As organizations transition to agile practices, they face new challenges in ensuring effective collaboration across self-organizing teams. While autonomy and independence are hallmarks of agility, fostering connections between related teams is critical for project success. Without proper alignment, risk of duplicated efforts or inconsistencies between interdependent work increases. To fully realize the benefits of agility at scale requires establishing collaborative norms and processes that empower teams to work together seamlessly.
Today we will explore research-based approaches for cultivating productive cross-team dynamics and offers recommendations tailored for various industries.
Defining Team Autonomy and Necessary Collaboration
Autonomy: A core tenet of agility is empowering self-organizing teams with independence and decision-making authority over their work (Schwaber & Sutherland, 2017). Teams are responsible for delivery, process, and direction with minimal oversight. This autonomy drives accountability, adaptability, and engagement (Highsmith, 2002).
Collaboration: While autonomy is key, agile frameworks recognize necessary collaboration between interdependent teams (Agile Alliance, 2001; Fowler & Highsmith, 2001). Related work spanning teams requires coordination to ensure consistency, avoid duplication, and leverage synergies. Collaboration also supports organizational goals that extend beyond any single team's scope (Layman et al., 2006).
Effective collaboration means respecting team autonomy while establishing lightweight processes and communal ownership of overall outcomes (Beck et al., 2001). Teams interface and consult on shared work without dictating each other's activities. Joint problem-solving replaces rigid handoffs (Kniberg & Ivarsson, 2012). This balance of autonomy and collaboration unlocks agility's full potential.
Barriers to Cross-Team Partnerships and Overcoming Strategies
Lack of understanding between teams leads to the following common barriers:
Undefined relationships: Without established connections, teams work independently with no avenue for cooperation (Morgan & Liker, 2006).
Communication gaps: Differences in tools, language, or processes result in misalignments or lack of awareness between related efforts (Kniberg & Ivarsson, 2012).
Competing priorities: Individual team objectives take precedence without ownership of unified goals (Moe et al., 2010).
Unclear interdependencies: Shared work, dependencies, or assumptions remain invisible between autonomous domains (Patel et al., 2012).
To overcome such barriers and foster collaboration:
Establish lightweight coordination roles and regular check-ins between related teams.
Codify shared understanding through collaborative planning and documentation of interfaces.
Build communal ownership of product and organizational goals through joint retrospectives and objectives setting.
Facilitate connection by co-locating related teams when possible and using tools that cross boundaries.
Measure and reward based on overall outcomes, not just individual team delivery.
These strategies empower connection while respecting autonomy through voluntary coordination rather than forced integration.
Industry-Specific Collaboration Best Practices
Software Development: Establish periodic integration points where related features are merged and tested across codebases. Rotate "integration specialists" between teams to spread understanding.
Consulting: Facilitate "shadowing" where team members temporarily participate on another's engagement to learn and synchronize approaches. Standardize frameworks, tools, and delivery processes across service lines.
Financial Services: Institute a dedicated collaboration team to help coordinate interfaces and interdependencies between autonomous product teams. Synchronize shared data models and APIs used across domains.
Manufacturing: Co-locate production line teams and implement visual management boards highlighting dependencies. Conduct planning sessions with product design and engineering teams to signal upcoming changes.
By thoughtfully balancing autonomy and collaboration tailored to their domain, organizations in any industry can empower agility at scale. The following conclusion summarizes pathways to collaborative culture change.
Conclusion
Maximizing the benefits of agility requires more than just decentralized teams—it demands an organizational culture that institutionalizes collaboration as a core value. Leadership must champion cross-team partnership by establishing collaborative processes, rewarding communal outcomes, and allocating resources like co-location and enabling technologies. Change starts from the top through language of "our" shared victories rather than "my" team's successes alone.
Ongoing learning also vital. Conducting regular retrospectives on inter-team dynamics and holding leadership accountable for removing collaboration barriers helps foster continuous improvement. With patience and commitment to the balanced principles of autonomy and cooperation, organizations can thrive through empowered collaborative agility at scale. By making sure agile teams can work together seamlessly through cultural and structural enhancements, the full power of decentralized innovation will be realized.
References
Beck, K., Beedle, M., van Bennekum, A., Cockburn, A., Cunningham, W., Fowler, M., ... & Jeffries, R. (2001). Manifesto for agile software development. https://agilemanifesto.org/
Fowler, M., & Highsmith, J. (2001, August). The agile manifesto. Software Development, 9(8), 28-32.
Highsmith, J. (2002). Agile software development ecosystems. Addison-Wesley.
Kniberg, H., & Ivarsson, A. (2012). The team and their work. In Scaling agile @ Spotify with Tribes, Swarms, Chapter and Guilds. https://investors.spotify.com/news/scaling-agile-at-spotify-with-tribes-squads-chapters-and-guilds/
Layman, L., Williams, L., Damian, D., & Bures, H. (2006, May). Essential communication practices for Extreme Programming in a global software development team. Information and Software Technology, 48(9), 781-794.
Moe, N. B., Dingsøyr, T., & Dybå, T. (2010). A teamwork model for understanding an agile team: A case study of a Scrum project. Information and Software Technology, 52(5), 480-491.
Morgan, J., & Liker, J. K. (2006). The Toyota Product Development System. Productivity Press.
Patel, C., Raturi, A., Arora, G., & Gupta, M. P. (2012). Methods for project schedule risk analysis: An overview. International Journal of Project Management, 30(1), 79-88.
Schwaber, K., & Sutherland, J. (2017). The Scrum guide. Scrum. Org, 1-16.
Jonathan H. Westover, PhD is Chief Academic & Learning Officer (HCI Academy); Chair/Professor, Organizational Leadership (UVU); OD Consultant (Human Capital Innovations). Read Jonathan Westover's executive profile here.
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