This is Johanna Rothman's May 2025 Pragmatic Manager newsletter. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email.
Have you noticed that some teams seem to be more effective than others? Most of the time, they manage their WIP (Work in Progress). They learn together. Often, they collaborate across the organization. But the big thing is this: They tend to deliver faster and more often than other, less effective teams.
While most of these effective teams are cross-functional, I've even worked with some component teams that exhibited this behavior. Each component team was autonomous, but they collaborated to deliver something larger than “their” work alone.
What creates these more effective teams? Several characteristics:
- They have a clear overarching goal.
- Everyone collaborates to work toward that goal—and only toward that goal.
- The team members have learned how to offer and receive feedback from each other. That feedback helps the team learn and improve.
And since very few teams can deliver alone, they can help other teams learn and improve, too. All because they create and use small-world networks. These are autonomous teams.
How Autonomous Teams Work
Autonomous teams take their clear goal, focus on it, and deliver that goal. They decide how to work together and how to manage the team members when they cannot. When they can't deliver, they notify you as early as they can.
If you are a manager, how can you create these autonomous teams?
- Set and clarify this team's overarching goal.
- Ask the team if they require some facilitation when they start or as they persist. While some autonomous teams do not need any facilitation, many do. Especially in the face of the ever-present demands to multitask.
- Encourage building communities across the organization—small world networks. That helps people and teams to consider how they can learn across the organization. And to offer insights from their team to people across the organization.
Let's start with this overarching goal.
Set and Clarify the Team's Overarching Goal
Product development teams often have a product-focused overarching goal. That's of the form: “This release will allow Customer Set One to solve problems A, B, and C in that rank order. While we hope we can also get to problems D, E, and F, we're focusing on this small and specific goal for now. Because while we might want to accomplish D, E, and F, we also might want to focus on a different customer set when we finish A, B, and C.”
You might describe your team's overarching goal differently. However, those goals are often specific, so they set a bounding box around the team's work, so the team can focus on just their work. No multitasking. No interruptions.
Even better, a bounding box helps the team postpone what's out for now. The team does not distract itself with future work or other possibilities. Instead, it delivers what it needs to deliver.
If you are part of a program, a collection of projects all focused on one overall business deliverable, you've probably seen teams act like this. Each team focuses on its contribution so the overall product succeeds.
While some teams can take their overarching goal and run with it, some teams also need facilitation.
Consider Team Facilitation Roles
Normally, I don't think of product leadership as a team facilitation role. But sometimes it is. Especially if team members have trouble focusing on Customer Set One. Or on the ranked order of problems A, B, and C.
Long ago, I worked on a program where the senior leadership decided to postpone several interesting features for now, and consider them for a future release. However, one developer was convinced he needed to “save” the product by continuing to work on those interesting features.
That's when the product manager explained the value of postponing those interesting features and what the company hoped to gain with this more limited release.
Once the developer understood, he was happy to focus on the team's work, not his interests.
Sometimes, teams need the freedom to be autonomous. I've seen well-meaning (and some not so well-meaning) managers insert themselves into the team's work. When managers do that, the team loses its autonomy. Instead, a facilitative project leader can act as a bounding box for the team itself, protecting the team from people who would destroy the team's autonomy.
Facilitative project leaders do not tell the team what to do or how to work. Instead, they create the environment so everyone can contribute. Sometimes, that means explaining to well-meaning managers that no, the team cannot do more.
Sometimes, these facilitators help the team realize how to work better together. That might include facilitating the team's working agreements, or helping the team practice how to offer and receive feedback. It might include helping the team consider alternative practices to make the team even more effective.
But facilitative leaders do not tell the team how to work. They offer options. Often, one of those options includes communities across the organization.
Build Communities Across the Organization
When I see autonomous teams, I often discover that these teams have built small-world networks across the organization. (See the image at the top of this post.) Not because someone told them to do so. But they realize that Mary, over there, has some interesting knowledge. And Fred, over here, has solved a problem like this before. Or Suzanne, on that other team, has dealt with this customer before.
Autonomous teams can bridge their knowledge gaps by working with and from others, even if those others are not part of “their” team.
I particularly like purposeful learning groups. Consider formal communities of practice as a way to start with purposeful learning. Back in the days when companies had cafeterias, I informally learned a ton at lunch. Not only did I learn about the products, but I also learned who had which kinds of knowledge. That helped me decide where to start any serious quest.
While many autonomous teams do not need specific project- or team-focused leadership, they need the kind of leadership that can set the overarching goal.
Autonomous Teams Still Need Corporate Leadership
The big thing autonomous teams need from leadership is this: The overarching goal, and the duration of that goal.
That means autonomous teams need to understand the product goal(s) and the strategy. These teams need to understand how often corporate leadership wants to be able to change those product goals and/or that strategy.
In addition, sometimes teams find themselves in trouble and they don't know how to get out of that trouble. (Imagine a team member who stops coming to work. That kind of trouble.) That's when managers can support the team and the various team members.
Autonomous teams don't work open-loop. Instead, they show their work early and often. They use a bounding box to focus on their goal and only that goal. And if someone asks for something else? They have options—but those options rarely include multitasking or saying yes. They are much more likely to say no.
If you are a manager of some sort, see how you can support the people you lead and serve to be an autonomous team. Your team will learn and improve, and help share that learning and improving across the organization.
Read More
This newsletter touches on these books:
- Agile and Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization
- The Modern Management Made Easy books, and especially Practical Ways to Lead and Serve Others
- Create Your Successful Agile Project: Collaborate, Measure, Estimate, Deliver
Learn With Johanna
Effective Public speaking is in technical review. That's where my trusted readers tell me what's unclear, confusing, or wrong with the book. I'm so happy I already have some very useful feedback.
If you are part of the agile community, consider checking out The Agile Network. Also, don’t miss out on discounted membership options. Use Discount Code: ROTHMANPMC33 to get 33% OFF all memberships. I’m speaking several times at the May micro-conference next week.
Links of Interest
New to the newsletter? See previous issues. (I post these newsletters to my YouTube Channel a few days after I send them.)
Here are other links you might find useful:
- Managing Product Development Blog. (Yes, I offer an RSS feed so you can read everything in a newsreader.)
- Create an Adaptable Life Blog to see the weekly question of the week.
- My Books. (You can also buy my self-published ebooks and audiobooks on my store. Yes, print is coming.)
- My Workshops
- Johanna’s Fiction
Till next time,
Johanna
© 2025 Johanna Rothman
Pragmatic Manager: Vol 22, #5, ISSN: 2164-1196