Ideal state
The Four Guiding Principles
TeamOps is grounded in four Guiding Principles that underpin everything else.
Shared reality
The decisions teams make must be informed by an objective—and shared—reality. While other management philosophies prioritize the speed of knowledge transfer, TeamOps optimizes for the speed of knowledge retrieval.
Everyone can consume (self-serve) the same information, clearly documented in a single source of truth. Values manifest as behaviors, which can be observed and quantified. And wherever possible, teams must default to transparency.
Equal contributions
Instead of relying on hierarchical management, organizations must create systems and channels where everyone can equally consume and contribute information, regardless of level, function, or location.
When people don't have the opportunity to contribute because of their background, or where they live, or their life stage, we miss out on valuable perspectives.
Decision velocity
Decisions are the fuel for high-performance teams, and represent a key success metric in the future of work. Conventional management philosophies often strive for consensus, which causes delays.
Achieving faster, better results depends on decision-making velocity—a team’s ability to increase the quality and quantity of decisions made in a particular stretch of time through behavioral and logistical agreements.
Measurement clarity
Outdated workforce supervision tactics often trigger bias and presenteeism. So, results must be uniquely recorded, managed, and supported for the accurate tracking and evaluation of productivity.
TeamOps celebrates that execution is not a one-time event. Rather, it is the establishing of a new baseline on which future iterations are applied.
Shared Reality
While other philosophies prioritize the speed of knowledge transfer, TeamOps optimizes for the speed of knowledge retrieval.
All good teamwork is based on and informed by a single shared, objective reality. A collective employee experience that your team shares to develop trust, direct contributions, and motivate productivity. Typically, this shared reality is composed of three elements: information, objectives and values.
Everyone should be able to autonomously consume the information and resources they need to get their work done, understand their objectives and how they fit into the wider picture, and share common values.
This shared reality relies on the following building blocks:
- Single Source of Truth - structure all information (policies, objectives, workflows, instructions, values, etc.) in a virtual knowledge management system which is a Single Source of Truth (SSoT). Decisions are better informed when there’s no such thing as a "latest version," there is only the version.
- Public by Default – make all information freely available to everyone. A traditional business problem is "how do we get the right information to the right people at the right time?" A TeamOps organization asks: "How do we create a system that allows everyone to access information and makes it easy for them to find?”
- Collaboration Guidelines – TeamOps stresses intentionally designing, building, and reinforcing shared workstreams and collaboration environments through which decisions and projects flow. When shared realities are based on effectively and efficiently sharing information, it means that communication practices need to be as aligned as possible.
- Shared Values – The guard rails created by explicit, shared values provide freedom for individual decision making. This leads to more informed decisions by removing guesswork on whether (or how) values were applied during operational processes.
- Inclusivity by default – Decisions and results are better informed when they include a maximally diverse array of perspectives.
- Informal communication – Leaders should encourage team members to prioritize informal connections (e.g. coffee chats, social calls, special interest chat channels) and get to know the people behind the text. This builds trust, prevents conflict, and enables better communication during work-related interactions.
Equal Contributions
Instead of relying on hierarchical management, organizations must create systems and channels where everyone can equally consume and contribute information, regardless of level, function, or location.
When building a foundation for equal contributions, the goal is to create a model where everyone can contribute, but not everyone is required to contribute. This is especially important when preparing for decision making. Anyone is welcome to voice their ideas and opinions, but requiring universal consensus prior to implementation undermines operational efficiency.
- Asynchronous workflows – see Asynchronous Working.
- Directly Responsible Individuals – see Directly Responsible Individuals
- Well-managed meetings - see Meetings
- Cross-functional collaboration – This one’s kinda obvious!
- Tool prioritisation – In virtual-first environments, software becomes the shared workplace – instead of an office, it’s a new, digital location for information to be shared, results to be stored, and team members to collaborate together. To create an efficient navigation experience and prevent information overload for your team members, it’s important to classify and prioritize each of the tools that you use.
- Psychological safety – An organization’s speed of decision-making slows dramatically if its members are worried about sharing their thoughts quickly and honestly. This hesitation typically stems from an absence of trust or fear of conflict, which are two of the The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
Decision Velocity
Achieving faster, better results depends on decision-making velocity—a team’s ability to increase the quality and quantity of decisions made in a particular stretch of time through behavioral and logistical agreements.
Decisions are the fuel for high-performance teams, and represent a key success metric in the future of work. The more decisions are made, the more results can come from them. Conventional management philosophies often strive for consensus to avoid risk instead of developing a bias for action, which can result in delays, confusion, or unnecessary conflict.
- Documented workflows
- Give agency
- Push decisions to the lowest level possible
- Bias for action
- Low-context communication
- Operational transparency
Measurement Clarity
- Transparent measurements
- Measure results, not hours
- Definition of Done
- Prioritise due dates over scope
- Transparent feedback
- Cadence