2.2.5. How to get started?
First things first. Clarity is essential. To achieve this, you need to define who is going to be accountable for what, and what the consequences are. You can use the template below to start clarifying Accountabilities, Roles, and competencies. This is also helpful outside an agile setup. It’s quite likely that there are global requirements, defined by the organisational environment, to consider anyway.
If you want to go even deeper, you could hold a team workshop to discuss what every team member needs to fulfil their job in the best possible way and what type of collaboration or support is needed.
After that, it is all about assessing and adapting! Try things out and meet regularly to figure out what works for you and what doesn’t. Then adapt. Over time, you will find better and better setups.
An important sidenote on ideal team size. Agile Teams typically consist of 5–8 people. This way, the two Accountabilities that take care of the WHAT (Product Owner) and the HOW (Scrum Master) could technically be held by different people, while still having team members with different skill sets to build a truly cross-functional team. The ideal Agile team should combine all the skill sets needed to deliver value end-to-end. While this might be considered “ideal”, it is still possible to use the same principles with fewer people. At some point one person will just have to take on several Accountabilities at once. You can even apply most of the principles as a solo attorney, to visualize for yourself or your client where the responsibilities lie, or include external people (e.g. virtual assistants, social media managers), who help with your work.
Story
Of ownership and responsibility
Now that they have decided who is part of the actual team and who is an external stakeholder, the team members start discussing their Accountabilities. Starting with defining who decides what work will be addressed and when it is finished, they figure their team is too small to have one person be responsible for only one task or Accountability. They will need to manage the respective Accountabilities part-time as otherwise they would not have sufficient people to do all the work.
They start by designating Alice, as partner and the attorney responsible, to be their Product Owner. She is responsible for the work outcome both from a professional rules’ perspective (as she will sign court documents and is a partner of the firm) and internally as the “supervisor” of the team. They briefly touch on the question of what the team members need to know to be able to determine when work product is finished without first consulting Alice but leave it for now as a task too challenging for this stage.
The next Role they intend to fill is the Scrum Master. After a brief discussion, they decide that Gabriel should take this Role as he likes to observe how the team is working and currently also has the lowest involvement in decision making as the junior associate. He confirms that he plans to dive a little more into the methodology, as he is actually very interested in learning more about Agile work.
While Fiona has no formal Role, due to her sufficient experience as associate, she is best equipped to take ownership of work and prepare it up to the point that Alice can then determine whether it is ready for delivery.
Similarly, the team’s assistant Oliver does not receive any formal Role at this time, keeping his function as taking ownership of certain work activities.
Example
This is filled out for each team member:
Goal Senior associates can work independently towards the client; can support the partner’s tasks
Responsible for (Relevant tasks) Document drafting, communication with the client Assessing client’s evidence
Competencies needed Legal knowledge, legal research
Support needed
From Alice with tactical decisions, from Gabriel with research, from Igor with the technical details
What is NOT my job? Document formatting, managing the project
Tools needed
Legal research database, communication tools
Goal Junior associates support with the legal work, supporting the senior associate and attorney with their tasks
Responsible for (Relevant tasks)
Research, document drafting, Scrum Master, translating practical building terms into legally relevant facts
Competencies needed
Legal knowledge, legal research, knowledge of the construction industry
Support needed
From Fiona or Alice with the legal assessment, from Igor with the technical details
What is NOT my job? Assessing client’s evidence, Communication with client, Decision on tactical matters
Tools needed
Kanban Board, Communication tools, Video meeting software, legal research database
Template
Fill out the table above for yourself and ask everyone in the team to do the same. Agreeing on the general tasks and responsibilities will help with Accountability later. These tables can be reused if team members have specialities (e.g. legal fields, evidence gathering).
Goal:
What is the goal that this Role aims at?
Why does this Role exist in my specific context?
Responsible for (Relevant tasks):
What are the thing I need to get done?
What am I doing day to day?
What can others see me doing regularly?
Competencies needed:
What are the core skills needed?
What knowledge is needed?
Support needed:
How can the Team support me in this Role?
What are the things that I need help with?
Where do I need consulting from others?
What is NOT my job?
What is this Role NOT responsible for?
What are the things that I am not supposed to do?
Tools needed:
What do I need to fulfil this?
Budget?
Software tools?
Goal
Responsible for (Relevant tasks)
Competencies needed
Support needed
What is NOT my job?
Tools needed
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