remote:af Teams are not uniform. While they have launch patterns and defined ceremonies, they don’t follow fixed playbooks or methodologies. They are purposely designed to evolve to fit the nature of the problem that they are solving.
remote:af Teams are not uniform. While they have launch patterns and defined ceremonies, they don’t follow fixed playbooks or methodologies. They are purposely designed to evolve to fit the nature of the problem that they are solving.
There are three ‘types’ of remote:af Teams.
Mission Team - Create new revenue streams, solve complex problems, challenge the possible.
Product Team - Improve existing products and services, deliver projects and complex change.
Operations Teams - Deliver reliable, high-quality customer outcomes at the lowest cost.
Team of Teams
Teams usually play a role within a team of teams (note: Mission Teams may work to executive objectives).
Mission Teams execute on an objective that has been assigned to a Team of Teams or directly via the executive. They are responsible for breaking the objective into iterative and impactful releases and for achieving the objective independently. Sometimes a Mission Team may create a Prototype which is taken into Production by a Product Team.
Product Teams usually act as part of a Team of Teams that work together to create value. The Team of Teams collaboratively plans how to meet enterprise objectives and breaks objectives into independent pieces of work that collectively add value to the end-user (either a customer or a change stakeholder). Sometimes Product Teams will also operate their solutions (Dev/Ops) and sometimes they will handover solutions to Operations Teams.
Operations Teams usually act as an interdependent part of a Value Stream that delivers value to customers. They sometimes do planned work as part of a Team of Teams but often their work is in response to customer or upstream demand and cannot be effectively ‘planned’.
Similarities and Differences
Remote AF Teams have similarities and differences. The differences are described below:
Purpose
Mission Team - Create new revenue streams, solve complex problems, challenge the possible.
Product Team - Improve existing products and services, deliver projects and complex change.
Mission Team - Deliver reliable, high-quality customer outcomes at the lowest cost.
Team Composition
Mission Team - Mission Lead and Crew Members
Product Team - Product Lead (e.g. Scrum Master) and Developers
Operations Team - Operations Lead and Operators
Team Size
Mission Team <=5 people
Product Team <=9 people
Operations Team <=15 people
Team Profile
Mission Team - Imaginative, obsessive, maverick, highly adaptable, low need for certainty. Generalists who learn at pace.
Product Team - Creative, curious, rigorous, quality focussed. Generalists with specialisations, life long learners.
Operations Team - Reliable, dependable, risk-aware. Process, Task or Technical specialists who excel at structured learning.
Leadership Style
Mission Team - Entrepreneurial
Product Team - Collegiate
Operations Team - Empirical
Management
Mission Team - Individual or Small Council (<=3)
Product Team - Flat Structure
Operations Team - Hierarchical; Functional
Team Boundaries
Mission Team - Loose boundaries and responsibilities; Dependencies designed out
Product Team - Clear boundaries, flexible responsibilities; Evolving dependencies
Operations Team - Tight boundaries and responsibilities; Well defined dependencies
Development Programs
Mission Team - Self-driven development
Product Team - Loosely structured developmental programs
Operations Team - Tightly structured, skills-based development programs
Culture
Mission Team - Entrepreneurial, Imaginative, Obsessive
Product Team - Learning / Developmental, Collegiate, Curious
Operations Team - Compliant, Conservative, Risk Aware
Funding
Mission Team - Metered or Capex funding
Product Team - Capacity Based or Capex/Opex Funded
Product Team - Organise around the Customer / Product
Focus on Effectiveness and Efficiency
Governing Constraints (experts can make decisions)
Customer / Stakeholder Centric
Mission Team - Organise around Process / Function
Focus on Efficiency, Cost / Risk Management, Economies of Scale
Rigid Constraints (decisions are encoded in policies/procedures)
Margin Centric
Team based Metrics
“What gets measured gets done.”
– Peter Drucker
Using data in today’s businesses is crucial to evaluate success and gather insights needed for a sustainable company. Identifying what is working and what is not is one of the invaluable management practices that can decrease costs, determine the progress a business is making, and compare it to organisational goals. By establishing clear operational metrics and evaluate performance, companies have the advantage of using what is crucial to stay competitive in the market, and that’s data.
Since every business is different, it is essential to establish specific metrics and OKRs to measure, follow, calculate and evaluate.
When identifying the key metrics you should consider the following parameters
What needs to be measured?
Who will measure the metrics?
What is the time interval between measuring?
How frequently the information is being reported or made available?
Turning the datasets into a business dashboard can effectively track the right values and offer a comprehensive application to the entire business system.
Whilst metrics and measures should be defined and aligned to team purpose and need, we capture 4 key metrics across all team types:
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