How to Build a Powerful Team from Scratch

Most teams are not really teams, they’re a group of people who happen to work together. Just because we put the label “team” on a collection of people doesn’t make it true, in the same way that applying a practice such as Scrum or Kanban doesn’t magically create super powers. A working group of people becomes a true team only when they cross a threshold of real collaboration. That’s where the magic kicks in.

Super Powers and Magic of Teams

It isn’t as mystical as it sounds. It’s proven science. When you set a group of people up to truly collaborate, and not just work in isolation, they’re far more effective and productive. They collectively problem-solve to get the right things done faster. Knowing their fellow team members and developing a foundation of trust means that they can feel safe discussing ideas freely, and creativity isn’t stifled out of fear. The shared sense of purpose toward the same goal is motivating. Feeling like you’re part of a bigger thing, with collective ownership and accountability, reduces friction and boosts engagement and morale.

The challenge is that, by and large, as humans we’ve become conditioned to work in isolation, without collaboration, until the problem is too big for us to solve on our own. That’s where Team Launch (or Re-Launch) comes in.

Why Invest in a Team Launch?

A Team Launch can help us cross that threshold and become a true team more quickly and with less friction. Hint: it’s not magic, there is still hard work.

High-performance teams share several essential characteristics that contribute to their success, and a team launch process is designed to help ensure that they’re in place right out of the gate. According to “The Wisdom of Teams”¹, these teams consist of a small number of individuals who possess complementary skills and are committed to a common purpose. They have a specific, challenging performance goal and hold each other mutually accountable for achieving it.

The performance of these teams is underpinned by a collective approach that requires equal contributions from all team members (equal effort rather than skill). It also promotes open interaction, fact-based problem solving, results-based evaluation, continuous improvement, and systematic seeking of fresh input and perspectives from outside the team.

Hold a Team Launch, Step-by-Step

Here are major components and, in some cases, examples and suggestions for how to drill down in more detail. Obviously adapt these to your specific team’s needs.

• Sponsor Introduction - The sponsor explains why they are chartering this team.
• Team Membership - Who is on the team? (Hint: having part-time team members is a recipe for delays and future challenges.) Remember that there are limits on how big an effective team can be. Nominally, the Scrum Guide says 3-9 people excluding ScrumMaster and Product Owner. This isn’t exclusively a Scrum thing because, having studied the science, teams of 4-7 seem to be ideal, with a hard upper bound at 8 people (again exclusive of ScrumMaster and PO). Of course, if you have 20-30 people, you can still use Scrum, you will just have more than 1 team. See: Large Scale Scrum
• Purpose - Why does the team exist? What is its goal? At minimum, the team needs to agree on a Product Vision and Strategy (often an initial Story Map). Without a clear vision and strategy, the team don’t understand what they’re building or how their day-to-day work contributes to the overall product goal. Some teams go further and create a Team mission which outlines their contribution towards the Product Vision.
• Product Owner - Who is the PO? What is their availability? What do we do if they’re not available to answer questions? What about missing Sprint Planning or Sprint Review? Vacation? These are all things that, if discussed and known in advance, can avoid issues going forward.
• Establish Working Agreements so everyone has a shared foundation of expectations of how they will collaborate (more depth below).
• Establish the Team - Outline the skills necessary for delivering the product effectively using a Skills Matrix (more depth below).
• Create an initial Definition of Done.
• Sprint Events - Review Scrum Events and participation (Planning, Daily Scrum, Review, Retrospectives and Product Backlog Refinement) and decide When/where they’ll be held. Check, do Team members even understand the events? From bitter experience, about 90% of them don’t. When does the Sprint start? Which stakeholders will the team invite to Sprint Review?
• Plan - Talk about how you will get to ‘Done’ in the first few Sprints. Pair programming, swarming, limiting Work In Progress? Discuss how you will test your work product. Set up your first Sprint Backlog structure.

How to Create Core Working Agreements

We know from scientific literature that psychological safety is an essential element for teams that perform effectively. Psychological safety is the belief that it is safe to take risks, make mistakes, and it won’t be held against you. All teams, no matter what the environment, make mistakes. The question isn’t whether we make mistakes, but how will our team react to them? In low psychological safety environments. people try to hide and cover up their mistakes. In high safety environments, they’re more likely to admit their mistakes and the whole team learns from them. Working Agreements are a structured way to lay out the groundwork for creating a psychologically safe environment. (Psychological safety doesn’t mean avoiding disagreements or conflict. It means dealing with challenges without blame.)

When creating your core working agreements, the entire team needs to be involved and contributing. Here are some suggestions for common topics to discuss and work into your agreement:

1. Decision-Making Process and Rules - Establish a clear process for making decisions, including consensus-based decisions or voting mechanisms as needed.
2. Handling Outside Interruptions - Define procedures for managing interruptions during the Sprint itself, such as setting expectations with stakeholders and limiting distractions within the team.
3. Protocols and Etiquette for Team Events - What will you do if you’re going to be late? How does the team feel about eating during meetings? Establish guidelines around things like camera usage for virtual events. (Hint: collaboration is more effective when we’re face-to-face wherever possible, even if only on camera.)
4. Sustainable Pace - How can the team ensure that they’re committing to work that is realistically achievable in the Sprint?
5. Team Values - Review the Scrum Values and decide how they apply in your world. As a reminder, the Scrum Values are “Focus, Commitment, Courage, Openness and Respect”. Many teams also discuss topics that include collaboration, continuous learning, and customer focus.
6. Communication Channels - Agree on preferred communication channels (e.g. Slack, Microsoft Teams) for day-to-day interactions and set expectations around response times. (Hint: For many things, instant response is unhealthy. We’re used to responding so quickly that we’re willing to interrupt focused work.)
7. Collaboration Tools - Choose appropriate tools (e.g. Mural, Miro) to facilitate team collaboration and ensure everyone has access to them.
8. Celebrating Successes - How will the team celebrate successes?
9. Handling Disagreements - Establish protocols for addressing disagreements within the team.
10. Violations of Working Agreements - Define a simple rule on how to point out when someone breaks the working agreements

What a Skills Matrix Is and How to Create One

The matrix is a tool for you and your team to identify what the team already knows how to do. Look for gaps between current skills and what is required to build the product. Take some time to discuss where people want to grow and how that can be harnessed to fill gaps or boost performance. On a personal level, take time to reflect on how you as an individual want to accomplish, and what others need to know about working with you.

While the Kanban/Scrum Board helps the team understand current and recent challenges, it doesn’t do anything to address where the team will likely need new skills going forward, nor where team members would like to grow in their skills.

A skills matrix is a self-reporting system where team members provide their own estimate of their skill in a specific area. To create a skills matrix, get the team to set aside a couple of hours and run a workshop with the following steps:

1. On a large piece of paper, write down all of the skills you personally have that are relevant to the work. Include your superhero skill (or anything else that will provoke a smile).
2. Pass your page to the next person. They review your list and add any skills for you that they feel you missed.
3. Repeat until people aren’t adding any new skills to the lists. Typically this will happen after about three people.
4. Compile all of the personal lists into a single long list that everyone can see. In skill areas that are of greater value or importance to the team, go into greater detail. For example, inside of Java Development, we might write down specific libraries or tools that team members use.
5. Team members’ names are written down on one axis, skill areas on the other.
6. Team members self-rate their skill level in each area. Any scale can be used; for example, mine typically goes from:

• Blank – don’t want to learn about this,
• 0 to 1 – know nothing but open to learning,
• 2 to 3 – can complete small tasks unaided by an adult,
• 4 to 6 – expert in the area and others can learn from me

7. If we compute the average for each skill area, we rapidly get a picture of where the team is strong and experienced, and where it’s weaker.

Sample Skills Matrix

I like to create a Skills Matrix whenever I start working with a new team. Once the Skills Matrix has been created, I recommend teams revisit it every few retrospectives to answer two questions:

• “Where have we learned new skills that would cause us to update our self ratings?”
• “Where would we next like to put our learning energy?”

An important thing to remember with the Skills Matrix is that it can only be used for the team and by the team. If it is used outside of the team, members will game their numbers to look good, and that destroys the only value of the tool. All too often I hear of organizations where Skills Matrices are a function of Human Resources and the information is used to poach team members for other projects. This approach is 180 degrees from the Agile use of the tool. I’ve also seen it misused by management to pressure team members or in the Performance Review process. If this happens, all value will be destroyed. It is a tool for the team to understand itself. Full stop.

In an organization that is sufficiently mature that it won’t get misused, I like to put the Skills Matrix up on the Team Room wall as a reminder of the importance of ongoing learning.

Conclusion

Whether your team is just starting out, or it needs a reset, a Team Launch is an excellent way to help ground the team and speed their learning process. Assembling a team with intentional design and structure to work from helps them have a foundation of shared understanding, purpose, and respect. This isn’t just about putting individuals together to be more productive. It’s about creating an environment where people thrive, feel supported and valued, and are inspired to do their best work.

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Footnotes

1. “The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization” - Jon R. Katzenbach ans Douglas K. Smith ↩