Joining a new team, regardless of your position, can be challenging. Quite often, those who join are eager to get started, but will often stumble by assuming they understand their role and their place in the team. To prevent added disruption, making the most of the first Sprint with a team is vital to success. Here are 4 things to remember so that you can add value all possible in your first Sprint with them.
1. Obtain a shared expectation
First, while completing your onboarding, have a firm grip on the work the Delivery Team Members (a term for any team member who is creating the team's deliverable) work on. From there, ask about how your role fits best for those Delivery Team Members. For example, a Product Owner may realize that the team has trouble delivering work based on the feedback of the previous PO, but in reality, the team historically deviates from business priorities in favor of technical enhancements. The company’s expectation of you may be to maintain sprint by sprint priorities far more than usual. Create a shared expectation of what the team does and how your role fits the team's needs immediately.
2. Get to know the team
Next, with a shared understanding of your role's expectations, it is time to get to know some of the team. Scrum teams or any Agile team requires a lot of honesty and trust between team members. If you have the luxury to do so, feel free to take a minute and talk to the various team members outside of structured meetings. Understanding how people communicate both by tools (email only, doesn't take calls, always checks their calendar) and in-person will not only make everyone feel like your inclusion to the team hasn't caused too much of a disturbance, but also shows that you know how to reach each member if you need to talk. As a fellow Delivery Team member, knowing how everyone communicates will help you escalate the issues you have. Product Owners will know how to reach the team if a radical change in priorities occurs. Agile Coaches will make this their bread and butter, helping the team by being a positive force on the team they can speak to.
3. Conduct observations and ask questions
Upon getting comfortable with communicating with your team, put your best foot forward by observing the team in action. Take great care at identifying anything you find surprising or "wrong" the team does. Make note of them and, instead of pointing out your observations, frame your observations through curiosity instead of confusion. Ask strong "why" questions with the team to better understand what you saw. For example, Agile Coaches can take the observation of “the team doesn’t have a very long or fruitful retrospective” and turn it into a powerful “why” question such as “Could you please explain to me why we have only timeboxed 15 minutes for retrospectives? Why did we not create an Actionable Item after the discussion?”. By doing this instead of simply mentioning your observations, shows your investment in the team as they are now and may give you the appropriate context for why the team made such a surprising decision. Agile Coaches should always look for the "why" in everything, from process to product. Product Owners asking "why" can build an understanding as to how and how fast the team delivers products in their specific environments. Delivery Team members can learn the reason certain internal processes were first made and how they aid the team.
4. Ask the team to identify challenges they need solved
If you have done all of these steps, you are in the right space to directly ask what the current problems the team cares about. More than likely, teams have their top three challenges they need solved. By understanding your role in this team, how they communicate, and understand why the team works the way they do, you can hear what the team's problems truly are from their point of view. Without going out of your way to solidify these steps before asking what is wrong from the team means you avoid communication mishaps, confusion of role expectations, and repeating the same answers to the team they have already been told, as they do not work. Now, you can tackle the problems not only from a unique perspective but from the team's as well.
Take these suggestions with you next time you are on a new team!
Article by Alex Roff
Glebewood Agile Coach