Chapter 8

TEAM: BUILDING AN AGILE TEAM

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for
tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop
questioning.”

– Albert Einstein
4 Critical Challenges to Team Formation
Internal innovators interviewed repeatedly cited team formation as one of their most significant barriers. They
specifically pointed to four critical challenges:
 Assembling a great team. It’s difficult to pull together the perfect team because, “You want the ‘A’ players but their
managers are less likely to let them join you because they are so valuable, and they are nervous to join because they
worry that losing time on a risky project like yours could derail their careers.”
 Adopting flexible roles. You will be best served by a cross-functional team in which members adopt flexible roles,
but your organization has evolved into divisions of specialists.
 Operating at a rapid pace. Your team will function best when it operates at a rapid pace, with daily or at least
weakly check-ins, but your organization is geared toward a more deliberate pace.
 Managing expectations. Instead of the “Prove-Plan-Execute” approach (see Chapter 7) that established organizations
are more familiar with, in which you work out all the details before launching the innovation, you and your team will
likely require an “Act-Learn-Build” philosophy, in which you pick up one question, learn, formulate the next
question, and repeat. The line between planning and execution blurs. In the early days your goal will be to learn, later
on, your goal will be to deliver results. This creates an issue because, if your organization is like most, leadership
won’t know how to gauge your progress in the early phases.
Seven Steps Most Team Approaches Agree on

1. Remove organizational friction.

2. Assemble a cross-functional team.

3. Align around an important goal.

4. Use metrics and data to track the most important thing(s).

5. Build a scoreboard everyone can see.

6. Establish a rapid rhythm.

7. Generate positive velocity.