In SAFe, we discuss the importance of organizing around value and provide guidance on identifying value streams that span the organization’s functional domains. In fact, running the Value Stream and ART Identification Workshop is a critical first step to ensuring ARTs can build the products their customers desire with minimal dependencies. And that future members of the ART will have all the skills and authority necessary to deliver valuable products continuously.
But what’s next? How do we organize an ART into optimal teams? After all, the teams perform the work that ultimately delivers the ART’s value. While Agile teams should be self-organized and self-managed, managers and leaders are often the ones who create the teams. We observe that it is common for managers to assign all roles to individuals and dictate ways of working within each team. This pattern limits the ability of teams to experiment with team formations and ultimately optimize flow.
Marshall Guillory, one of our SAFe SPCTs, shares a proven approach, tested in the field at NASA, the FAA, and other clients, that provides the time and space for teams to self-design, self-form, organize around value, and realize more control over flow in the ART’s operating system. He believes that the teams themselves know best how to organize, and providing them with the time, space, and proper environment to organize is critical to their success. He has been using and evolving a Team Formation Workshop for several years. The workshop brings the team members together with the ART stakeholders to collaborate on alternative team designs and ultimately decide how the teams will best organize to deliver the ART’s value. The workshop applies after ART identification and before Teams create their charters as shows in the figure below.
Marshall explains the Team Formation Workshop in a new Community Contribution article. He describes how to prepare for the workshop by gathering all the right inputs, running it, and addressing common challenges. We think you will find this guidance on how teams can self-organize a valuable step in organizing around value.
Stay SAFe!
Harry and the Framework Team