The Visual Agile Coach Team Grid Start

The Visual Agile Coach Team Grid Start

A business is made up of multiple competing teams, car crashes and pile-ups are inevitable.

Not unlike a Formula 1 race.

F1 Teams are highly competitive, all seeking to win but they also have more common ground then you might think - they need each other to be successful themselves.

What is the Grid Start?

Using a Formula 1-style grid start for inspiration to get connected teams off the start line together:

• A Go / No Go to create the conditions for success by asking each team what conditions they need to be met to feel good to go.

• A tool for identifying team interdependencies and cross-business responsibility to solve for them.

Shine the light on the need for collective responsibility to deliver success.

When to use the Grid Start?

• At a Go / No Go decision

• At the end of the Sprint before release

• When there are multiple parties involved with interdependencies

Why use the Grid Start?

• For collaboration across multiple connected teams

• Ensuring everyone gets away from the start line safely and together.

• Supporting problem root cause analysis and smoking out dependencies

• Focusing all eyes on the prize and achieving consensus

Visual Agile Coaching Tips

• Use the Grid Start to promote optimism and focus on collective success. When each team or individual owns a light it’s easy to see we’re all in it together, everyone has the same goal of getting all the lights to green so that everyone can move forward.

• The Grid Start’s lights means that everyone’s focus is ahead – not backwards or sideways – no distractions!

• With transparency and collective responsibility it is easier to agree the cross-team action plans.

• Everyone wants to get away safely – if someone is not ready or stalls on the starting line there is a greater risk of chaos.

• The formation lap – before the start – is the opportunity to identify any issues and take action before the start line (think UAT or a pilot).

• It is possible to start from the pits – so if things aren’t perfect but are good enough – you don’t have to hold up the full grid. Go No Go’s don’t have to be perfection.

Visual Agile Coach Roles & Responsibilities:

• Transformation

• Teamwork

• Leadership

• Stakeholder Management

This tool and many more are available in the Visual Agile Coach Playbook available from online bookshops and at Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Visual-Agile-Coach-Playbook-communication/dp/1780176619