Building a New Team

Management
Building a New Team
LinkedIn Article

The following are a set of ideas and guidelines for helping a new team to get established and producing as quickly as possible. This is broken down into 4 phases.

Learn

This stage focuses on learning and evaluating the new team's membership, purpose, and place within the organization. This can involve multiple areas and activities.

  • Review team members, backgrounds, and motivations
  • Review organization and team place within the org
  • Evaluate current makeup of team and team's purpose
  • Develop relationships with related teams

Develop

During this stage, the team begins to develop an identity. This includes several key activities.

  • Develop team identity including team name
  • Develop team mission & vision
  • Develop team goals

Process

During the process stage, the team will create processes and frameworks for the daily work to be done. This includes agreement on several key aspects.

  • Project management and process for new features
  • Quality assurance process
  • Product management, roadmaps, and prioritization frameworks
  • Determine any technical standards
  • Standardize communication mechanisms

Perform

Finally, this stage is when the team is actively producing and developing. During this stage, several areas are further developed.

  • Review software development process and improve where needed
  • Empower the team to own the product and process
  • Develop flexible decision-making model for team
  • Continue to tweak the team process