Scope out the team

State capacity

What's this about?

Observing a team's dynamics can help you figure out the "why" behind successes or failures. This module helps you learn what to look for when observing team meetings to get a sense of how the team works together.

Lesson outline

• Conceptual: Team development (1h, solo)
• Questioning the team (30m, with a colleague)
• Reflecting on the team dynamics (30m, solo)
• Discuss in community (1h, group)

Team dynamics are tricky things. It can be hard to get past the flashy smiles and presentations that a team might roll out for your arrival. Since you’re acting as an outside observer rather than a full-fledged member of the team, you’re goinget behind the veil and see how the team works. This lesson gives you a few frameworks to help you in your questioning.

As you engage in your reading and viewing, remember to make note of questions that you have about the material. Perhaps more importantly, think about questions you could ask a team to better understand their efforts and deliverables.

Conceptual: Team development (1h, solo)

The teams for your state may have a lot of different divisions that have to work together. Each team may be in various stages of development – they could be just starting out, well on their way through the project, or wrapping up. Each of these phases in the project can affect how a team works together. It can be helpful to view the phases of team development through the five phases of Tuckman’s model, a psychologist who studied group dynamics. He recognized that teams often don’t hit the ground running, but rather go through a few different phases or stages as they move through the project.

The stages of Tuckman’s model are:

1. Forming
2. Storming
3. Norming
4. Performing
5. Adjournment

As the team forms and gets into the swing of the work, they move through these five stages, all the way to the end at Adjournment. To make this fun, we’ve included a depiction of this process from the movie Remember the Titans.

As you watch the video, think through some of your projects. This framework is good to keep in mind – maybe the weirdness you see at meetings means that the team is in the “storming” phase and eventually will move on to norming and performing.

After watching, ask yourself what phase of development your projects are in. Make a list and name each one. How does their stage affect their work and progress? Make a note to share one of these examples with the group.

Team dynamics (30m, solo)

Besides the stage of development, think about team dynamics. We’ll do a reading here from the American Management Association to highlight some things to look for.

AMA’s Team Dynamics

As a quick summary, the AMA article says to look for:

1. Open communication
2. Empowerment
3. Clear roles and responsibilities
4. Goal clarity
5. An effective leader
6. A reward and accountability system for both individual team members and the entire team

Again, think of your team’s projects and where you see (or don’t see) these things displayed. Make a note next to them where you had the Tuckman’s stages.

As you think about your own project teams, consider that a team does not necessarily go through these phases. It typically takes good management and intentional mentoring of a team and its members to move from “storming” to open and empowered communications. Do you see that in your teams?

Why is this important?

These two models provide a framework to think through how your state’s teams relate to each other. They help answer questions like:

• Are team members all aligned and working to the same goal?
• Do they talk to each other?
• Can they describe what other team members are doing in plain language?
• Do they have a meeting or other regular check-in structure that keeps everyone informed (like stand-ups, weekly meetings, etc).

But why is this important? Generally, - Silos are bad - Communication is good - It really does make a difference if a team likes each other and gets along.

As we’re thinking through all of these, let’s think through some direct questions we can ask of these teams to get at things we may not be able to observe directly.

Questioning the team (30m, with a colleague)

Timer: (30m timer)

Pick one of the projects you wrote down earlier. Now, with a colleague, roleplay asking your project team some of the questions below. These are just a starting point – feel free to come up with your own in conversation. Be ready to talk through these questions or suggest your own additions with the group.

1. What regular team meetings do you have? How do you communicate about the work?
2. How do you check in with each other about the project?
3. How do you overcome difficult moments as a team?
4. How do you celebrate your wins as a team?
5. How are tasks assigned to team members?

Reflecting on the team dynamics (30m, solo)

Timer: (30m timer)

1. How do the teams make decisions? Who is empowered and who is not?
2. Are team roles clearly defined? Do the team members seem to know their roles and responsibilities or are they less defined?
3. How does this affect how the team works?
4. How does leadership talk to the teams? What sort of communication style and relationship do they seem to have?
5. Are team members acting autonomously or do they check in with leadership before doing most of their actions?
6. How are team members held accountable or rewarded for their work? Do you see any signs of team member recognition, either positive or negative?

Discuss in community (1h, group)

Come together with your colleagues for a conversation.

1. Check in. (5m timer) First, check in with each-other. How is everyone doing? Take a moment to share something positive from the week, either at work or at home.
2. Understand. (20m timer) Next, take some time to discuss points where you were confused or questioned your material. That is, did you find yourself questioning or wanting to challenge the authors at any point? Did you want to call “bullshit” on what they were saying based on your own personal experience? This would be a great place to probe ideas; help each-other unpack why you feel this way about the readings.
3. Reflecting. (20m timer) Go around and have everyone share the projects they picked and what stage of development they are in (Tuckman’s model). Discuss how the project phase affects the work. Also, take time to talk through the team dynamics you wrote down. How can these map onto project health? What would need to change to make things better for the team?
4. Questioning (20m timer) Talk through the questions you would ask the team to probe at team dynamics. After your discussions with your colleagues, you may have more to add to the list. Share those and discuss how effective they might be at getting at team health.

In the guides

This lesson is the beginning of a journey. If you're interested in learning more, there's material in the 18F Derisking Guide that you'll want to check out.

From the Federal Field Guide:

• Building with loosely coupled parts
• Tightly scoped software development
• Path to production

From the State Software Budgeting Handbook:

• Demos, not memos
• Hire in-house
• Fund systems, not monoliths

Wrapup (5m, solo)

Take a few minutes to share your reflections on this lesson.