8 Traits of a High-Performing Agile Team

Are you planning to create a new digital solution? In this case, you will need to think about how to effectively organize the work of specialists who will be involved in this process.

For example, these days, many are inclined to favor the Agile methodology as a more modern alternative to the Waterfall one: ​​indeed, being adapted to changes within the product development process, it ensures closer interaction with clients and, thus, the accelerated launch of these products to the market – exactly in the form in which the clients imagine them. 

The popularity of this methodology is undeniable, which is confirmed by the following statistics: today, it is preferred by about 61.5% of development teams. At the same time, it is worth noting that for the effective functioning of such teams, it is not enough to know their key roles and select specialists with the right set of skills. In addition, you will also have to adhere to the characteristics of Agile mindset. Below, we will talk about all required Agile characteristics in more detail.

Understanding an Agile Team

So, what is an Agile feature? According to its definition, it is a small cross-functional team (usually, up to nine specialists) working using Scrum or Kanban methods and aimed at achieving lightning-fast response to changes in project requirements. 

As one of the main features of Agile methodology is sprints (short periods during which the team must complete a specific task within the project – be it the implementation of a function, integration, etc.), the project is divided into successive sub-stages, for the implementation of which one or more team members are responsible.

Thanks to constant interaction with each other and with the client, the team gains a unified vision of the goals and ways to achieve them. This ensures coherence in the work of individual specialists, which, in turn, brings a result that fully meets the client's requirements.

Initiating an Agile Team

In 1965, American psychologist Bruce W. Tuckman proposed a model according to which teams would work in a coordinated and productive manner. Although being developed for submarine crews, today, it is actively used in the initiation of Agile teams. So, according to this model, each team must go through a path of five such stages to succeed in its activities:

• Forming. This is the stage of acquaintance when each of the team members tries to present only their positive traits.
• Storming. At this stage, politeness fades into the background – this usually happens when the team or one of its members encounters the first difficulties in the project. Here, it is important for the manager to fix these conflicts in time.
• Norming. This stage involves collaboration: specialists apply their expertise in the tasks of their colleagues to eliminate downtime and help the team move on.
• Performing. This stage implies additional motivation of team members who do not want to get involved in joint work. That’s why all team members must be well aware of the goal and their role in achieving it.
• Adjourning. As soon as the project ends, the team is disbanded. Managers draw conclusions about which “subgroups” of specialists work most productively and subsequently assemble new project teams according to these insights.

Functioning of an Agile Team

Agile teams operate according to the following life cycle:

• Concept. This step involves setting priorities, assessing business opportunities, and estimating project budget and deadlines.
• Inception. Now, everything is ready to form the team and define metrics that will help track the overall team’s productivity and the productivity of its individual members.
• Iteration. At this stage, the team begins to complete tasks according to the sequence of previously defined sprints.
• Release. After the Agile team has completed several iterations and the product has been successfully tested, it is released.
• Production. The team deploys the product to its use environment, performing all necessary configurations and integrations.
• Retirement. After everything works in the product as intended, the team hands it over to the client, and the project is completed.

Roles within an Agile Team

You may ask: what is the optimal number of members for an Agile team? Actually, as we said earlier, these are usually small teams of 3-9 people, which should include:

• Product Owner. This is the key person who determines the direction of the team's actions within a specific project. This specialist is responsible for interacting with the client, coordinating the team, managing tasks and releases, etc.
• Scrum Master. This is the person who owns quality in a Scrum team. Specifically, if the team adheres to Scrum practices, this person takes on the role of mediator between its individual members, thereby ensuring the achievement of tasks within the project. This specialist plans/optimizes the stages of product development and takes on various administrative tasks.
• Technical team. These are the people who are directly involved in the creation of the product: these can be UX/UI designers, developers, QA engineers, and so on.
• Stakeholders. These are usually investors, managers, and other people who regularly evaluate the effectiveness of the development process and can influence its further course.

8 Traits of a High-Performing Agile Team

A good Agile team should exhibit the following qualities:

• Mutual collaboration. Such teams maintain open communication, sharing their skills in the name of achieving project goals.
• Adaptability to changes. This means that the team quickly reacts to changes. From a practical point of view, this is achieved through an iterative approach and regular feedback.
• Self-organization and responsibility. This is one of the main high performing team characteristics that insists on the fact that team members are fully responsible for the results of the work they have done.
• Continuous optimization. Agile team members must constantly review their approaches to work and, if necessary, optimize them (for example, based on stakeholder feedback).
• Focus on the client. Such teams create solutions that must have high value for their owners. Thus, they must be well-informed about their needs, pain points, and expectations.
• Quality assurance. High quality is achieved through the implementation of KPIs and metrics for assessing the product’s quality, and adherence to niche standards, as well as the adoption of continuous testing and optimization practices of software code.
• Measurability and transparency of goals. These teams have clear and measurable goals that are agreed upon with the client. They also use metrics that allow them to evaluate the product's compliance with these goals. 
• Mutual respect. Mutual respect is valued in such teams as it promotes trust and the exchange of experience and skills during the work on the project.

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Simplifying Agile

It's time to learn what practices will help you simplify the management of Agile teams and maximize their productivity. So, how do cross functional teams support Agile collaboration?

1. Unified Vision

A good Agile team should exhibit a common understanding of the project goals from the very beginning. This will speed up decision making in challenging situations, help set priorities, and ensure that the final solution meets customer expectations.

2. Accountability and Continuous Improvement

Each member of your team should be accountable beyond their ​​expertise. This means that if a team member’s skills allow them to solve a problem more efficiently and move the project closer to launch, they should be involved in helping their teammates.

3. Value-Centric Development

All cross functional Agile team activities within the project should be aimed at increasing its value to its owner. In practice, this is done through an iterative approach, continuous testing (by the way, this is the answer to the question: “What is the main characteristic of Agile testing”), and gathering feedback.

4. Multi-Tier Planning

Teams must plan long-term goals and iterations to create sustainable and competitive solutions. This can be achieved by developing a project roadmap, breaking the project into subtasks with measurable goals, and planning sprints.

5. Adaptability to New Methods

The team must be adaptive to maintain productivity as project requirements change. This is facilitated by an iterative approach to development and by maintaining constant communication with stakeholders and the client.

6. Embracing Continuous Feedback

Such teams should have the necessary tools to collect early feedback. This can be done through early testing, maintaining regular communication with the client, and iterative optimization of the product.

7. Balancing Structure and Creativity

Because of their cross-functionality, teams must be creative enough without sacrificing generally accepted software development standards. To do this, they must adhere to certain development patterns that are agreed upon in advance with the goals of a specific project.

8. Relative Estimation

Finally, such teams should use relative estimation techniques to understand the complexity of tasks relative to each other, rather than the time required to complete them. A particular example of such estimation is a Scrum poker gamified technique.

Conclusion

We hope that you now know how to organize the work of your team to maximize its productivity. On the other hand, to save your resources, you can always delegate your project to a third-party development company that has extensive experience in this, for example, us. If you would like to discuss your project in more detail, feel free to contact us right now.

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