• Agile & Scrum Basics

Shopping list for starting a stable Agile team (part 3)

The shopping list is actually more of a questionnaire. If you can answer all the questions, you’re ready for the Agile Kickstart. By the way, those answers don’t have to be very detailed. There is plenty of room during the kickstart to clarify everything further. There are three sets of questions: substantive, process and personal. In total, there are 14 questions. I recommend taking no more than 30 minutes to answer all the questions. The first answer that comes to mind is good enough.

Personal questions for starting an Agile team

Every person is unique and so are you. You have different drives and energy sources than the rest of the team. In an Agile, you don’t have job descriptions. Everyone is a team member and goes for it. That creates new opportunities for yourself. If you know where you draw your energy from, the whole team can take that into account. After all, everyone benefits from your productivity and energy.

1. What kind of work do you like to do?

Is it visualization, analysis, programming or something else? You don’t have to be good at it yet. Because that’s what the next question is about.

2. What are you good at?

This question is sometimes difficult to answer by yourself. So feel free to ask around. For example, ask when people would enlist your help. It can be about skills, but also about influence you have in the organization.

3. What would you like to add to the world?

Maybe you enjoy helping people out of difficult situations. Or maybe you want to do something about the climate. Or maybe you want to develop code libraries that help other people program faster.

4. If the team wants to succeed in its mission, what does it need from you?

That doesn’t always overlap with the answer to the previous questions, but with a little luck you can find something that is also fun and important. Again, it helps tremendously to exchange thoughts about it with the rest of the team.

If you are not careful, you will end up where you are going.

This ancient Chinese saying indicates the value of thinking about where you want to go at the beginning of something new. Otherwise, other forces will determine that for you. Determining where you want to go is the power of these 14 questions. The half hour you devote to them is therefore valuable. Do you have questions? Please feel free to contact.