
• Change reporting relationships
• Relocate people
• Compliance with external groups
• Encourage learning

14. What are the challenges of not doing it ?
Traditional top down management
Needs frequent attention in terms of direction
Can be Very Demanding on the Users Time
Costs can Increase
Harder for new Starters to Integrate in the Team

15. Questions ?