Agile OnBoarding in Cross-Functional Teams
Cross-functionality is not an easy thing.
You have more chances to have a cross-functional team if you cultivate the topic from the inception, otherwise it is difficult to introduce this BIG change. You set up cross-functionality as an expectation and let people join the team.
As a member of a cross-functional Team you MUST:
Many developers/engineers are not comfortable with learning/teaching because they either want to improve their best skill, or they are just not interested in learning more about Testing, Design, BE, FE.
Business >DEV:
The above are just some examples from the Agile OnBoarding Matrix that can help the new joiner:
Check out more articles on Agile OnBoarding:
Xtreme OnBoarding - Best Time to Change Mindset
Xtreme Onboarding - Expectations Highway
* Image taken from https://medium.com/@jchyip/why-t-shaped-people-e8706198e437
*Icon made by Freepic from www.flaticon.com
You have more chances to have a cross-functional team if you cultivate the topic from the inception, otherwise it is difficult to introduce this BIG change. You set up cross-functionality as an expectation and let people join the team.As a member of a cross-functional Team you MUST:
- Do your tasks
- Learn new tasks
- Teach others the tasks you know best
For this you need T-Shaped people.
Many developers/engineers are not comfortable with learning/teaching because they either want to improve their best skill, or they are just not interested in learning more about Testing, Design, BE, FE.
Most of the times, the developers argue they are slowing down the team's productivity, however this is just a very nice excuse to not learning/teaching something new. The truth is that actually cross-functionality is actually increasing the delivery tempo.
To support a cross-functional team getting new members, a cross-onboarding is at first required.
According to the OnBoarding Matrix, an Agile Coach/Scrum Master will start onboarding of new joiners.
If a new Developer joins, he will get the following OnBoarding (example for a Scrum Team):
Agile > DEV:
- Introduction to Agile/Scrum
- Team Way of Working (meetings, agreements)
- Meet the Team
- Sessions on User Stories/Acc Criteria
- Session on Estimation
- Agile Tools
- Agile Documentation
Business >DEV:
- Organizational Set-up
- Project Structure
- Stakeholders Overview
- Responsibility overview
- Current Process
- Origin of Project
- Vision of Projects
- KPIs (numbers, users, etc)
- Business Documentation
and the list continues: DEV > DEV, Testing > DEV, Design > DEV
- get the big picture
- understand the WHY of the project
- meet key contact persons
- start generate first ideas
- knows where to start (as proposal)
Check out more articles on Agile OnBoarding:
Xtreme OnBoarding - Best Time to Change Mindset
Xtreme Onboarding - Expectations Highway
* Image taken from https://medium.com/@jchyip/why-t-shaped-people-e8706198e437
*Icon made by Freepic from www.flaticon.com