If we are on a journey trying to transform into a company that operates according to the Product Model, we need an environment in which our Empowered Product Teams can thrive and succeed.
These teams don’t operate in isolation. They operate within structures that can either enable or cripple their ability to grow into strong autonomous agile teams. Let’s explore this with the metaphor of a soccer club.
Let’s pretend that we’re not in the business of building a product or <insert your company vision here>, but that we are running and managing a soccer club. Our club currently has 10 teams. Each team is trained by two coaches.
To succeed and profit from sponsorships, ticket sales, and merchandise, we need to train teams to win games and tournaments. If they don’t – we won’t attract fans, and our players would probably look elsewhere for other more successful clubs to join.
Let’s explore four different strategies to achieve our long-term goals.
Reducing cost and overhead
To make more profit, we can reduce costs. One considerable cost is the salary for all the team coaches.
So, instead of having two coaches for each soccer team, we reduce the number of coaches, and we restructure our training schedule so that each position practices separately. One coach trains the goalkeepers, another coach trains the forwards, one trains the midfielders, and one trains the defenders.
When it’s time for a game, the players meet on the field and wait for the referee to blow the whistle.
Result? No one with any experience playing or watching soccer on TV would expect such a team to win any matches or tournaments. Overfocusing on reducing costs will generate fewer won tournaments. We actively sabotage our ability to reach our long-term goals.
Kingdom Building
To attract the best coaches, we offer them many teams to train. The more teams you train, the better the salary and the more internal prestige. We also promote internal competition as an incentive to become a better coach.
We reduce the number of practice sessions so that coaches with many teams have time to train all their teams. We also standardize performance reports, training exercises, game tactics, and tournament strategies so it’s easier for the coaches to switch contexts when training different teams. For every other session, the teams have to train themselves.
Consequence? We will optimize for greedy coaches and mediocre teams. Since each team gets less attention, care, and support, they won’t get to practice the skills they need, nor enough time to play together to become strong as a team. The bigger the “kingdom”, the less each team will be coached and guided on the best strategy to win an upcoming game. We will also see political schemes where the coaches try to take over other coaches’ teams to grow their kingdom.
Superclear accountability
If we don’t score or win tournaments, make it easy to figure out why. Who didn’t fulfill their “job description”? Who didn’t follow the process? That way, we can correct behaviors or adjust the processes.
No! Overfocusing on accountability will foster compliance over autonomy and innovation. The lines in the soccer field are there as outer boundaries or to clarify the rules of the game. A team adjusts who is where and who does what depending on the context and state of the game. You are where you are needed. What counts is the number of games won. Together.
Stronger teams with better teamwork
We invest in our coaches. We level up their leadership skills with knowledge on how to help a team play better together and how to be an active, supportive servant leader, and we broaden their toolbox of practice exercises. We teach them how to teach their teams to change tactics on their own during a game, depending on what’s happening. We educate the coaches on the importance of celebrating wins together and how to invite the team to learn from losses. What other tactics can we try? What do we need to practice more?
Yes! This will put our teams on a highway to high-performance. To practice, play and learn as a team builds teamwork, motivation and willingness to feel accountable for the whole team’s result in any tournament.
Reflection
How does this relate to us in product and technology companies? Where and how is this relevant for leadership and management decisions?
When we are on an agile journey or trying to transform into a company that operates according to the Product Model, we always need to be mindful of our organization’s foundational core – our Empowered Product Teams.
Being conscious of costs and have some clarity on accountability is important. But it matters zero, zip, zilch, nada if we don’t have successful teams.
On the flip side, strong Product Teams require less overhead and processes to operate. They can address even more complex problems in a shorter time, significantly reducing the company’s overall operational costs.
As we evolve and transform, choose new ways of doing things, introduce roles, layers, organizational units, processes, etc., we have to ask ourselves: How does this impact our teams? What do they need to be empowered? What behaviors does our environment promote?
In conclusion, there are no shortcuts. Some of the above strategies might be super effective for generating short-term financial gains or results, but they will sabotage our ability for long-term sustainable success.
That’s how you run a soccer club, ahem, I mean a successful Product & Technology organization 🙂
Some comments on the shortcomings of the metaphor
“We develop software; we don’t play soccer.”
Totally true. Which is actually way harder. Since we solve complex problems, we need to emphasize teamwork even more and create conditions for the collective brainpower to operate together. The term “Scrum” even originates from rugby, another team sport.
“In soccer, the team size is fixed.”
Also true. It’s built into the rules. However, research and case studies from innumerable modern product and tech companies teach us that the ideal total size of an agile product team is 5-7 people with complementary skills and disciplines.
“In reality, we don’t practice; we work all the time!”
That sounds stupid. You should regularly take the time to pause your here-and-now delivery work. To zoom out, think, and plan ahead. To reflect on recent insights and learnings. To find ways to improve your ways of working and how you approach problem-solving. And how you choose which problems to solve.