Network of Teams in action
The Practices team ran the Play in-person using the Mural template.
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A Confluence software team ran the Play in-person using colored post-its and marker lines on a whiteboard.
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The Ecosystem Strategic Partnership team ran the Play in-person using colored Post-its and markers on paper.
What you'll need
Remote
Video conferencing with screen sharing
Digital collaboration tool (see templates)
In-Person
Meeting space
Whiteboard or large sheet of paper
Markers
Sticky notes
Timer
Optional templates
Atlassian Templates
Other Templates
Instructions for running this Play
1. Prep 15 MIN
Prepare a document stating the team’s strategic goal at the top. This Play will map the network of teams that are collectively pursuing this common goal. It will also give your team a game plan for working with different teams on your projects. We would recommend completing a Team Poster to solidify the team’s goal before running this Play. Its a good idea to gather leadership feedback for alignment and clarity.
Create a key with the five categories of team types:
- Delivery teams: Teams that make things and deliver them to users (for example, development teams)
- Service teams: Teams that support internal or external customers by handing incoming tickets
- Leadership teams: Teams of leaders/managers who make decisions and build context for other teams
- Project teams: Temporary teams that build and execute plans to complete specific initiatives
- Business teams: Teams that drive the profit and loss and fulfill needs in the customer journey
Create areas for the four categories of influence:
- Core team: The people that are dedicated to your goal
- Capture the team name, members, and the name of the team lead to the top of the document. This should be the same people invited to the meeting.
- Critical to success: Teams that pose a risk of failure to achieving your goal
- Add all key stakeholders and sponsors here.
- Involved in success: Teams that could impact the success of your goal
- Off the radar: Teams that are not currently crucial to the success of your goal
Create a meeting time and invite all of the members of your team to attend. To keep the lines of communication open, no one outside of your team should be invited at this stage. For the purpose of this exercise, we will define a team as a group of people working towards a common goal with a defined scope and responsibility for outcomes. Share the draft document or categories with your team so they can build context and ask clarifying questions ahead of time. If you have already completed a Customer Journey Map, the teams contributing to that customer experience should be on your radar.
TIP: Run smaller groups
If you have more than 10 team members you should run the Play in smaller groups by creating breakout rooms to foster team communication. Then, combine the documentation and regroup to review the outcome together.
TIP: Create order with color and shape
Team type categories could be indicated in different colors of Post-its or labels. Team engagement types could be organized in columns or rings starting with the Core teams.
2. Set the stage: Network map 5 MIN
Start by reminding your team of the business outcomes and target deadlines that you are expected to achieve. Explain that you’ll be defining the network of teams that are collectively pursuing this common goal so that you can keep these relationships healthy and achieve success.
As a team, review the definitions of the different team types. Let your team members know there are no wrong answers. Note: It is OK that people define team types and engagement types differently in this step. You will resolve those differences in step 4.
TIP: When to run the Play
This Play should ideally be run as part of a Project Kickoff to ensure the best results, but is a crucial component of Team Shaping at any time when a team needs to get on track.
3. Identify your network 15 MIN
Ask all team members to independently and silently contribute teams to the document. Each team member should list the team name and place them in an influence category. This will create a more comprehensive map by avoiding group think, allowing quieter team members to engage more openly, and building an inclusive communication experience.
4. Map your network 20 MIN
As the facilitator, consolidate duplicate team entries and identify any places where teams have been placed in different influence types. Then, as a team, reach an agreement on where your team fits into the network team. You may need to vote!
If you have more than five teams in the Critical to success category, vote to determine the most influential teams.
Of your team members, assign and document a relationship “owner” for each of these critical network teams. This will be the person who is championing a healthy relationship with this team and is accountable for maintaining communication, giving updates, and consultation as needed. If you can’t find a natural fit for the owner, ownership can default to the team lead.
Optional: Stop here! If you’re a newly formed team, or have a less complex network, this may be enough. If your team has a shared understanding of the network, what it will take to be successful, and where to focus your efforts, then you’re done. Congratulations!
If you’d like to continue, take a quick break, and then regroup. You can also break up the activities by a few days to account for different timezones or workloads.
TIP: Create a safe space
Define how the information will be discussed after the Play. Will it be shared with leadership through a through a stakeholder communication plan? How will you action relationship improvements with your Network of teams? Consider adopting the Chatham House Rule.
5. Determine interaction strength 15 MIN
Now it’s time to discuss the interaction strength between your team and each team you’ve determined to be critical. Draw lines to indicate the strength of the most critical interactions between teams.
Interaction strength:
- Solid line: Systemic interactions are happening (for example, a scheduled meeting or dedicated Slack channel).
- Dashed line: Ad-Hoc interactions are employed. Examples are reliance on a personal relationship and collaboration that is reactive (incident or issue driven).
- Dotted line: This relationship requires new collaboration methods.
For more challenging network interactions, we have suggestions for a variation below to run with your relationship owners.
TIP: Go bold!
Feeling bold? Why not ask the leaders from your critical teams to run this Play with their teams? If you identify gaps, start by running the Roles & Responsibilities Play across teams.
Follow-up
Now that you have your document completed, take a look at it to identify your network’s strengths and weaknesses. Find the teams that you need to improve your interaction strength with. These are the teams you should focus on as you work to strengthen your network of teams, brainstorm some ways to make this happen.
The first step should be for the relationship owner to get time on the calendar to check in with their network team. The relationship owner is accountable for providing updates to the group on improvement actions.
Try something new that worked? Share with our Teamwork Lab community!
Variations
Improving network health 10 MIN
Gather your relationship owners and set the stage for the network health component of the process. Each of your critical network teams will receive a health rating for each of the categories below. Make sure that everyone has had a chance to review the categories and ask clarifying questions before continuing. Owners can rate the network team asynchronously or independently live.
If you did the above Play in a document or work management tool, we would suggest adding a table or list for each category below, or ideally, transferring your network map to a whiteboard tool. If using a digital whiteboard tool, we would suggest the images below. Using one of the recommended templates will make this much easier! If you are conducting in-person you could also use different sets of dots or stickers.
Network health categories and suggested next steps
Visibility:
- Storm: Teams struggle to see each other's work.
- Rain: Teams can see the work of other teams, but struggle to understand it.
- Cloud: Teams know where to find high-level work but struggle to engage.
- Sunshine: Transparency is king. We have a shared understanding.
Suggestion:
- Create a Project Poster to get everyone on the same page.
Coordination:
- Angry: Teams are unable to work together to build coordinated plans.
- Sad: Teams coordinate via favors and trading.
- Neutral: Teams only align high-level plans.
- Happy: Teams prioritize together to build coordinated plans.
Suggestion:
- Run Roles & Responsibilities to get clarity on how the teams will work together.
- Try adopting transparent decision making with the DACI.
Alignment:
- Raised hand: Teams don't think they need to be aligned, but partnership is critical to success.
- Thumb down: Teams struggle to align on goals and priorities.
- Thumb to side: Teams believe they are aligned, but warning signs appear.
- Thumb up: Teams fluidly align and adapt on goals and priorities.
Suggestions:
- Find strategic alignment through Goals, Signals, Measures.
- Create a Customer Journey Map to build shared understanding of your customer.
Learning & Feedback:
- Sitting: Teams aren’t able to share key learnings or feedback effectively.
- Walking: Only one team shares learnings or feedback.
- Bike: Teams share learnings or feedback but don’t apply any changes.
- Car: Teams have established a way to learn and grow from one another.
Suggestion:
- Run a cross-team Retrospective.
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