In a recent article, we learned about Tuckman’s model of team development. The article focused on the model itself and the characteristics of team dynamics in its specific phases. This time we will build on the topic by looking at what team development looks like from the perspective of a “servant leader”. Adaptive leadership
XP Coach / Scrum Master / DevOps Evangelist / DSDM Coach must adapt their approach to the development stage of the team or its individual members. It is not a given that all team members are at the same Tuckman level. This adaptation is called Adaptive Leadership.
Through Tuckman’s phases, it manifests itself as follows:
A common mistake of leaders in an Agile environment is not that they lead badly, but to lead the same, regardless of what the team really needs. The key is for the leader to recognise the stage the team is in and adapt their approach accordingly.
Is adaptive leadership the same as situational leadership? The difference is more semantic, but we can say that adaptive leadership includes most of the elements of situational leadership, as the leader adjusts the level of guidance and support according to the competences and self-confidence of the team members (situational leadership), and helps people to learn, change behaviours and abandon old ways of doing things (adaptive leadership).
Let’s take a look at what adaptive leadership focuses on in each of Tuckman’s phases.
FORMING
What do they think …
PO: Will these hippies really be able to develop what I have in mind?
DEV: Will they accept me?
SM: How do I even direct this?
In the forming phase, the leader* directly supports the team activities and presents to the members a clear tactical picture of what needs to be done for the activities to meet the Definition of Done and sometimes even who is expected to do the activity. This should be done as unobtrusively as possible. Usually with questions such as:
- “Help me understand…” or
- “How does this support the product vision?” or
- “Will that satisfy the Definition of Done?” or
- “How will this change affect Code Trunk?“.
In the forming phase, team members appreciate this kind of leadership, as the Scrum Master is usually the only one with a clear picture of what the initiative is about and what is expected of the team.
* The leader in this context is usually the Scrum Master. His/her “leadership” is not manifested through delegating team members (which he/her is not even authorised to do), but coaching and mentoring on good Agile practices, asking the right questions and removing organisational barriers.
STORMING
What do they think …
PO: Hey, what about my product?
DEV: They have no idea!
SM: Why is flogging forbidden?
As the team progresses into the storming phase, more conflicts and more aggressive communication usually occur. In this phase, members test limits and position themselves within the group. The leader focuses on conflict resolution coaching. In Agile, the desired outcome is consensus (win-win) rather than compromise (lose-lose). The leader recognises that creative conflicts can be beneficial as they broaden the range of ideas and thus alternatives.
When identifying and resolving conflicts, I recommend that the manager refers to the conflict scale developed by Speed B. Leas (table below).
There are many “systems” and rules for conflict resolution on the internet. It seems that everyone (and his aunt) has one. Instead of jumping between them, a leader should decide on one and implement it. In my opinion, Speed B. Leas’s scale of five levels of conflict is a good starting point. It covers both the identification of the conflict stage and the actions that are recommended to de-escalate to a lower stage.
In the storming phase, leader pays a lot of attention to the individual relationships between team members and to his/her relationship with each member individually.
NORMING
What do they think …
PO: Yeah, this may work.
DEV: I could work that way all the time… Although I still don’t think they have a clue.
SM: Sleeeep…
In the norming phase, team roles have stabilised. The leader takes on a supportive role and no longer advises members on what to do and how to do it, as this could be perceived by developers as a lack of confidence in their own decision-making ability. The Scrum Master still helps the team to resolve conflicts. He also reminds them of the norms they have already established (meeting duration and rules, TDD procedures, DoD, etc.). This is the time when leader tries to orient the team towards as much autonomy as possible (self-managed team) and encourages them to experiment with new development, process, and communication approaches.
Once developers understand their tasks, the product goal and what is expected of them, it is easier to focus on activities that deliver business value. However, as development work is largely individual, the success of the norming phase can also be its undoing. An unexpected consequence of effective individual work is that it begins to loosen team relationships that have been established in the previous phases. High performance can thus mask the breakdown of team culture. To prevent the team from losing its cohesion, leader in the norming phase focuses intensively on team-building and the creation of a team identity.
If the team is operating in a Scaled Agile environment, this is the last opportunity to establish quality coordination with other teams.
At this point it should be noted that most personnel changes in a team “reset” its dynamics back to the forming phase. This always happens when new members are introduced, but often also when they leave, when there is a fundamental change in architecture, a reorganisation of management or a move to remote working. For this reason, many Agile frameworks advocate the permanence of development teams.
PERFORMING
What do they think …
PO: Bonus! I’m coming!
DEV: I’m the king of the world!
SM: <Thinks about a lonely house in the middle of the desert>
This last phase is not necessary. Many teams never reach it, for various reasons, but still successfully complete the tasks they have taken on for development. Teams in the performing phase are autonomous, interdisciplinary, and self-supervising. Leader’s main focus in this phase is on removing broader organisational barriers, effective team functioning, and promoting the Agile approach in the organisation.
Performing phase is the inspirational goal. In a multi-team environment where teams have reached this stage, it is worth considering the implementation of a LeSS framework.
SUMMARY
Adaptive leadership is an umbrella term for a leadership style that seeks to continuously improve an organisation and prevent it from stagnating. To achieve this goal, leaders use approaches that are aligned with the three guiding Scrum principles:
- Transparency
- Inspection
- Adaptation
In this article, we have seen how an adaptive leader effectively guides team members through the team-forming phases, using the widely recognised Tuckman model.
Adaptive leadership extends beyond the specifics of forming effective teams.
An interesting fact. There is also the Adaptive Leadership Framework, written in 2002 by Harvard professors Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky. The framework attempts to map the ideas of the Agile Manifesto and empiricism onto the organisational environment. This book is not relevant to the article you are reading.
