Article Series: Part 2: What is Team Design Strategy and the Challenges?

A pattern for Team Design strategy & self-Formation Workshop events

In this series of articles, Agile Rising’s Scaled Agile experts have introduced and provided recommendations on peer-reviewed and field-tested ideas and patterns for organizing around value while using SAFe as guidance. The patterns include critical features of value stream management, SAFe principles, Design Thinking, Agile, organizational change management & design, industrial and organizational psychology, team design strategy, team topologies, team formation & self-selection, and applied Lean and Systems Thinking.

Series Article Topics

Previous article

The previous article introduced the challenges that change leaders, Agile Coaches, SAFe Practice Consultants and organizations face at large, complex super-scale enterprises. We presented several new workshops and patterns for solving these challenges, including two new workshops, the Team Design Strategy Workshop and the Team Formation & Self-Selection Workshop, in addition to an enhanced change management pattern in the form of the Agile Rising Customer Journey Map for SAFe 6.0. We also introduced a systems model that captures the critical feedback loops of the system for Organizing Around Value with SAFe.

What is Team Design Strategy and the Challenges?

February 15, 2023 - Marshall Guillory, Scaled Agile SPCT, Enterprise Agility Coach

This article will explore and expand on the Team Design Strategy (TDS) topic and what it is. We will then work our way through a couple of challenges you may relate to in your organization to answer why we need a strategy for team design.


AI wrote and designed parts of this article.

What is Team design strategy and why do i need it?

What is team design strategy?

A team design strategy is a deliberate plan or approach for forming and managing a team of individuals to accomplish a specific goal or task. It involves identifying the key roles and responsibilities required to achieve the desired outcome, selecting the right people with the necessary skills and experience, and creating a collaborative work environment that supports effective communication, decision-making, and problem-solving. Team Design Strategy is expressed as an organizational design hypothesis.

Excerpt from, “Connecting Enterprise Strategy to Portfolio Execution“

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the challenges

Scenario 1: Your change leadership team needs help to answer the hard questions about which people we should include in SAFe Value Stream Identification that support the operational value stream.

A vital part of this challenge is that there are underlying and unseen assumptions and biases in the organizational model and perspective of the leadership team. The organization must see the waste created by not recognizing other critical parts of the value chain.

Aspects of the Scenario:

  • SAFe framework: The change leadership team uses the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) to identify the people who should be included in the value stream identification process.
  •  Operational value stream: The team focuses on identifying people who support the operational value stream, which is the sequence of activities that deliver value to the customer.
  •  Value stream identification: The team is trying to determine which people in the organization should be involved in the value stream identification process, which is the first step in implementing the SAFe framework.
  •  Hard questions: The team needs help answering difficult questions about which people should be included in the value stream identification process. These questions may relate to factors such as job function, level of involvement in the value stream, and impact on the customer.
  •  Change leadership: The team is responsible for leading the change process within the organization, which involves identifying and implementing new processes, tools, and ways of working.
  •  Collaboration: The team needs to collaborate with different stakeholders across the organization, including management, staff, and customers, to ensure the successful implementation of the SAFe framework.
  •  Communication: The team must communicate the changes effectively to ensure everyone understands the new processes and their role in the value stream identification process.
  •  Continuous improvement: The team needs to continuously evaluate and improve the value stream identification process to ensure that it delivers the expected benefits and meets the organization’s evolving needs.

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Furthermore, the leadership teams gets stuck on some key questions and points.

  • There needs to be clarity about the organization’s operational vs. development functions. (IT OPS vs. DEVOPS vs. Business Operations, et cetera; the bubble trap)
  •  Do we include the business or mission people? IT? Software/H/W/F/W? Delivery/Packaging? HR, Finance? Contracting? Legal? Customer relationship management? Sales?
  •  Leaders often answer quickly: “Yes, of course, all the IT and software people should be on the ART. They build the product!” Role types from an IT/software perspective are clearer because of the bias towards an IT-centric view built into the system.
  •  Conversely, sometimes leaders lean on ‘minimizing’ change impact by intentionally excluding people that are critical value generators in the value streams because of organizational boundaries, perceived risk or politics, or the belief that those people are not ready

What actions should we take in this scenario?

Your change leadership team is facing a challenge in identifying the right people to include in the SAFe Value Stream Identification for supporting the operational value stream. Here are some recommendations on how to approach this scenario:

  1. Attend the Leading SAFe course and the Value Stream and ART Identification Workshop: Start by reviewing the SAFe to understand the value stream better and identify the key roles and responsibilities required to support it. This will give your team a better understanding of the value stream and help them identify the necessary individuals who can contribute.
  2.  Identify the operational value stream: It’s essential to identify the operational value stream you want to improve, including the key processes, metrics/KPIs, and activities. This will help your team better understand the value stream and identify the right people to include in SAFe Value Stream Identification. What problem are we trying to solve?
  3.  Identify the key roles: Once you have identified the operational value stream, identify the critical roles required to support it. These roles should align with the SAFe and include individuals from different functional areas, including development, testing, operations, and the rest of the business or mission.
  4.  Engage stakeholders: Engage with stakeholders from each functional area and involve them in the Value Stream Identification process. This will help ensure that the right individuals are included in the value stream and that their expertise and insights are considered.
  5.  Facilitate a value stream mapping session: Organize a value stream mapping session with the key stakeholders to identify the end-to-end process and all the steps involved. This will help your team identify the individuals required to support the value stream.
  6.  Organize and facilitate a Team Design Strategy Workshop: Team Design Strategy can be both an input to VSIW and receive input from VSIW. Think of VSIW and TDSW as closing each other’s feedback loops.
  7.  Continuous improvement: Once you have identified the key people, it’s essential to continue monitoring the value stream’s performance and making improvements where necessary. This will help ensure that the right individuals contribute to the value stream and achieve the desired outcomes.

By following these recommendations, your change leadership team can identify the right people to include in the SAFe Value Stream & ART Identification Workshop and ensure that the operational value stream is supported effectively. Your team will be prepared to create the Team Design Strategy by including the right stakeholders. Additionally, your team will have validated the hypothesis for the development value stream. The agile release train is ready to be tested through the Team Formation & Self-Selection Workshop and plan execution – by launching the ART.

Scenario 2: Your ART or network struggles to create better business outcomes despite significant participation, leadership, and movement towards cross-functional agile teams and values. The people on teams are unhappy with the way the teams are organized.

Aspects of the Scenario:

  • Lack of Clarity in Goals: Despite participation and leadership, the teams may need to clearly understand what they are trying to achieve or their specific role in the overall strategy.
  •  Insufficient Resources and People: The ART or network may require more resources or the right people to create better business outcomes. This can lead to a lack of necessary tools, equipment, or personnel, hindering productivity and ultimately resulting in unhappy team members.
  •  Inadequate Communication: In many cases, poor team communication can lead to confusion and frustration. The ART or network may have yet to implement effective communication practices or tools, leading to misunderstandings and wasted time.
  •  Poor Team Structure: How teams are organized may not be conducive to achieving better business outcomes. This could be due to a lack of clear roles, improper allocation of tasks, or ineffective collaboration strategies.
  •  Resistance to Change: Even with significant participation and leadership, resistance to change can be a significant roadblock in achieving better business outcomes. People may be reluctant to adopt new processes, tools, or values, leading to a lack of enthusiasm and motivation among team members.
  •  Lack of Flexibility: To be truly agile, teams must be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances. If the ART or network cannot pivot quickly or change direction when needed, it can result in missed opportunities and a lack of progress.
  •  Inadequate Training: The ART or network may not provide adequate training and development opportunities for team members. This can lead to frustration and a sense of being unprepared for their roles, ultimately leading to dissatisfaction.
  •  Lack of Recognition: Sometimes, team members may feel undervalued and unrecognized for their contributions. This can lead to a lack of motivation and disengagement from the overall goals of the ART or network.
  •  Segmented: Your team of teams only works on a segment of the value stream. This creates friction through the dependencies and introduces risk to your product plans and roadmaps.

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Notably, this scenario is common to all types of teams or teams of teams using various frameworks or models for organizing around value.

What actions should we take in this scenario?

Your Agile Release Train (ART) or network faces challenges in creating better business outcomes despite significant participation, leadership, and movement towards cross-functional agile teams and values. Additionally, the people on the teams are unhappy with the way the teams are organized. Here are some recommendations on how to approach this scenario:

  1. Conduct a retrospective: Start by conducting a retrospective to identify the root cause of the team’s unhappiness with how they are organized. This will give you insights into what is causing the teams to struggle to achieve better business outcomes. Encourage open and honest communication and invite feedback from all team members.
  2.  Review the ART or network’s structure: Take a closer look at the ART or network’s design to see if it’s contributing to the teams’ struggles. Are the roles and responsibilities well defined? Is the team well aligned with the organization’s goals and objectives? Are there any communication barriers between the teams or with the leadership? Based on this review, adjust the structure to suit the needs of the teams better.
  3.  Address team concerns: Address the concerns raised by the team members and work together to identify potential solutions by inviting them to participate in developing the Team Design Strategy. Be transparent about the process and share your action plan to address the issues. Encourage participation from all team members in identifying solutions to improve the team’s satisfaction and overall performance.
  4.  Invest in training: Consider investing in training for the teams and the ART or network to improve their understanding and implementation of agile methodologies. This can increase the effectiveness of the teams and the ART or network, leading to better business outcomes.
  5.  Foster collaboration: Foster a culture of collaboration, trust, and openness. Encourage team members to share their ideas and feedback with the leadership. Promote cross-functional teamwork and celebrate team successes.
  6.  Continuously improve: Finally, constantly monitor and evaluate the ART or network’s performance and make improvements where necessary. This will help ensure that the team’s concerns are being addressed and that the ART or network is aligned with the organization’s goals and objectives.

By following these recommendations, you can improve the teams’ satisfaction and enhance the ART or network’s performance, leading to better business outcomes by re-organizing around value.

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A solution emerges

Team Design Strategy

A team design strategy pattern typically involves several steps. This pattern is implemented and facilitated iteratively and incrementally [Agile], including stakeholders from what we define as “Representative” Emergent Knowledge Groups. The intent is to represent the system of stakeholders inclusively from across the business, technology, engineering, and all organizational siloes. Who is necessary to create the value? The answer to that question is the answer to who is part of the emergent knowledge groups. This pattern is not intended to be used as a “top-down” approach and is not intended to be used by only executives and managers. That would be the ultimate antithesis of the goal of the workshop.

The workshop is facilitated across the emergent knowledge groups using the Design Thinking pattern. This allows for the emergence of knowledge, expressions, risk identification, design for use, problem-solving, and other activities to occur collaboratively within the groups.

Types of representative emergent knowledge groups

There are three types of representative emergent knowledge groups in this pattern and concept–manager, Team, and Customer. Because we adopt Customer Centricity in SAFe, we must include customer representation or proxy in the design process.

The group types have the following examples of stakeholders that you may consider inviting through the design process. Awareness of existing biases in the system and the people operating it is critical. The design process must be an open space to overcome existing barriers, and change leadership must message this vital communication to all stakeholders.

  • Manager Group
    • Executives, Sr. Leaders and consultants
    • Managers of all types
    • SME’s
  • Team Group
    • People and teams who do the work. Development, Architecture, Shared Services, Engineering, Service Management, Marketing, Legal, Finance, Contracts, Supply Chain, Warehouse, Store Front, IT Ops, Business Ops, DevOps, Hospitality, et cetera.
  • Customer Centric Group
    • Actual customers – internal or external
    • Product or Solution Management
    • Product Owners
Figure 1. Representative Emergent Knowledge Groups

Steps in the process include:

  1. Reviewing and understanding business/mission goals and strategy
  2. Defining the value stream network scope and objectives (or re-defining!)
  3. Creating the Architectural Runway – including the system and solution Architect(s)
  4. Identifying the skills and expertise needed to achieve the goals
  5. Recruiting and selecting team members with the right skills and experience for critical leadership roles
  6. Establishing clear roles and responsibilities foundations for each team member
  7. Creating a communication and decision-making framework that supports effective collaboration
  8. Providing resources and support to help the team achieve its goals
  9. Monitoring progress and making adjustments as needed

A well-designed team strategy can help improve team performance, increase productivity and flow, and ensure successful business outcomes. It can also build a strong team culture and foster a sense of ownership and commitment among team members. The design should also directly address Conway’s Law, invoking the Reverse Conway Maneuver (or inverse Conway Maneuver). This is how we facilitate our teams’ collaborative and inclusive design to support and achieve the desired architecture1. Applying the reverse Conway maneuver will enable a structured approach to removing systemic dependencies in the system. The emergent knowledge groups should make visible and transparent the dependencies built into the existing system and design a new system that eliminates waste.

The approach to a team design strategy that we propose combines the nine-step process, Agile Rising Customer Journey Map, and SAFe Implementation Roadmap with value streams, design thinking, and team topologies into structured and facilitated workshops. Learn more about the components of our approach by reading Team Design Strategy with Value Streams, Design Thinking, and Team Topologies.

The workshops proposed occur iteratively, as the final product desired – a blueprint for an Agile Release Train or Solution Train and the network- is incrementally designed and constructed. Inevitably, the design hypothesis for how people are organized around value changes over time with context. The workshops are intended to be used with design thinking for the product’s lifecycle – the value stream network. This means re-organizing around value as a principle is realized through rethinking the design hypothesis when your business or mission context changes. That could be once per PI or for years, depending on strategy. It does not mean that every stone is turned over frequently. Wisdom, discernment, and measurement are part of the decision-making process to determine how much, when, and how long. It would be unwise, for example, to make significant changes to the system of every PI. Every system needs periods of stability to affect the quality measurement of flow and outcomes.

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What’s next?

We will learn that we create and close feedback loops using Design Thinking, and explore the utilization of the SAFe Value Stream & ART Identification Workshop, Value Stream Mapping Workshop, TDS Workshop, and Team Formation & Self-Selection Workshops in a PDCA loop.

Read the next topic article in the series, “Team Design Strategy – Where do we start?”

References

  1. The Science of DevOps by Nicole Forsgren, PhD., Jez Humble, and Gene Kim

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