RHB20230213 Self Organising Teams
RHB20230213 - Self Organising Teams¶
In software engineering there is a practice of operating in teams that are self-organising and this concept has always fascinated me. In the process of developing software, which is a mammoth task in and of itself, there are often significant requirement changes and unforeseen problems that arise DURING a project. And the idea of self-organising teams is that if engineers have to report these challenges to management, wait for management to process these challenges and then get allocated the tasks and deadlines for each problem, it will significantly delay the project (by months or even years). So in self organising teams, authority and autonomy are given to team members and decision making is distributed rather than centralised. Teams are self managing or self organising. This leads to much faster solutions and higher quality work but requires a significant amount of trust and communication in both directions.
I love this idea of self organising. How frustrating is it being micromanaged or following decisions that you were not a part of making. This idea of being the master of ones own work is scary (what if I don't do the right thing), but also incredibly satisfying and meaningful.
Personal satisfaction is only one of the benefits of self-organisation. The largest benefit though comes from the free flow of information and team cohesion. In his book Smarter, Better, Faster, Charles Duhigg says that a team of brilliant people with average team cohesion has significantly less collective intelligence than a team of average people with brilliant team cohesion. And this isn't just slightly, it is orders of magnitude. Teams that work well together, significantly outperform those that do not.
Since the end of last year I have felt an incredible energy coursing through the school. It has been refreshing to work with people who are genuinely interested in their students and have vision and passion in their work. Zastra's community work has been inspiring, the matric's have taken ownership as leaders in the school, Lauren has taken on the new batting challenges without complaints (mostly), the English department have bonded together as a department, it has been inspiring to see the moving work that the JP and ELS do to give their students a sense of self-worth, seeing Marilise collecting food for Kate, seeing teachers help each other without an expectation for anything in return. And these are only the things that I have been aware of. This is the kind of school that I want to be a part of.
Do you feel the energy to? Or is it just me? What more do we need to be able to operate in a self organising school? What do you need to be more autonomous? What are your goals for your subject? What are you goals for your school? What are you goals for yourself? Each of us contributes to the success of the school, each of us are building the name of Reddam House Ballito.
Love, Cliff