Agile Suggestions (S1E#1) - Team Agreements

Agile Suggestions (S1E#1) - Team Agreements

by Dirk Depré - February 15, 2024

In our fast paced world, change happens overnight. The reality of today can be different tomorrow and we try to constantly adapt to that new reality. The constant push forward from technology, also pushes people to adapt to change faster then ever before.  At the same time, we are looking for better ways to co-create, collaborate, get amazing outcomes and be a highly successful team. The pressure on people to deliver is higher than ever before and organisations adore highly successful teams. 

Getting individuals to really work together in a team is hard. The expectation is set immediately on “being a highly effective and successful team”, not just a group of individuals. And so, we are struggling when moving forward and failing while winning and looking for inspiration while performing. It all seems messy and it is. We often find inspiration in sports or the army. They present us many great examples and insights. Love it! But we are not in sports at the highest levels, neither are we in the special forces team on the battleground. It really takes a lot of time to become such a team that can be admired for their oneness. It takes dedication, discipline, trust, conflict solving, feedback, respect, communication, resilience,  ... it takes the whole shebang! It takes constant attention from the team members to all the explicit and implicit rules and agreements that live in the team. 

Constant attention to all the explicit and implicit rules and agreements, is essential.

All great teams have 2 things in common: agreements and expectations. Great teams have clear agreements and they know how the other person in the team interprets the rule and behaves accordingly. The agreement is what keeps the team together. It sets the boundaries for collaboration, it gives guardrails and people know what they can expect from each other. It gives the team the power to hold each other accountable. It helps to let go of the individual’s ego. (Or should we let go of the ego before we have the conversations about the agreements? Think about that for a minute... )