One of the basic tenets of Agile methodology is the mutual trust among the team members , the camaraderie among them and a general sense of "sink and sail together attitude".
I recently presented to a group of audience around the topic of "successful agile teams " and what are some of the common things these teams had which make them successful. I was lucky to have a very receptive audience in them. Even though some of the points were rather simple and straightforward and really did not need a mention there were some slides were very radical in thought and content. The interesting part was when everyone among audience agreed to the content but found it a little difficult to put in practice.So often I have come across people who really come up and say "this was a great thought I wish I could do that or I wish my team understood the same " and then once they get back into their routine they simply cannot or do not want to risk the implementation.One of the slides mentioned "Only send email to those who are not invited else everyone else is invited". Very radical, very uncivil, very harsh but now put the same in the context of a team which has great camaraderie, have been working long enough to understand each other, are very very informal in their daily business and are really a great bunch of people doing their daily work and churning out production like code every two weeks with consistency and success. Now give them a message that...Only if you are not required you will be sent an email else as a team you are allowed and invited('not required') for every meeting. Whether you want to come for meeting or skip is your choice but in general the thumb rule is that you "can " come along for meeting which are within the team. Now when I was doing my presentation the audience was not as much a mature agile team as i mentioned in my example. But then it becomes a question of chicken and egg. Can we lay such rules only once the team is matured and well oiled machinery or whether we should introduce some different rules and practices to MAKE the team matured and well oiled system. The question is where to start from and who to start with?
This discussion went for a couple of minutes and some one made a very valid point that such things can be introduced only if there is enough trust among team members. People should feel comfortable telling someone that you are not required or people should feel comfortable to walk into any meeting regardless of wether it is their area of expertise or domain. So in a team a person has to gain the trust of others and build the trust for himself. Just being successful in one of these is not enough. How do we do this ? This was the question some one asked me. Obviously I did not have a direct answer or a silver bullet to this question. I mean , how does one do it ? I don't know! But then how did it happen in some of my teams. Yes now I can answer that question. How did people create trust among themselves in a team. I believe that in order to create trust and camaraderie the members can do the following.
A) Volunteer to share the pain of delivering. Many a times we see that in a team a certain team member is having problem getting his task done. This I believe is an opportunity for another team member to step and help the person being challenged and facing the tough task of finishing across the line. Regardless of whether the task is eventually done on time or not you have at least got two person sharing the same problem and working as a team on it. Rather than each of them doing the work and the team still failing because of one person unable to do his stuff.
B) Be successful as early as possible regardless of the quantity of work then. A successful team is a happy team. And a happy team is willing to take on more and more difficult work and increase the output, so if you are in a position to direct your team make sure you take small work and become successful as quickly and as early as possible. As soon as the people in the team believe that they can be successful they will start believing that each of them has a reliable and trustworthy teammates and once that is the feeling among the team they will quickly start breaking their boundaries and give more and more contribution and output.
C) Have FUN. Having fun in my opinion is most difficult yet the most important aspect to build camaraderie and trust among team members. Its not easy. Its an art. There is no direct way of having fun. Having fun doesn't mean just having lunch together or going out for drinks every friday night. FUN means being involved in team building activities, driving them , doing things without being under the pressure that you will be evaluated for everything you do, things such as rotating the the facilitator, some fun at beginning or end of standup, different ways of having retros, allowing a new person to take charge of team activities such as team dinner, show cases, or just having some fun toys in the team room , celebrating sports victories,bdays, anniversaries, having cartoons around the walls, mimicking, are some of the things that should happen naturally in a team. Such things should ideally happen impromptu and without any specific direction but there have been instances when I have started them , held on to them and someone finally made a fun of me and eventually it became viral among the team . Goal MET :)
There are also many agile games outdoors as well as indoors which can be played for team building.
Some sites worth referring to for such agile games are :
1)Team Building Games
2) Agile Games
3) Thoughtworks' very own Lego Game :)
