Who's in charge on an Agile team? Read more below.
The strongest functioning Agile teams in the world transfer ownership and accountability to everyone on the team because they're all service leaders to each other. As such, there should be no person who tells the team what to do and how to work.
On Tech Fleet project training teams, there is no boss. There is no manager. "co-leads" and "apprentices" are equal to each other. There is only the team of people doing work together.
Co-leads guide in servant service leadership and take ownership. Apprentices guide in servant service leadership and take full ownership.
Everyone has a voice because of psychological safety. Everyone has decision making power because of self-organization. Everyone grows because of continuous improvement.
On a self-organized Agile team, everyone is in charge! The voice of many decides the outcomes together.
We know what you're thinking: if there is no leadership hierarchy, why are the co-leads called "leads"? Aren't they "in charge"?
No! If they were in charge, they would be practicing authoritarian leadership. We must practice service leadership on Agile teams. And we must build self-organized teams. Apprentices are as "in charge" as co-leads. Co-leads are the guides who may pave the way for empowered teams.
They may take on coaching roles while they themselves take on work. They should always take opportunities to make the apprentices feel the full ownership of work and give them a stake. They should always transfer the power to the collective team consensus.
Co-leads and apprentices are equals to each other. They are peers. We have co-leads so that we have people helping to set expectations in the work. Soon after projects start, co-leads should be transferring the power to apprentices so that they can lead and own work.
This is so important to be able to do on a strong performing Agile team. It's crucial for a self-organized team to all feel the same kind of ownership as equals. After all, we're all peers learning together, none of us are experts, even later in life when we have a lot of experience.
To take this approach is to let go of one's ego and tell yourself, "those around me also have great ideas, let's decide together".
The team is organized by themselves for themselves. They are all in service to each other. As such, storng Agile teams ask for the consensus. This is why there's a lot of voting on Agile teams. Consensus and discussion from the voice of the team is crucial to finding the team's way forward. No one should provide the answer or tell them what the answer is. They need to build a working relationship together where they decide together in unison.
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