It has been several years since organizations made a meticulous shift towards Agile methodology. But it’s never too late to innovate further. Organizations continue to try new ways to increase their productivity and beat competition. Building an Agile Squad seems like another successful result of such efforts.

An Agile squad is a high-performing cross-functional and flexible team working in close collaboration and is largely self-managed. This team and its members are responsible for end-to-end product delivery.

An Agile squad comes with several benefits that include each team member being aware of each other’s capacity and knowledge, easier communication due to same work location, increased development speed because of continuous discussions, reduced risk due to low chances of miscommunication and autonomy allowing them to choose the path they want to reach the goal.

But to be able to enjoy these benefits, it is important that the team is aptly built with valuable and skilled members.

Let’s understand the characteristics that define a high-performing Agile teams:

  • High-level of ownership and collaboration: While each member of an agile team has clear knowledge about other’s as well as their own skills, each member must own their responsibilities and collaborate closely with other team members to bring out the best product.
  • Autonomy and self-organization: Yes, it is true that an agile squad has autonomy to choose their path to reach their goals. But for this to be successful, each member needs to be highly self-organized and transparent, otherwise what seems like autonomy might just end up becoming chaos.
  • Open to continuous learning: For any collaboration to become successful, the members have to have open mind and willingness to keep learning. On the way to deliver a project, every member tends to pick up new skills that will just evolve and elevate their talent. They should have a flexible mindset.
  • Effort to improve continuously: The team as a whole should try to achieve highest quality of product. They need to continuously put in effort to improve further and never stop innovating. Each member should try to utilize the new skills they learn along the way to achieve this.
  • Clarity about roles: Each member not only knows of each other’s skills and talents; they are well aware of each other’s role in the team and in the project. There are agreements within the team among the members that keep the progress of the project in order while avoiding duplication of work. There should also be continuous communication to measure the progress of the project.
  • Prioritizing team over individual: While agile squads are small teams comprising highly-skilled members with well-defined roles exercising autonomy, the priority should still always be the ultimate project and combined effort instead of individual achievements. Even if they finish their individual task, it is important for the project to be completed as a whole to achieve success.
  • Support and space: Striving to continuously improve and innovate should not create an overbearing and pressurizing environment for the team members. They need good support from their leaders and managers besides allowing them to take a timely breather to be able to stay focused and achieve the goal on time.

When we combine these characteristics, what we achieve is a highly-functional team with increased productivity deliver quick and quality products. According to research by Zippia, after adopting Agile, companies have experienced an average 60% growth in revenue and profit. Aspire Systems offers to add a high performing Agile squad in just 50 days to your software development team!

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