Six Best Practices For Building High-Performing Agile Teams

Chief Executive Officer at Code Power.

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According to a 2021 study, more than 90% of organizations have used Agile practices. In fact, Agile is empowering operations across the board from software development to R&D to operations to marketing. It makes sense, given how good it is to tackle different tasks—especially complex ones.

Naturally, this doesn’t mean you can expect great results just by adopting Agile. The approach is nothing more than a tool, and you have to know how to wield it in order to reap its benefits. For that to happen, you and your team must follow a set of best practices. Which practices are the best depends on who you ask, but, in my experience, the following six offer the best chance of success.

Choose the right team members.

A good Agile team starts before there even is an actual team. To enjoy the benefits of a high-performing team, you need high-performing professionals. That obviously begs the question: What do those professionals look like? The easy answer would be: “efficient people capable of continuously delivering quality work.” In other words, experts with clear hard and soft skills and enough experience in your field.

However, there’s more to it than that. High-performing professionals are also very motivated and eager to tackle new challenges and explore new grounds. Given that Agile thrives in dynamic environments, you’ll need people who behave in the same way.

Establish clear goals and priorities.

After you handpick your Agile team, it’s time to adjust your operations to enhance the overall performance. There are many items on that to-do list, but the first steps are of critical importance: defining the general and specific objectives of your work and clearly dividing priority and non-priority tasks.

These steps will help you organize your projects while providing a clear road map for your Agile team to follow. Don’t think of this as a once-and-done sort of thing. Goals might change over time, and your priorities will undoubtedly shift, so it’s essential to promptly communicate any necessary changes to the strategy.

Foster collaboration and communication.

Since we’re on the topic, I surely don’t have to tell you that communication is essential, especially if your company, like my company, is remote. Having a robust and clearly defined communication process can speed everything up, reducing potential pitfalls, including misalignment, knowledge silos creation and team demotivation.

Communication is also a great way to foster collaboration between team members. Getting everyone on the same page can bring people together, making them see and understand each team member’s role. This, in turn, will make it easier for everyone to grasp their own value and overall contributions, which is a huge factor for team motivation and, ultimately, for performance.

Promote transparency.

Communicating everything promptly and adequately will also result in increased transparency. When Agile teams are open and transparent in their work (sharing progress, challenges and lessons learned with the rest of the organization), the entire team and the work benefit.

Moreover, your team will perceive you as more transparent and begin to understand and trust your decisions. For that to truly show its full effect, use everything at your disposal. If you have the possibility of meeting face to face, take it. But if you’re working fully online, don’t worry: You can still arrange video meetings where everyone can see and hear you without a mediator.

Encourage continuous learning and improvement.

Agile teams should be proactive in seeking new knowledge and skills that can help them improve their performance. That might come naturally to some people, but others might struggle (or even neglect to do so entirely). It’s your job to make sure that everyone stays curious and thirsty for knowledge. Pique your team’s interest, challenge them to try new things, and reward them when they do.

Also, remember that Agile teams should constantly be looking for ways to improve their processes and deliver value more efficiently. It’s not a matter of just encouraging them to learn new skills or perfect the ones they already have. Your team members should always keep in mind a core Agile principle: “At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.”

Provide the necessary tools and resources.

Finally, remember that Agile teams need the right tools and resources to do their work effectively. What those look like will depend on the objectives you set for your Agile team. The answer will change depending on if you are using Agile to recruit talent, revamp your administrative workflow or build a new piece of software.

Generally, I can say that having project management software, collaboration tools and access to training and development platforms can provide significant value to Agile teams of all kinds. Beyond that, it’s essential to meet with your team to gather feedback and truly understand what they might need.

Sending your team’s performance through the roof

None of these best practices are hard to understand, but they are tricky to implement. In fact, you might read them and feel like I’m spewing one cliche after the other, but I beg to differ. These practices are the cornerstone of a high-performing Agile team.

What’s more, these principles can help your team perform better even if you don’t use Agile. My company, for example, has seen fantastic results with using these principles in our marketing team, where we use them on a wide range of projects, from creating a new website to launching a new email campaign. In my opinion, this set of principles works so well that I hardly believe that there are still companies who do not use them.

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