The secret formula of building highly successful, cross functional and independent agile teams still eludes us, and probably always will. As teams are made of humans who by nature are complex and dynamic. Understanding the human behavior is the most complex task of all. However the most productive teams have one common characteristics and that is consensus. Here all team members feels included and work towards achieving a common goal. And by imbibing few techniques in our way of working we can achieve any goals without much friction.
As teams are formed with people with various backgrounds carrying different ethics and cultures, the initial few months to get these people together and work towards achieving a common goal can be really painful for a coach or Scrum Master. As per Tuckman’s model there are four stages of team development which teams pass through
- Forming – A period of getting acquainted
- Storming – Marked by individual conflict and competition
- Norming – Develops conscious with clear Roles and Responsibilities
- Performing – Effective and Efficient team with focus on achieving common goals
There are various theories and models to take the edge off this pain of getting team in norming and performing mode. Here team’s social contract aka working agreement can be of real help. Team Working Agreements is a set of simple practices that will work wonders to build a new team or to reform an existing one. It includes guidelines created by the Team, for the Team, that further help establish team members expectations with each other. This social contract, created by team members, elicits a level of commitment, discipline, and brings in more accountability. This helps team to work with sense of togetherness by establishing and reinforcing a clear shared understanding between all which helps hit their intended targets.
Characteristics of a working Agreement
A Working Agreement doesn’t have a police force to ensure that it’s followed. It’s we the team against which the effectiveness of our social contract is tied to. While crafting one the facilitator needs to ensure that we do not deviate from the basic characteristics and the integrity of a working agreement is kept intact. A well drafted working agreement will always address the defined scrum Values of Respect, Courage, Commitment, Focus and Openness keeping at bay with the below pointers
- All team members are actively involved
- Comfortable addressing uncomfortable topics
- Your agreement must be team-specific
- Short and crisp to be actively lived
- Updated frequently so it doesn’t become obsolete
- Consequential so it can be abided by
Role of facilitator to create Working Agreement
Though the process of defining Team’s working agreement is simple and straightforward. The Scrum Master facilitates a session with the entire scrum team, where they generate a number of common ground rules together.
To come up with practices that best fits the team we can use 1-2-4-ALL or Troika consulting, later using dot voting to vote on the top five to ten disciplines. The facilitator needs to ensure that everyone has a voice and keeps their points upfront. He needs to ensure that team is not deviating from common goal. Once the Team has agreed upon a set of social rules these should be posted at a place which is accessible to all members so it can be recalled easily.
How a working agreement looks like
If you are still wondering how will a social contract look, stop worrying as its no rocket science. Depending upon what your team agrees to your working agreement may look like one below
- Start all meetings on time
- No phones in scrum Ceremonies
- Show respect to each team member
- Allow safe failure
- Any change to the backlog requires Product Owner approval
- Adhere to the Definition of Done for user stories and demands
- Update the Backlog before each day’s daily stand-up event
- Maintain Jira hygiene
A working agreement may look very basic or lousy however each development team is different. And it’s up to the team to come together, define their style and work approach. At the end focus remains to deliver value to your stakeholders through iterative and incremental deliveries. So if you already have defined your social contract do share with us.
