1.1 Team mobilization
Make sure you have the right people in the right room, all pulling in the same direction. It's crucial to the success of your project.
Our definition of ready aligns us for success. It relies heavily on the outputs created during pre-mobilization:
Before starting
Mobilizing the team means getting the right people in the right room, with clear roles, clear responsibilities and clear communication from day one. The activity produces your team matrix, RACI, schedule of ceremonies and collaboration channels — everything the team needs to function as an active, cross-functional unit. Teams routinely show up to new projects without basic context about the customer, product or their own responsibilities; mobilization prevents that.
Anything missing from the DoR? Finish pre-mobilization first.
Guide to team mobilization
Having the right people in the right room is crucial to the success of your project. You need a team that is able to handle all aspects of delivery. That means having end user and customer representation, so the customer experience and customer value is clear. It means having business analysts to work through how the enterprise operates. And of course, you need your technology roles to actually build the product. It’s crucial that each of these is part of an active, collaborating team. Having all of these capabilities on the team is essential to protecting the value we want to create and, therefore, the overall success of the project. This is the heart of a product mindset.
It’s equally important that we get everyone communicating well, sharing information, and set them up for intense collaboration. To do that, we need to know who’s doing what. We also need everyone to be clear on their own responsibilities, including when those responsibilities are communicated or conveyed to the larger group.
For this activity, here are our goals and impact:
Inputs
Executive sponsorship is a key success metric. It means having buy-in from someone with decision-making authority at your customer. Some people refer to this as a “champion,” who helps you align for success within the customer account.
Identifying other stakeholders is also very important. This ensures that everyone vested in the successful outcome of the project is involved from day one.
- Executive sponsorship with the customer (buy-in from decision makers).
- Team roster, along with proposed roles and responsibilities.
- Key stakeholder roster, along with roles and responsibilities.
Process
- Set up your customer’s delivery playbook wiki page. This will serve as the top-level of the customer project wiki, and should include essential information about the team and project. It should also include a good index of all resources. You can use this template to get started.
- Identify your team and all of the project participants. Key roles, such as product owners, domain experts, architects and engineers need to be clear to everyone.
- Document the team in the customer’s delivery playbook wiki.
- Be certain the right stakeholders are involved. Who are we delivering value to? Those are the people that need to have an active role in the project. This template provides an expanded stakeholder mapping worksheet.
- Right-size the team. You may find a product mindset is suitable. It’s critical that all stakeholders are represented, and the team has the appropriate mix of cross-functional skills.
- Set expectations clearly with the team. The roles of each participant, their responsibilities, are clearly communicated.
- Establish clear schedules. Ensure appropriate time is committed to the project. Set up initial project ceremonies and block calendars.
- Enable collaboration. Set up the right tools and cadence to ensure the team functions collaboratively. This is covered in the section on ways of working.
- Schedule your customer project kickoff meeting with your whole team and your customer stakeholders. This is an “all hands” meeting. The agenda is to review all of the information gathered above, and come to agreement on team members, roles, responsibilities, meeting cadence, communication methods, and your RACI matrix. Some refinement may be expected at a later date, as it’s a lot to cover.
As part of this activity, you’ll want to be very clear about who is doing what, and who’s responsible for what. This is where the team matrix and RACI matrix come in.
A team matrix is simply a roster, identifying who is filling each role on the team. One of the most important outcomes of building your team matrix is defining what your team will look like. Will you have a product owner? Who will represent the end user and customer? Do you need an architect or a team lead? What about someone to oversee quality and performance work? All of these roles should be considered — and probably many more.
Hand-in-hand with the team matrix is your RACI matrix. The RACI communicates “who is doing what,” by clearly denoting who is responsible, accountable, consulted or informed during any activity (hence the “RACI” acronym). Make sure your team understands their responsibilities, and buys in when it comes to being involved. This Forbes article provides some good additional background on RACI.
It is absolutely critical that the right stakeholders are actively involved. For example, if the value consumer (the customer or beneficiary of the product) is not present, how can we ensure value is delivered? If the right people aren’t available, likelihood of a failure is prominent. Push hard to make sure the team is fit-for-purpose. Anything else dramatically reduces the likelihood of success.
Outputs
- Team matrix. Project team structure and essential roles identified.
- RACI matrix. Participants in the project have clear expectations regarding their responsibilities and activities.
- Schedule of ceremonies. The team’s interaction and goals established.
- Established communication channels. Collaboration ensured through tools, cadence, and time commitment.
Creating a product mindset and product oriented team is a key success indicator. Review these concepts with the client when determining team makeup. Accelerated teams need to be self-sufficient and empowered to deliver. If this isn’t possible within the client organization it will slow down acceleration and delivery efforts.