Team Building

Tom Wujec presents some surprisingly deep research into the "marshmallow problem" -- a simple team-building exercise that involves dry spaghetti, one yard of tape and a marshmallow. Who can build the tallest tower with these ingredients? And why does a surprising group always beat the average?

Scrum Inc.'s Team Working Agreement Canvas combines key Scrum elements with a Lean Canvas in order to guide your team towards hyper-productivity.

Team working agreements are a great tool to get new teams productive as soon as possible, and starting on the right foot towards effective team practices. In this article Avi Schneier explains that this tool can also be used to launch many teams at once. It covers the steps for chartering a new team, helping them reflect on their individual and collective values, and identifying the key events and stakeholders of each delivery.

A look at the elements needed to turn a group of strangers into a quick-thinking team that can nimbly respond to challenges.

Business school professor Amy Edmondson studies "teaming," where people come together quickly (and often temporarily) to solve new, urgent or unusual problems. Recalling stories of teamwork on the fly, such as the incredible rescue of 33 miners trapped half a mile underground in Chile in 2010, Edmondson shares the elements needed to turn a group of strangers into a quick-thinking team that can nimbly respond to challenges.

In a culture that prizes extroverts, a case can be made for the encouragement and celebration of the contemplative - who bring extraordinary talents and abilities.

In a culture where being social and outgoing are prized above all else, it can be difficult, even shameful, to be an introvert. But, as Susan Cain argues in this passionate talk, introverts bring extraordinary talents and abilities to the world, and should be encouraged and celebrated.

The RC social rules help create a friendly, intellectual environment where you can spend your energy on programming.

As an center for educational retreats for anyone who wants to get dramatically better at programming, The Recurse Center has instituted some social rules that they have found to help create a friendly, intellectual environment where you can spend as much of your energy as possible on programming. In this quick guide they describe the 4 social rules that must be followed at all times.

How the surprisingly modern leadership skills of Sir Ernest Shackleton, like emotional intelligence and empathy, kept this marooned team alive in the Antarctic continent.

Teamistry host Gabriela Cowperthwaite travels back in time to discover the surprisingly modern leadership skills of the determined explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton, who expertly employed emotional intelligence and empathy to keep his crew alive. She give us a flashback of what the seamen grappled with during those oppressing times when they were marooned thousands of miles away from civilization. Together with Tim Jarvis (an explorer and a professor from Harvard Business School) and Nancy Koehn, they walks us through the pivotal moments when Shackleton's superior decision-making helped him salvage the expedition and hold the hearts of his men.

Updated in 2022, this compilation of activities for remote team building comes complete with a sortable table on fun, impact and effort.

Marketing associate at Museum Hack Jesse Sussman provides a list of the best fun virtual team-building activities for remote teams to help virtual companies skyrocket their company culture and employee engagement. In this updated version after truncating more than 20 activities from the list, he states that remote teams are always looking for ways to bring their teams closer together but virtual team relationships are quite difficult to build as compared to in-person teams. Let's find out more about these 37 virtual team-building activities proposed by Jesse in the article.

Why our organization moved to durable teams and how this is helping us deliver bigger and better things for our customers.

Following a structured process that allows teams to get to know each other and build trust early on by understand default behaviors, stressors and motivators.

People with skills in a variety of dimensions can support their teams in the most flexible and helpful way, without being locked into their main area of expertise.

A look at the elements that compose truly great teams.

What makes teams better and more productive, and more importantly, how do you build a great team? Ozren Colic defines the categories of teams, and points to the connections between individuals as the recipe. This superb article breaks down the prerequisites, and the three most important enablers for teams to really gel. A must read.

Analyzing the process-product paradox as a way to scale output.

The process-product paradox, outlined by Misrab Faizullah-Khan, states that it is the underlying communication structures in an organization that chiefly determine the product. By taking an organic approach to engineering principles, companies can create an atmosphere where people can simply be themselves. This article takes a mathematical approach to the analysis of scaling.

There are many ways of conducting agile team health checks to visualize areas where there are opportunities for improvement.

Continuous improvement is central to the agile methodology, but it must be guided in order to maximize benefit. Instead of observing "traditional" measurement, which are lagging, Andy proposes focusing on the health and well-being - since they are leading indicators. To identify what can really be measured, and what things would produce the largest impact, the author has done a complete survey of the solutions available to help teams get the most of their improvement efforts.

You need both diversity and safety.

An analysis of 150 senior teams showed that the ones who solve problems the fastest tend to be cognitively diverse. Further analysis of the study also showed this is not always true, and that an element of psychological safety is also necessary. This article explores the need for both traits to enable curious and encouraging behavior that keeps a learning momentum on the team and wards off combativeness and/or group-think.

Astronauts on the International Space Station live in capsules together for months, and share insights about handling conflict and building trust.

Organizational psychologist Adam Grant invites astronaut Paolo in this TED podcast to discuss trust in work-life basing the incredible catch that Paolo pulled out in space with his colleague, Cady. The two trusted each other and co-worked to successfully catch a ship full of supplies in space using the International Space Station robotic arm that is almost the size of a crane. Listen to the podcast to understand why strong bonds are forged during the most challenging situations and the role that TRUST plays in the workplace.

Using Brené Brown's anatomy of trust model to explore the elements to build trust.

Trust is complex and challenging, yet essential to enable agility. It is a feeling, and therefore it is fluid and constantly evolving. In this article, Stephanie Ockerman defines what trust is, and the elements required to build trust. She describes each element that composes the anatomy of trust, and concludes with questions to help you reflect on how to build trust in your own personal relationships.

Unlock a feedback culture with this trust-building exercise that takes vulnerability, and vulnerability cultivates trust.

The Open Office Circle (OFC) enables people to share their work experiences and receive feedback from other teammates. The process takes courage as one has to confess his previous mistakes and highlight some of the milestones achieved as well. The colleagues help him grow from the missteps while also learning from his success. The article details HOW the OFC works and WHY it culminates in the quality of work and trust in an organization.

Showing some pitfalls managers should avoid when building a trusting relationship with employees - the basis for a positive feedback culture.

Daniel Schley uses the reverse brainstorming technique to talk about some of the pitfalls managers should avoid for a healthy 1:1 relationship with their employees. The technique clearly reveals what managers are doing wrong and what they can improve to maintain a good relationship with their team. We learn that establishing trust should be one of your first and main goals as a people manager and trust is easier destroyed than built. Let's read the article for a deeper insight into the things that ruin trust and why we should mitigate them.

A Liberating Structure to share success stories and identify what groups can invest in now to enable their own success in the future.

How to use OKRs to to set and execute on audacious goals by focusing on the right work to be done.

Our leaders and institutions are failing us, but it's not always because they're bad or unethical, says venture capitalist John Doerr -- often, it's simply because they're leading us toward the wrong objectives. In this practical talk, Doerr shows us how we can get back on track with "Objectives and Key Results," or OKRs -- a goal-setting system that's been employed by the likes of Google, Intel and Bono to set and execute on audacious goals. Learn more about how setting the right goals can mean the difference between success and failure -- and how we can use OKRs to hold our leaders and ourselves accountable.

Common OKR mistakes are all litmus tests to decide: Are you really measuring what matters? Check and see with these common OKR mistakes taken from Google’s OKR playbook.

Objective Key Results (OKRs) help agile teams and companies to measure their success on set objectives towards a certain organizational goal. However, sometimes, the expected business value from the OKRs may depend on how well they have been written. This article explains OKRs and some of the common mistakes that should be avoided when crafting your OKRs for the company.

An analysis of OKRs vs SMART Goals in the perspectives of how the two frameworks relate and differ from each other.

Organizations leverage different frameworks to set and achieve their goals. Some might use the OKR framework to set objectives and strategically work towards them while others rely on SMART Goals to achieve measurable and specific objectives in a predefined period. However, the question is, what prompts some companies to prefer OKRs over SMART Goals and vice versa?

A success story of how OKRs have been implemented outside of a technology-focused organization.

Objectives Key Results (OKRs) have helped countless organizations in the innovation arena thrive by simply setting and enacting strategies and achieving goals. But how have they impacted organizations outside the innovation circle? Learn how a nonprofit firm in the architecture space, the MASS Design Group leveraged the OKR framework to achieve several milestones across the world.

When applied properly, Agile Maturity Metrics can measure improvements of agility at individual, team, and organizational level.

AMMs, or Agile Maturity Metrics, measure individual, team and organizational levels into different buckets - separated by maturity. Though a trusted way to measure improvement, organizations must keep in mind there are ways to game the system, some attributes are conditional, and the correlations between attributes is not linear.

Combining Modern Agile with the proper use of OKR can be a lightweight, joyful way for organizations to help their people achieve awesome results.

When it comes to setting goals, most companies use a top-down approach to create a set of static goals - which are linked with individual or team bonuses and directly conflict with being agile. Its a waterfall command-and-control mindset that turns teams into "feature factories" with no focus on delivering value. Alexandre Freire and Felipe Castro propose the usage of OKRs, which are evaluated frequently and are bidirectional - a bubble-up approach is used to create contracts with the teams. Furthermore, they explain how this can be used in the context of Modern Agile.

Overcoming the greatest barrier to collaboration and our ability to solve problems by managing individual defensiveness brought on fears of vulnerability.

Based on years of experience and research studying collaborative behavior and productivity in chickens, Jim Tamm explains that defensiveness is the single greatest inhibitor to true collaboration. Defensiveness, he explains, does not protect us from other people, but instead defends us from fears we don't want to feel - usually brought on by fears of lack of significance, competence or likability. Collaboration stops and we initiate aggressive behavior.

People don't change because of external demands, they change to save something of value. You can only find out what it is if you empathize.

Esther Derby shares how ignoring the emotional impact of change, or attempting to depress or devalue people's response to change tends to amplify their emotions. Empathy enables you to understand someone else’s point of view, the challenges posed by the change, what they value, and what they stand to lose by changing." This ability is in her mind a change agent's superpower.

The original presentation that defined psychological safety.

This Ted Talk is the seminal work on Psychological Safety that introduced the world to the concept. Amy Edmondson is the original researcher that coined the term, and that while working with the Google research team identified its importance. In this insightful talk, the presenter explains its foundations, the necessity to support it, and outlines the three things you can do to build a psychologically safe workplace.

Who is on a team matters less than how team members interact and structure their work.

Psychological Safety is the feeling that it is safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other, and it is essential for effective teams. Google found through extensive research of over 180 teams that who is on a team matters less than how they interact. Marc Vollebregt expands on this subject by integrating it with openness and trust, and the concept of personal, professional, and private emotional spaces.

Psychological safety comes in three interrelated varieties.

Psychological Safety has been identified as the key element common in all productive teams. Leaders therefore seek to instill it in their workforce, but Chris Weller suggests that it’s critical to start by understanding what they want employees to feel safe to do. Chris outlines three different kinds of safety - around belonging, speaking up, or taking risks - each which can be leveraged for multiple end goals, and require a different set of capabilities.

Getting teams to solve problems in ways our customers love, focused on and measured by outcomes (rather than output).

Learn about three Product teams that exist inside a tech environment and their objectives in this article. The text broadly explains what Delivery Teams, empowered Product Teams, and Feature Teams are and how they work. We also clearly learn the difference between Product Teams and Feature Teams that are inked to be similar whereas they vary in contrast to the roles of the Product managers.

Autonomy is a critically important concept in agile culture, however ignore its counterbalance - accountability - at your peril.

Organizations are embracing self-governance by passing over the decision-making responsibilities from the executives to the staff working closely with the customers. Edwin Dando argues that the strategy is not yielding great organizational results based on a firm that he encountered. This is because organizations are increasing autonomy but at the same time, failing to balance it with accountability. He notes that the aftermath affects the flow of fatal information from the customers to the executives as those responsible to deliver are not held accountable. Find out more in the text about why autonomy and accountability should work in tandem to achieve better organizational goals.

Addressing the most common myths and misunderstandings around the role and responsibilities of the Scrum Master

In this comprehensive article, Christiann Verwijs dispels various misconceptions around the Scrum Master role. He explores the similarities to a Junior Agile Coach (one that focuses on the team as the Agile Coach focuses on the organization); the 8 stances of the Scrum Master (impediment remover, facilitator, coach, teacher, servant leader, manager, change agent, and mentor); how SM deals with "senior" challenges - or how it manages upward; how it exists in non-scrum agile environments; and how organizations can employ them as agents of continuos change.

A description of each role, their key responsibilities, what each is not in charge of, and how they duties overlap and differentiate.

There is much confusion as to the difference between a Scrum Master and a Project Manager. Some see the Scrum Master as an Agile Project Manager, and figure their responsibilities should be similar. In this article Robbin Shuurman shows that there is almost no overlap between the role of Scrum Master and the position of Project Manager. He dives in to explain the differences, their shared and unique characteristics, and the criteria they're good and not good at.

A follow-on article addressing many of the questions received about the "Product vs. Feature Teams" article.

Marty Cagan responds to several follow-up questions from his followers through email about Product teams and how they differ from other teams like Delivery teams and Feature teams in this article. Check how he answers the questions in detail through the entire dialog.

A list of techniques that have proven to make meetings successful, why they work, and what is unique about them.

Not all meetings are a success. People gather with the intent of brainstorming about new developments in an organization like rolling out a product, but the meetings backfire due to deviation from the agendas, incorrect participation, or missing participants. So what is really the secret behind running a successful meeting and having everyone satisfied with the value of the time they invested in it? The article pinpoints some of the techniques used by the world's innovative companies like Google, Apple, Virgin Group, and many more to contact successful meetings that motivate everyone and create space for achieving organizational goals.

Exploring the myth that a Daily Scrum is status meeting, and how it differs from it.

Professional Scrum Trainer Stephanie Ockerman explores the myth that a Daily Scrum is a status meeting. Through her discussion, she captures several areas as to why the Daily Scrum is much more than a status meeting noting that status meetings do not encourage the development teams' empowerment to make decisions and complete ownership of how they do work. Thus Stephanie argues that they inhibit the self-organization that the daily Scrum largely promotes in a development team. Let's watch the video to find out more about how a daily Scrum differs from a status meeting.

A look at the four key components of a good stand-up meeting to understand the source of its hidden servant powers.

Organization team members often hold Stand-Up Meetings to share status reports of their work. Tristan Libersat in this article notes that Stand-Up Meetings improve a team's ability to self-organize towards achieving organizational goals. However, he adds that not all Stand-Up Meetings empower teams to self-organize. Get an in-depth explanation of Stand-Up Meetings in this text and the four key components that a successful Stand-Up Meeting must contain for teams to self-organize.

37% of employee time is spent in meetings. Become more efficient with meeting management and your time when you invite ELMO to join your meeting.

Discussing how organizations align emerging work to the overall strategy, its failure/success patterns and using OKRs to improve alignment.

It’s not unusual to go into an organization and see that things are out of sync from top to bottom - and usually, the root cause of most of these problems is a lack of alignment. Lack of alignment within an organization manifests in many ways, from a lack of discretionary effort from employees to ample activity that’s not meeting the market needs or advancing the strategy of the organization. In this episode, Chris helps identify these failure patterns, along with the success patterns. He also gives a thorough 101 on OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) - a powerful strategy to better align an organization.

Is it possible for a group of unhappy people forced to do Scrum to turn themselves into a highly self-motivated, energized, and ideating Kanban team in 30 minutes?

Leise Passer Jensen reiterates based on her own experience how an unhappy team squeezed into Scrum was demotivated and inefficient to deliver while another team she calls the "happy team", leveraged kanban and successfully kept an existing system in the organization in good shape. She argues that using the wrong frameworks that are unfit for the situation is very demotivating and inefficient for teams and there is always a lightweight facilitation principle that can be used to make demotivated teams invent their own effective way of working with their board instead.