Harmony Framework : Individuals , Teams and Efficient Ways of Working

Mr Clarke Kent has joint the daily and only after a few days he is gripped with a feeling that he is not able to perform to the fullest potential at his work, a sudden fear grips him if he should take the lead to respond to an email or place his opinion in a meeting he fears his actions can bring the delicate machinery down.

Wonder-women is sat in a meeting and is given a task to find out the root cause of an issue on a legacy system that nobody knows about or fears getting involved in, she is asked how long does it take to finish the task she has never felt the fear of this magnitude.

We all have been there, In essence, our heroes are having a bad day! something is missing   

let us look at another example of a football game. Not everyone scores, each player has a position, each player has a unique skill set. Nevertheless, if the players tie themselves to the position or a process the team will also turn into 11 candles. The outcome is to score and win, focus more on situation-based strategy and move with agility.

 

A winning team is not only made up of players with unique skills but they are also well trained to play along with each other. These players are aware of each other's strengths and weaknesses. If the ball is not forwarded in time the team does not score or if the ball is not defended the goalkeeper has to cover, in essence, if one role fails the responsibility cascades to another team member, but very efficiently the ball is picked up, off-course its a winning team they have also trained how to cover for each other.

But hang on, how are these stories connected? the answer is the disconnect we felt earlier, it is the disconnect between an individual and the assimilation of the individual into a team. if you know your part it is easy to say what you can do, what you will do, what you will not do or whom you should lean on to get things done.

Now let's take an analogy of an another  fast-moving sport “Working in IT“, we may wonder who are we playing against here? is it our KPIs, our external competitors? our deadlines? despite the opposition, each individual in the team must invest a considerable portion of their time to assimilate and form a high performing team. This may come through adopting a methodology where the roles and responsibilities are defined or the team can come together to discuss and strategise how they will work forward.

This agreement will be very helpful to set the foundation of ways of working and will surface the clarity in terms of roles and responsibilities. Each team member will have a clear understanding of who will do what and for any problem statements, the team members can route the queries to the right individuals. Therefore, the work is always forward-moving and never comes to a confusing standstill situation.

If there is a tumbleweed situation in a meeting it is clear that the team in the meeting has not yet defined their strategy of how they will work to solve a problem.

The ways of working also establish the support model for any new roles or new team members, each individual feels confident in their roles and empowered to make the right decisions. 

Let's take a more relatable example in an enduring enterprise, for a given project, let us assume the following players have formed a team

• Project / Change Manager
• Product Owner
• Business Analyst ( proxy PO )
• Solution Architect
• Scrum Master
• Developers

The team may initially come up with a high-level ownership catalogue and define their roles and responsibilities clearly and concisely. For example, the Product owner will say I will own the product backlog and responsibilities in defining the value of a change followed by which the Solution architect will say I will overlook the solution and any enabling components that will be required to deliver the value. so if the question comes to a developer what is the value in the story he/she can confidently say that please consult with the PO and he/she should be able to help you rather than feeling the anxiety to respond. 

The composition of the team may differ from organisation to organisation, or based on the organisation's adoption of certain methodologies. Nevertheless, where individuals have gathered to work collectively as a team or team of the team certain working principles should be mutually agreed upon and catalogued. To begin with, the team should gather and talk through the below principles i.e.

• I principles
• We principles
• Working Agreement

The “I“ principles

• What is expected from me
• What I will contribute
• Who is dependent on me
• Who am I dependent on

The “We“ Principles

• What is our mission
• How are we interconnected 
• Are we enough for the task
• Are we going to follow any new or existing process
• Are we in agreement with a process
• Are we needing a coach to guide us until we master the process?

Working Agreement

• Empathy: We will empathise with each other and create a physiologically safe environment
• Situation: We are led into difficult challenges due to circumstances and not by the team or team members
• Agreements: We must establish a framework for making decisions and any governance
• Raising Concerns: Don't shoot the messenger but focus on the problem statement and agreement to mitigate it
• Decision: The decisions should be based on the components in the work chain
• Planing: Plan to deliver value, don't plan to follow the process, be open to change
• Tool: Adopt tools to enhance productivity and visualise a common goal
• Unification: Agree on the unification process where one work packet from one individual is handed over to another

Unfortunately, the consensus on ways of working may not be as easy as read, teams should retrospectively invest in learning and improvement 

Based on the above guiding principle and other frameworks the team may come up with a tailored working model as below and can now focus more on products and values they can offer.