Business agility has become the order of the day. In this fast-paced world, organizations are heavily tested on their agility and so their performance is gauged on the parameters like faster time-to-market, adapting swiftly to changes in requirements & continuous reinvention along the way. In order to score high on these parameters, a complete revamp needs to be made in the way businesses operate and deliver on their commitments. While adopting new processes, tools & technologies might seem in vogue and appear trendy, forming the right culture, governance & policy framework and leadership styles create a major impact in driving transformational change in bringing business agility. These act as a catalyst in inculcating an agile culture across all the levels & teams of the organization. At an operational level, we have various teams that form the core in ensuring organizations stay agile by efficiently delivering their offerings that are relevant in the face of the constant market change.

Teams have certainly moved from their traditional way of working and with the advent of various agile frameworks, project managers or leaders are quite aware of the impact this new way of working could create in the business marketplace. Hence, it is imperative for leaders to build teams with an agile mindset. There are certain characteristics the team must possess in order for them to qualify as high-performing agile teams: Collaborative, Cross-functional, Self-organized, Shared responsibility, and accountability among many others. The project manager or leader plays a larger role in building such teams which are in the best interest of an organization competing in this ever-changing business landscape. Below are a few ways using which PMs can build high-performing agile teams:

Developing Agile Mindset: The first and foremost task a project manager needs to take up is developing an agile mindset within the team members. “Being Agile” is a pre-requisite to “Doing Agile”. More than following any kind of agile framework (like Scrum, Kanban, FDD), it is the mindset through which a team would be able to accrue the potential benefits it intends to achieve at an organizational level. PMs need to ensure that team understands the value it will bring to all the stakeholders by adopting this style of working.

Building working agreements: Certain working agreements need to be set by the PM for any new team to swiftly move through the team formation stages. This would quickly align team members to work towards the project goals. Ground rules also need to be established for each team’s engagements that happen throughout the course of the sprint or project lifecycle. This will let them come prepared for meetings and look to improve collectively as a team especially in meetings like retrospectives.

Defining team’s values: Teams can only be high-performing when they believe in certain values and religiously act based on them. Establishing values like altruism, optimism, sense of ownership are the basis to form collaborative teams which is an essential component of having cross-functional and self-organized agile teams. Team values can only be testified with the time and situation they get into, however, certain concepts or parameters should be defined like team swarming, WIP limit to get a clear understanding of how they should work together along with defined values.

Leadership style: This has a larger influence on the way team behaves and collaborates within themselves. Team members would always look to model their behavior & working style from someone they look up to. Unlike traditional leaders, agile leadership is all about investing in the team’s growth, aligning and empowering them to achieve the shared vision, and decentralizing decision-making. Agile leaders are responsible to create and inspire an environment wherein teams can manage themselves and blossom into high-performing ones.

Lighter Moments: Taking lighter moments and going on an excursion can help create an atmosphere of camaraderie within the team, which can have a positive impact on their working relationships as well. PMs should look out for events like completing a release, achieving a project milestone, delivering a successful project to celebrate and conduct team events that would strengthen their bonding further. Celebrating such small or large achievements has a larger influence on creating a positive experience and develop a positive attitude within the team.

We have witnessed the shifts employees have experienced in their way of working over the years with every revolution or a catastrophe striking this world. The concept of leadership has evolved and moved from directing people using their positional authority to taking care of them in an influential and democratic way. Under any circumstances, organizations are expected to be agile both at their strategic and operational level. High-performing agile teams have become more than a necessity today for organizations to thrive & survive in this fast-paced, uncertain world and PMs need to be at the forefront in building the same.

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