Teamwork in Agile

When developing in Agile, one of the most important, if not the most important thing is having a solid and dependable team. A good team will be able to work together to solve most any challenge that comes their way, and will be able to produce a better quality project, faster than a poor constructed team. While individual performance is important, for Agile “we” is more important than “I”.

However even a team that seems like it would be perfect together takes time to grow. This may be due to just trying to get to know one another, or to get used or to establish what kinds of styles you may be using, to just trying to nail down communication and get it running smoothly. On average an agile group goes through four stages: Forming, Storming, Norming and Preforming. One a team reaching the preforming stage, it is at its best with the team able to rely on one another and to work on each other’s strengths and covers each other’s weaknesses.

However even when a team is at the preforming stage and is working perfectly together, there are still things that can threaten or slow the development of the project. Something like a new person is added to the team either for a specialized skill or for whatever reason, or is if something from the team is removed or leaves. Either way the team is pushed back to the first stage until it can learn to cope with the change.

Another important component of an Agile team is continues mentoring. This is not just for junior members to learn from senior members. Rather is it something that the entire team can take advantage of. It allowed the different members to learn new skills and techniques. This leads into another important component: shared skill sets. If only one member knows a particular skill, then if they are removed from the project or miss a day, then it can slow the entire project or stall it completely.

Agile is a very team centered style to project management, and it is important that the team members quickly learn to trust and rely on each other to allow to project to run smoothly. It is also important that they can take something away from the experience and learn from on another so that any delays can be dealt with promptly.