Setting your program up for success by developing high performing teams

[#1]

At Atlassian our mission is to help unleash the potential of every team, so it's fair to say that we take teamwork seriously.

If you were to take a moment and reflect on the question 'what's needed in order for a program to succeed?', I bet a good bunch of your answers relate to creating the conditions for high performance of the program team(s).

But what are those conditions more concretely and how do you make sure you attend to them in your program? That of course is a deep and complex topic, and this is where we can lean on models to guide us.

Many people are aware of the Bruce Tuckman's model for stages of group development - forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. But in my experience, that's the extent of most people's knowledge. One such model I lean on a lot and I'd like to share today is the 'Drexler-Sibbet Team Performance Model'.

As you'll see in the model, it proposes that there are a sequence of focuses in both creating and sustaining a high performing team. What I particularly like about it is that each focus has a high level question that is sought to be answered (making it actionable), and that there's an inherent order of concern. Below I'll summarise the different focuses, and I'll offer some practical tools to help you work on them from the Atlassian Team Playbook as well as some Product related suggestions.

Orientation

The 1st step is called 'Orientation' and it's about answering 'why am I here?'. You can see why this is proposed as the most foundational step - it helps clarify purpose, without which you're in a state of disorientation and uncertainty.

You might find 'Team Poster', 'Roles & Responsibilities' and 'Team Kickoff' useful in this step.

Jira Product Discovery is a great tool to use at this point - enabling you to reference and align around customer insights and ideas.

Trust Building

The high level question here is 'who are you?'. Again, it's fairly easy to rationalise about why trust and being able to rely on your teammates is a foundational step. Without trust you get caution, which in turn leads to inaction, slow action, or inappropriate action.

You might find 'Team Connectedness' and 'User Manuals' helpful.

Whilst these 1st two steps are somewhat intangible - you feel purpose and trust perhaps more than anything else - it doesn't make them any less crucial.

Goal Clarification

'Goal Clarification' is about answering 'what are we doing?', though I'd phrase it slightly differently as 'what are we here to achieve?', and this is about clarifying the overarching goals. It should result in clear, measurable goals to guide action - and just as valuable is clarifying constraints and what you're not doing.

You might find 'Goals, Signals, and Measures' helpful here, as well as 'Elevator Pitch'.

Make sure to check out Goals - one of our Platform Experiences that are woven throughout our product suite. They'll help keep drive clarity, connect work to outcomes, and support communicating progress.

Commitment

'Commitment' is about answering 'how will we do it?', though again I might propose to phrase it slightly differently as 'how will we achieve our goals?'. This to me is about developing a high level plan (whereas the next step is lower level), developing things like a roadmap with key milestones as well as identifying and making key decisions.

You might find 'DACIs' helpful for key decisions, as well as 'Dependency Mapping', and a 'Pre-mortem'. You might also consider 'Network of Teams' to make sure you consider you're considering the broader organisation.

Make sure to check out Jira Plans for pulling together your roadmap.

Implementation

This focus is about answering 'who does what, where, and when?', hence why I see this as a lower level way of answering the above question. This is about agreeing the processes that will be used, specific roles and responsibilities, and things like working agreements.

You might find 'Roles & Responsibilities', 'Working Agreements' useful as well as a 'Feature Kickoff' and 'Team Prioritization'.

Make sure to map your workflow in Jira so that work flows through the processes you agree on.

High Performance and Renewal

I'm bundling these last two focuses together as they're squarely in the sustaining high performance area and to me they go hand in hand. These focuses are about observing characteristics of high performance, like spontaneous collaboration, as well as celebrating and reflecting together in pursuit of continuous improvement.

You might find 'Retrospectives', a 'Health Monitor', as well as 'Team Demos' helpful here.

So there you have it folks - high performing teams are essential to leading successful programs, and I hope the above model gives you food for thought about where your team(s) might be on their journey, and in turn, how you can steer them towards even higher performance.

So with all the above in mind, I'd love to hear from you! Where are your program teams at on their journey to high performance? What's getting in their way and what's your plan for supporting them? I'd love to bounce ideas around in the comments below.