Coopetition Among Agile Team Members [#Agile #AgileTeam #AgileTeamMembers]

Coopetition Among Agile Team Members [#Agile #AgileTeam #AgileTeamMembers]

Ways to encourage healthy competition, more cooperation, and a sense of community among Agile team members.

1. Show people the part they played
2. Have co-workers appreciate each other
3. Measure personal growth
4. Offer extra initiatives

1. Show people the part they played
Many people may be involved in working on a single feature in a sprint. The overall success of that feature will be defined by the sum of all their efforts. But if there is a key owner or contributor of that feature who did the initial research or design that led to its overall good quality, you should highlight them in front of the team and say a few words of appreciation in the Sprint Review or Sprint Retrospective.

Find a way to show people that their individuality is respected even though the success belongs to the entire team. Focus on the overall picture but highlight the business side of the benefits of their efforts as well.

2. Have co-workers appreciate each other
Approval and appreciation from our peers matters to all of us. During a Sprint Retrospective, have people tell their stories about who helped them the most and who they feel contributed to different areas in an outstanding manner. Ask developers and testers to name each other for their remarkable contributions.

You should strive to make this as non-political and casual as possible. Team members are not being judged but just being appreciated for their accomplishments. The ones who put in extra effort should get recognized so that they do not feel lost in the crowd. This also ensures that average performers do not hide behind the overall success of the team, but rather get motivated to do better in order to stand out before their peers and managers.

3. Measure personal growth:
When measuring success in Agile, the success of the team defines individual performance. As long as individuals are contributing in their own ways, their role or position should not matter. However, many team members find it difficult to get used to that way of thinking.

Many managers find it harder, as well due to the fact that Agile does not foster relying on numbers, hours or other easily trackable metrics to measure the performance of an individual. In fact, the whole idea of measuring individual performance is against the spirit of Agile.

What you can watch for is the individual growth of a team member over time and their efforts at continuous improvement. How are they helping other teammates in their tasks and assisting them to learn and grow? Have they bettered themselves over the last quarter, and are they motivated to continue to do so?

4. Offer extra initiatives
Delivery teams are always in need of new education in the form of technology, tools or research for upcoming projects. You can have a list of such initiatives and make them up for grabs by anyone who feels motivated or has some extra time or personal knowledge in that area.

The ones who take these initiatives can be given some grace in their regular tasks and some guidance on how to go about them. Later, they can present their learnings and findings to the entire team, giving them a new platform to showcase their skills and see the benefit of all their extra effort.

This helps the entire team by encouraging the sharing of knowledge, leading to better collaboration, and fostering healthy competition among teammates to try out new things.

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Co-opetition Among Agile Teammates
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