Making more out of a team to make a team do more
Among the many catchy and wise quotes Aristotle used to throw around, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” remains to be a favorite in corporate America. Though arithmetically incorrect and in contradiction to the Ringelmann effect, corporations love to tout the value of synergy. For teams where synergy is not a part of their culture, when and how do we synergize? Who should be leading that effort?
Where Does My Job End?
A dev manager once said to his entire team during a project kick-off meeting, “I want everyone to know what the person next to them is working on.” It was a statement meant to motivate as well as imbue a sense of accountability and unison into his team. It is a fantastic mind-set for a dev team to have, but there is no reason to stop there. Understanding the responsibilities and roles different from one’s own can have massive impact on how an individual plans their execution. A business analyst that understands how to extrapolate objectives from client demands can help a UX designer solve the right problems. A UX designer who can help write stories and understand development processes can deliver assets that are more comprehensive for a development team. A developer who understands the business objective can be constructively engaged in assessing if the sprint goal aligns with the product vision.
It is important for every member of the team to remember that they are all stakeholders of a product, not just a representation of talents. “Where does my job end?” is a slippery slope that can quickly deteriorate into “That’s not my job.”
How Much Talent Is Enough to Make a Good Product Team?
A good product isn’t simply a collection of good features. Though existing features in a product may provide value to the user individually, it is in the efficient flow from feature to feature where the benefit of a product is evaluated.In t he same way, the strength of a product team can be measured in its relations between teams & talents.
A designer creating a perfect design solution doesn’t mean anything if the solution isn’t properly communicated to the developer who will be building it. In the same way, a business solution will not translate in the design if the objective is not conveyed to the designer properly. It is in these key moments of communication where synergy needs to be at its strongest.
Synergy Through Alignment
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
-Leo Tolstoy
The opening of Tolstoy’s book, Anna Karenina has been used to describe a principle where failing to meet even one of a number of factors, can destine an entire operation to fail.
“In other words: in order to be happy, a family must be successful on each and every one of a range of criteria e.g: sexual attraction, money issues, parenting, religion, in-laws. Failure on only one of these counts leads to unhappiness. Thus there are more ways for a family to be unhappy than happy.”
The Anna Karenina principle can be applied to product team dynamics as well. When the scales of power lean too far in favor of, let’s say, a development team for example, it becomes easy for product decisions to become catered to the capacity of the development team rather than the user. The tipped scales lead to missed business objectives and compromised user experience. In these situations where alignment is lacking, it is on the Product Owner to facilitate a goal-setting exercise. These sessions will not create organic synergy in the entire team, but it is rather meant to create a shared goal that everyone can be excited over. When all the members feel like they have contributed in creating an inspiring vision, they are likely to worker harder and collaboratively.
Moments where one can hold the attention of the group are rare. When one is fortunate enough to have the attention of key actors in the product team, it is worth evaluating if the current work methodology is appropriate for a team with tipped scales. Analyze the entire process with the team, identify the problem areas, and suggest adopting some beneficial practices from the number of different work methodologies out there (Kaizen, six sigma, lean, etc).