The keystone of a high performing team.
High performing teams are a concept that every business or manager strives for. There is a tonne of influences that can lead to a team’s ability or inability to perform. Throughout this article I will go through a few which I deem significant influences on the performance of a team, finishing on one which I think has the most impact on all of those listed before.
The ability to deliver
‘Delivery’ is typically the first thing that comes to mind when you are trying to determine the performance of a team. Are they delivering work? For a while, I struggled to identify indicators that would enable me to determine a teams ‘ability to deliver’ aside from “is the work being delivered when they said they would do so”. I was advised by an industry colleague on 3 pillars they used to assess whether they were ‘delivering’ both as a team and as an Engineering Manager.
A consistent team is a predictable team. For a team to be predictable means it can be adequately resourced and assigned appropriate workloads for a team to deliver work on time and as expected. Consistency in teams has a huge bearing on whether a team is deemed performant. Factors that enable a team to strive for consistency in most ways come down the appropriate sizing and allocation of work they decide to take on. If a team is frequently seen ‘biting off more then they can chew’, the representation of the team to other aspects of the business can be reflected as a poor performing team.
Sustainable
The sustainability of a team is often hard to point to a ‘metric’ at to whether a team is operating sustainably or not aside from simple ‘staff turnover’. The best indicators I have found on whether a team was becoming unsustainable was based on observation and feedback.
If the team seems ‘overworked’ and operating at a pace that’s too fast to allow critical thinking, proper planning and does not seem to have enough ‘hours in the day to complete tasks required, there is a very good chance that the team is operating at an unsustainable way.
Delivery
Delivery has multiple aspects that can lead to the ability of a team to deliver. These are broadly explained below.
- Physical Delivery
Sometimes the time it tasks to deliver a piece of work is impacted. From a technical standpoint, perhaps a team’s CD pipeline is incredibly flaky, cumbersome or simply non-existent. This has a significant impact on a team’s ability to even get the work out once it’s done. - Quality of work delivered
If the work delivered is buggy, broken, missing parts or ‘not complete’ the overall performance expectations of a team are massively impacted. When a piece of work is agreed upon and signed off, the expectation is not viewed as broken, buggy and messy, it’s usually visualized as a perfect piece of work. The expectation is that it is delivered as such. - Time of delivery
Was the work delivered when it was said it would be delivered, if not the delay in delivery of work can have a detrimental impact on the performance of a team due to the unsatisfactory feeling of completion.
Teamwork
Teamwork will typically be felt by those closer to the team itself then by those outside looking in and because of this, poor teamwork can be thought of as poor performance to those looking in.
Teamwork comes down to a team’s ability to organize, participate and execute on work that comes their way. The processes, respect and overall ownership of each individual’s tasks will bubble up to the ‘picture’ of what the teamwork is like in a team. If a team is seen to have a single point of failure i.e. All workflows through a single individual to get done, this can have a significant impact on the participation of other team members. Team members who favor siloism in a team where collectivism is preferred can have a detrimental impact on teamwork.
It is important to set clear expectations and alignment on how the team is to operate concerning ownership and delegation of tasks frequently.
Culture
Culture cannot be summed up as a single metric but it is often put high on a list of favorite parts of a team or organization. It’s the combination of people, work habits, environment & company values that all lead to the positive or negative culture of a team. When the culture in a team is positive the performance of that team is significantly higher. Cultural influences within a team can be a teams preferences on:
- Decision making
- Task reviewing processes
- Task ownership
- Personal beliefs
- Quality expectations
- Work ethic
All of these can be influenced by those external to a team, however, they have a significant influence on the team’s ability to perform if not felt within.
Processes
When it comes to a team’s ability to perform well, it can often be influenced heavily by the processes it employs. If a team operates under an ‘Agile’ umbrella, the processes may include:
- Backlog Prioritisation
- Pre-Planning
- Planning Session
- Sprint
- Sprint Demo / Review
- Retrospective
A common response when asking an Agile Coach to what is the most important process within this list is typically the ‘Retrospective’. It’s an opportunity to reflect on a team’s performance and put in place measures and actions to consistently improve how the team works. I would tend to agree in most cases, however, there is one part of the process that isn’t in this list which I would put well above a Retrospective ceremony. To which is the ‘answer’ to this article.
The Keystone is the Backlog.
The backlog is critical to enable a team to work. What are the pieces of work that are required to be distributed to the teams to deliver to ensure the progression, growth, and optimization of the product? A backlog is a keystone to everything working; without it, I would say that its impossible for a team to perform well over time.
If you are responsible for the backlog, you have a lot of influence on the ability of your teams to perform. Take this responsibility seriously. I urge you not to overlook the quality of the items in your backlog and the ‘horizon’ in which they appear. The visibility of the backlog and items will enable teams to contribute, influence and truely own the piece of work that is coming through.
What makes a good backlog?
A ‘good backlog’ includes significant pieces of work that enable the teams to execute on. The items are big enough to push a team to collectively ‘own’, ‘respect’, and ‘buy-in’ to the reason for the development in the first place. There is clear understanding at all levels as to why a piece of work is important to either the business or the customer, and a clear understanding of what the expected output is to be.
A simple way to visualize a backlog within your teams is one we use as follows.
This is a quick way to build, visualize and communicate the ‘todo’ list of the product. It hits on significant information to enable a team to be performant based on the work, and establish the momentum to tackle significant work with a clear visualization of who the team will impact based on the delivery of the backlog item.
In Summary
What makes performant teams. Above everything else, the backlog. A constant stream of work that is significant, interesting and enables to team to feel a sense of ownership will put a product team in the best position to succeed and perform above all else. This is not to be naive to suggest it can only ever be that. There is always a need to do the ‘less desirable work’, however, this simply adds more emphasis on the visibility of a backlog to see what is coming up. I implore you to take a look at your organization, visualize the backlog, and distribute that information accordingly. Take these indicators and plan what you could do to influence your teams in the right way to enable them to perform the best they can.
