Agile philosophy puts a lot of emphasis on self-organized teams that can build great quality products and services. Self-organization is one of the core attributes of agile teams or if I dare to say, is at the heart of agile project management. Self-organized teams are supposed to be self-contained and have required skills that works towards a shared vision. They don't need directions (read command and control) and can figure out on their how to best deliver results. A lot of literature can be found around self-organization.
In spite of wide knowledge and information around this topic, it would be interesting to know how many organizations have actually managed to create such teams. How many 'Spotify' case studies are around? In my opinion and experience, I think building self-organizing teams is easier said than done. While it’s a very good intent but there are lot of challenges that drags creation of such teams. For creating a mouthwatering dish, just like you will need right ingredients and in right quantity, same goes for creating a self-organized team. Unless you have all ingredients, such as, management commitment, an individual's willingness & attitude, infrastructure and operations, supporting groups, an organization's culture, etc. in place, it is difficult to have self-organized teams that can run like a well-oiled machine.
In this session, I will share some of my experiences with such teams, their behavior pattern, how such teams can be nurtured, some successful and some not so successful attempts.