What's Wrong With Your New Team?

Have you ever had a situation where you onboarded a new team, but something needed to be fixed? You have done the recruitment, gone through all of your standard onboarding steps, and even had a formal contracting session with the most excellent name for the team and team charter that bonds them all in an agreement. No matter what you have done - the dynamics are wrong in the team, and the new team just can’t get on the ladder of a stable delivery.

There might be something wrong with one of the steps in your onboarding pipeline - you have never provided them with the knowledge required for efficient delivery, or you just hired people with the wrong skillset for your tasks. But let's be honest - most likely, you have done everything correctly, or at least, you thought you had.

You have missed two possible scenarios. Don’t take me wrong - I am not sure what’s happening in your case - but I have seen these quite often and, in general, believe people usually skip the part to go as far as possible and straight to the delivery.

Expectations

Did you set the expectations correctly? If you ask anyone from the team at any point in time, will they be able to explain why they were hired? What is the purpose, mission, and strategy of the team and organization? As discussed, small deliveries only provide value if they align with the broader strategy.

Yes, you have probably done some basic sessions on the ways of working and explained what your products are about, but have you actually explained what the end goal of the venture you are trying to pull should be?

Without this understanding, teams are acting like blind kittens - they are able to eat and probably damage some furniture, but they have no idea where to go.

Sit with the team, and make sure that everyone understands where all the work is coming from, how it is aligned with the mission, and what it takes to actually deliver the value that customers care for.

Basics

What is the whole idea of doing the onboarding? I am pretty sure that’s to set your team up for the best results and help them uncover their potential in the shortest possible time. What is usually missing in the onboarding - is the alignment of what people already know and the version of the truth you are following in your organization.

Look at it from the following angle - people come from different companies, have diverse skills, ages, and backgrounds, and most importantly, have something to say. Tuckman’s stages of the team say that as soon as you form the team, they will end up in the storming when the conflicts that are sparked by these differences will arise, and that’s the ultimate way to jump in and ensure everyone is on the same page.

Use this as an opportunity to gather feedback from everyone on what they feel is good in your processes, what is terrible, and what potentially can be improved. Of course, you should still be aligned with your organization's mission, but the team is self-managing. If they find something specific in their team that will work for them, they are more than welcome to embrace their identity, and you can allow them to differ while delivering towards the same goal.

Remember that something other than the basic level of team development is no longer providing you with a competitive advantage. Each organization has an Agile Coach, Performance Coach, or any other sort of coach who will help them set up the basics. The only possible way for your people to excel and provide the maximum value is to ensure their unique blend of skills and capabilities works towards advancement.