Working with an agile team on a digital transformation project has numerous benefits. Since the team wins and loses as a group, all members are essentially interested in the success of the others. Following some tips for getting and staying organized can help the team to achieve its goals in a timely and focused fashion.
Plan for Full-time Commitment
If you’re a manager who is putting together an agile team, keep in mind that the team members likely need to put their full attention toward this project. Digital transformation typically includes a significant amount of time and effort. A group of rotating part-time members can be confusing. Employees will constantly have to fill one another in on the latest details. In order to promote efficiency, assemble an agile team composed of members who can focus exclusively on this project.
Understand Shared Responsibilities
In an agile team, some members are likely to have expertise in certain areas. However, responsibilities are typically shared fairly equally. In other words, your team should not have one person focused exclusively on app development and another individual in charge of moving company data to the cloud. The team members should be collaboratively working on all projects. Therefore, all team members need to have the skills and experience to do so.
Create a Schedule
Instead of dividing up the project by responsibilities, create a schedule for each segment or day of the project. Divide up the schedule based on the overall timeline for the project. For example, if smaller components of the project need to be completed by certain days, plan to work exclusively on one component at a time. On the other hand, the project might simply have a final completion date by which all components need to be finished. An effective approach here could be to divide each day up into segments. You can work on one component for a set number of hours as the project requires and then move on to the next task.
Establish a Work Space
Agile team members need to work together. While both in-person and virtual platforms can be effective here, keep in mind that an asynchronous online approach is unlikely to work well. Huddle rooms offer an effective solution for small meetings in corporate spaces, but do keep in mind that these areas are typically reserved for shorter sessions than your team will likely need. Your agile team is going to be working together continuously for some time, so you can look into requesting a larger meeting room at the office. Another possibility is to choose virtual meeting platforms that allow you to communicate in real-time. Consider the benefits and drawbacks of both in-person and virtual meeting spaces for agile teams when it comes to digital transformations.
In terms of staying organized, virtual meeting spaces can allow you to immediately share links and other digital information with team members. All team members could collaboratively work on a project from their own computers while communicating through a virtual meeting platform. When multiple people are trying to talk at once, virtual communications can become chaotic and disorganized. Nonverbal communication typically prevents this issue from becoming too problematic during in-person meetings. However, all team members won’t necessarily be able to simultaneously access the same digital resources. A hybrid approach may work best. The team can meet in person or virtually, depending upon the plans for the day.
Clearly Track Progress
Setting specific goals and celebrating the completion of those goals are important measures in tracking progress. Some examples of goals include defining digital transformation for your company, reviewing the business’s current website and social media platforms and generating a set number of new leads by a target date. Establishing clear goals helps to keep team members focused on accomplishing that task. Tracking goals can also aid with the organization in terms of focus. Instead of thinking ahead to future parts of the overall project, team members can focus on one large task at a time.
Digital transformation is typically a significant project that involves a number of components. At first, organizing your agile team might seem like a large project in and of itself. Fortunately, you can follow some tips for keeping your colleagues organized and focused on each stage of the transformation.
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AUTHOR NAME : ALISON LURIE