3 Characteristics of Successful Teams
Having really good developers in a software development team is a nice asset to have, but is not a guarantee of success. Sometimes, companies that aim to hire “only the best”, but disregard other important aspects of team building, fail at their goals and also end up paying premium price for the failure. In todays article I am going to explain 3 important key characteristics that are common across many successful teams. Understanding and working towards them can increase the team’s chance of success. It’s important that teams introspect and reflect about this characteristics.
Delivery Oriented
Delivering software to live is(or should be) among the main priorities of every software development team. But we need to dig a bit deeper to understand what does it mean for a team to be delivery oriented.
- Continuous
This means that it is not interrupted. That there are no constraints that stop the team from reaching the live environment. Many times complex delivery pipelines, lack of automation and even bureaucratic policies disrupt the continuity of delivery. - Repeatable
If each time for each of our apps or features, we need to do something different or we cannot just repeat what we did in the previous release without having to do some kind of “hack”, then our delivery is not repeatable. It is important for teams to be able to repeat again and again, their delivery and automate it as much as possible. - Valuable
Even if we are managing to deliver, the team needs to ask itself if what is delivering is valuable or is just noise that has no value for the end user and/or will create additional maintenance burden. Make sure that the delivery is valuable by understanding and communicating the needs and reasons.
We cannot say that the team is delivery oriented if the delivery fails to be Continuous, Repeatable and Valuable.
Cohesive
A cohesive team is a team that actions as a united whole in every aspect of it’s day to day. Cohesive teams are teams in which:
- Individuals trust each other and are given the same level of participation/opportunity.
- Conflict resolution is possible in a smooth and democratic manner
- The team’s commitment, accountability and also the results are shared.
- A transparency and efficient communication oriented culture is something that the team is comfortable with. Note that this is across every aspect(e.g technical, recruitment needs, architecture, decision making, etc …)
- There’s no blaming culture and there’s a sense of willingness to help. There’s no mine nor yours. The goals are for the team not the individuals.
Cohesion is a very important trait and often overlooked in many organisations. But in many occasions even a cohesive team by it’s own is not enough. Is important to clarify that cohesion is something that a team has not only toward itself, but it also hay towards the organization to whom it belongs and also towards the society. Below explained the 3 levels of cohesion a team can have.
- Internal: At this level the team is capable to act as unit, understand itself, and optimise it’s internal dynamics.
- Organisational: In this second level the team/s can efficiently reach out beyond and stablish and maintain bridges with other teams and entities within the organisation. Cohesion at this level improves efficiency and makes the organisation more lean. A high degree of organisational cohesion gives team a sense of belonging and need for existence.
- Societal: Here the level of cohesion gets a bit more meta-physical. The team builds a believe/ideology in which the work they do is essential for the society. The team is proud on their duties because they feel their work strengthens the bond between them and the society.
The lack of cohesion in teams is often relative to the lack of morale and low morale can lead to an increase of attrition.
Feedback Seeker
Last but not least, to seek for feedback is an extremely important characteristic of successful teams. Feedback is the cornerstone of improving. But feedback in itself is a topic that has to be understood. What does it mean good feedback?
- Fast: If the feedback comes fast then is great because, it allows for a faster correction of mistakes
- Descriptive: We need to be aware to whom we are providing feedback; are they technical, or maybe not? We need to take care of how feedback is articulated so that is understood.
- Complete: We need to make sure that the feedback is accurate and complete. While sometimes work can continue with partial or incomplete feedback, it can also be risky because it leaves space for assumptions.
- Context: Partial feedback can lead to assumptions but complete feedback placed in the wrong context could lead to confusion or overwhelming of the recipient. We need to make sure that the feedback we provide is just enough but is also in the right context.
- Proactive: Good teams are proactively seek for feedback. At every level; from; test harnesses, pipelines, automations, product owners, designers, users, etc…
Please let me know your thought in the comments. What do you think of this characteristics? Do you think there are any other important characteristics for successful teams? If you enjoyed this article, please give me some claps and follow for more interesting content.
