#13. An Agile Team
Managing Teams 1/n
Is your team Agile? Yes. We follow all the scrum ceremonies - grooming, sprint planning, daily standups, demos, retros…so we are Agile.
Reminds me of a conversation I had 4yrs back with my younger one:
4 YO: Papa, how do we grow up?
Me: Son, you grow up by playing, eating healthy food, and learning
4 YO: No Papa, we grow up by celebrating Birthdays!
Just like my son thought birthdays make a person grow, some teams think following certain ceremonies makes the team agile.
According to me, ‘being adaptable’ is one of the core qualities that makes a team Agile.
What does ‘being adaptable’ means? Here’s a story from the greek mythology [I read in the book - Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal] to bring home the point.
King of Sparta - Menelaus and his men while returning home after 10 year long trojan war were ship wrecked on an island. In order to find a way out they had to defeat the old man of the sea - Proteus. Who could then guide them to the home.
The problem was that Proteous was a shape shifter and could take any form. The weapons Menelaus and his men mastered for a usual war would not help much.
The fight started, Proteous took different forms - of a lion, a serpent, a leopard, a pig, water, fire even a tree. Every time Menelaus and his men adapted as per the form taken by Proteus. They adapted - used legs to clinch the necks of animals, dug the fingers to control the tree branches, used arms to hold the fire…
Finally Proteus was defeated. Menelaus and his men were able to return home as they were able to adapt.
Living in a VUCA world, business problems could take any shape and form - just like Proteus. Successful teams are those that can adapt their processes, technology, and skills to address the specific problem at hand.
In my view ‘being adaptable’ is the true mark of an Agile Team.
References
Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus