A significant part of the diagnostic process is the audit of selected teams. And unfortunately at this stage it sometimes turns out that teams as meant in Agile approaches don’t really exist. People brought together won’t become a team just by being brought together. In our methodology we distinguish four levels of team maturity. Teams are evaluated in several ways according to multiple criteria. This, for example, is what teams of different maturity levels look like when evaluating their approaches to solving problems and improving their workflow.
4 levels of team awareness development:
Level 0. At least 80% of the work to identify problems and develop solutions happens externally. There is minimal resistance to implementing the solutions brought to the team. Most teams pass this level easily.
Level 1. The team is actively involved in identifying problems and sometimes tries to develop solutions. Efficiency is low and basically means identifying symptoms rather than causes, solving what they want to solve rather than what needs to be solved. Most of the team’s proposed solutions boil down to escalation. Resistance to externally proposed solutions increases (or requires additional persuasion efforts). Many teams freeze at this level.
Level 2. The team becomes a full partner in solving problems internally. There is little or no managerial intervention in the workflow. Much of the problem solving is done without escalation. Initiatives brought in from the outside go through constructive discussion. We have seen very few teams get a foothold at this stage.
Level 3. The team has fully mastered its area of control – no manager is needed there – and it is actively working in its area of influence.
Right at this stage the team (not separate people) comes to understanding and acceptance of goals and objectives of the company when the mission and values stop just being buzz words.
At this moment the team becomes the initiator of improvements at the level of interaction between components of the organization through internal accumulation of product, communicative and business competences.
It’s crucial to understand that reaching level 2 and 3 of the team maturity is a long and challenging process. People need to be trained to be a team. This kind of investment in personnel only pays off if we are going to develop and improve the product for a lasting period of time. Don’t expect quick wins from newly created teams.