How To Build Ownership In Your Team – Case Study
As I will explain through this post, having a team that takes ownership of their project are more dynamic, energetic and consistently making better decisions for the product, feature and the entire business.
Case Study: The Notification Project
In my last role as Technical Lead for a Scotland based Technology Company, I saw first hand how involving them throughout paid dividends. The team just had finished a 9 month waterfall re-architecture project — they were keen to start building user facing features. The project itself was around increasing conversion of the home page. The Scrum Master and I convinced the product team to let the entire team to be involved in the very inception of the project.
After two days full of meetings the development team had gained a full background into the project, spent hours trying to find low-hanging fruit with the highest impact, they had been involved in high level backlog planning and prioritisation. By this point every member of the team, even the newest engineers, were given opportunities to contribute to the project. Already the team were more emotionally invested.The team quickly begun work trying to solve the problem, but rather than building feature after feature they opted for a more Lean approach. You see, one of the features from the inception that was mentioned was a Facebook-eque notification system, and rather than build the full feature I had managed to convince them to simply fake it:
Put a notification on the home page
Tell the customer we have really great content when they click
Measure if the conversion increases
Simple. The team dived right in. With an A/B test, the team had proven that customers who had seen the notifications were 25% more likely to convert to a paying customer. This was figured out within days of the inception meeting.
The ownership part now kicked in, this was the only piece of work that had been planned in detail. It was now up to the team where to take this. Fast-Forward 2 months and they have an entire Notification Microservice delivered and, more importantly, increase the bottom line for the business. The team are ones pushing the business to look at data during every catch up — they are effectively driving the project. A true sign of a mature, high performing software team.
Start Building Ownership in your Team
That’s obviously a tale of a single software team where ownership made a difference, yet I have seen it time and time again, when teams are owning their projects and their delivery is exceptional. When teams are delivering well, the key business metrics will change faster.
Here are a few steps how to build ownership in teams;
Cross Functional Team
The advantages of Cross Functional teams have been written about for years; Speed, Innovation, and Accountability all increase. (See here). Having a UX Designer work closely with Software Engineers allows them to create dynamic relationships. Ensure there is a platform within the Cross Functional Team for everyone to contribute their ideas.
The role of the leaders
The leaders in the group i.e. Technical Lead, Product Owner and Scrum Master should all facilitate giving the team a larger say into product and feature direction. By having the development team working closely with the PO, the team feel connected and involved in the direction.
Involve the team from the start of a project
Allowing the team an input is the easiest way to build ownership. Most software developers don’t want to simply be “code-monkeys”. Software developers love problem solving. When starting the project, push for the business to allow the team to get involved early. This will have an upfront cost, however, having a team take ownership is worth it. This leads on to…
Problem statements over feature requests
Be Lean. Try and solve a problem with data. Problem statements should be “How do we increase our revenue through our search results?” or “How do we increase the number of sign ups for our beta?”. Build a backlog when you have the data that you have solved the problem. Allow the team an opportunity to contribute and solve the problem. How do developers know that they have solved the problem?
Analytics, Metrics and Data
Yup. In order to understand the problem the team need data. Before the team begin any work they need data to have a base-line. In order to know if they have achieved their goal they need to be looking at… you guessed it, data.
A great way to give the team an opportunity to focus on analytics is to replace Monday Stand Up with an Analytics Debrief. Take thirty minutes with the team to walk through what the state of the project is. At this point you can start to…
Build, Measure and Learn
Start the Lean Cycle. Once the team have proven that they can solve the problem, let them own the next steps. Allow them to put their opinions forward about the next steps. Development teams, usually made up of Software Engineers, UX Designers, and a Tech Lead — these a smart individuals they will have great ideas, especially if they feel like they own the product or feature they are working on.
A huge part of the lean movement is the Pivot or Persevere moment. By looking at the data every day and specifically every Monday teams are are given opportunities to say “Hold up. We aren’t getting the Return on Investment, let’s try something else.”
As you can see, by putting the emphasis on building a team with ownership you will be building a data-driven, lean, cross functional team. When a team cares, and have the right information at hand, it’s never too long before success come their way.
Conclusion
By using some of the methods above, teams will feel like they own more of the product/feature they are building and in turn delivery will increase. I have seen when teams are given ownership and use lean principles they excel, they deliver faster than traditional SCRUM teams.
These teams must be living and breathing analytics, but it is analytics that they own, it’s the data these teams obsess over, and due to this they make the right development choices and unsurprisingly the right business decisions.
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