Leadership in Self Organizing Teams (SOTs)

Probably nothing has been more misinterpreted than the term “self-organizing teams” in the agile world of software development. For some, SOTs are “leader-less-teams”. They are seen as teams with highly motivated individuals, collaborating with each other to deliver tasks. In his recent Cutter article, Jim Highsmith said, “for some, self-organized teams have become, antiorganization!” It is often viewed (by the misinformed crowd) that, because of the operational style of these “super-heroes” of SOTs, there is no necessity for leaders.

Well, I beg to differ.

In my opinion, leaders’ role is more crucial in “self organizing teams” than any other style. Lack of leadership nearly kills teams of any form, self organized or otherwise. Leaders are important for teams for many reasons: translate vision into deliverables, set standards for interactions - inter/intra team communication, unite and lead team members towards achieving common goal etc.

SOTs are highly disciplined teams as contrary to the popular misconceptions. Sanjiv Augustine, in his “Managing Agile Projects”, refers to these teams as “Organic Teams, enabling connections and adaptation through close relationships on small, flexible teams”. Obviously leaderless teams find it very challenging to accomplish these objectives.

I think leaders are naturally chosen by the teams. In all my projects (especially with “agile” flavor), I saw this happen. When you don’t name leaders, teams are naturally going to choose leaders. I think that is the best way for leaders to emerge. But a word of caution: I have also experienced chaos when people were confused and didn’t see big picture. So, you should be extra-cautious in observing the process patterns and ready to adapt to changes.

I also liked Jim Highsmith’s “six-point-formula” on creating empowered teams. May be we will discuss it sometime later.

Huh, heavy stuff? Let me sign-off on a lighter note. This is my favorite on XP :-)
Courtesy - http://beingextreme.blogspot.com/2005/11/light-bulb-jokes.html

How many XP developers does it take to change a light bulb?
What's the test for your use of the room? We cannot possibly estimate the amount of work or the resources required without understanding the "what". Why do you want light in the room? We can simplify the room by deleting the roof, walls and light bulb so that you can get light at least 8 hours a day - of course you should only be doing 40 hours in there anyway. And you'll never need a new light bulb! Which has tangible business value over the life of the system? We estimate it will take 2 developers 4 ideal days provided the roof doesn't cause injury if we refactor the floor first.