Characteristics of an Agile Team
- Clear Purpose: An agile team works on a clearly defined common objective that provides direction and alignment to the project.
- Cross Functional: The agile teams are cross-functional with members bringing diverse skillsets – developers, testers, designers, product experts etc. This diversity enables the team to holistically drive a product to completion without dependencies.
- Result-Driven/Metrics Driven Approach: Agile teams are relentlessly focused on delivering tangible, working results in the form of shippable product increments. The progress of the development is measured through metrics like velocity, defect rates and benchmarked through value delivered to and feedback from end-customers.
- Communication: The Agile team encourages regular, open dialogue as well as information exchange among team members. It involves having the ability to recognize the motives and useful opinions of others, as well as having a constructive discussion about the expected benefit, the intended outcomes, and the tasks that each sprint (a set period during which specific work has to be completed and made ready for review) needs to complete. The group can also discuss with individuals outside the organization as well.
- Quick Cycles of Learning and Decision-Making: Agile teams are formed to adapt to dynamic, uncertain contexts. As a result, their learning, product development, and decision-making cycles are inherently brief, which leads to constant tiny, targeted adjustments that gradually increase value.
- Adaptive: The agile teams constantly inspect and adapt to changing needs. The iterative approach allows for feedback and course corrections. The roles are flexible based on work assigned. Moreover, plans are revised routinely.
- Self-Organization: The Agile teams are empowered to self-organize in the way they best see fit to accomplish goals. They define the optimal workflows, tasks, and norms best suited for the product development. It also leads to leadership in the team emerging organically.
Agile Team | Characteristics, Roles & Responsibilities
An agile team is a small, cross-functional group of people dedicated to collaboratively executing an agile project (see Agile Software Development). The team is self-organizing and shares accountability for meeting customer requirements through continuous delivery of working products. All the team members contribute diverse expertise across technical, business, and interpersonal domains, taking on varied roles as needed to complete project goals. The leadership in the agile team is distributed, with the members empowered to make decisions by consensus.
Table of Content
- What is an Agile Team?
- Characteristics of an Agile Team
- Roles and Responsibilities of an Agile Team:
- Advantages of an Agile Team
- Best Practices for Agile Team
- Conclusion