Steven B. Poggel is a Self-employed Agile Consultant with a passion for Agile since 2011. Concerned about whether Agile practices in organisations follow an Agile mindset. Detests mechanical and cookie cutter Agile and strongly believes that every team in every organisation deserves an individual solution to their ways of working. Co-author of two articles on improvement of Agile methods. Alumnus of Saarland University and German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence. Beekeeper, martial arts practitioner, Borussia Dortmund fan.

Steven will conduct his Dojo workshop with Mateusz Trawiński.

Workshop—“You have my sword, and My Bow, and My Axe”

Self Designing Teams That Will Do Great Things Together

This workshop shows in practice how the mechanism of “self designing teams” works. It includes three parts: In the first part we discuss pros and cons of teams being created by external / management decisions and teams which are self-designed. The attendees play a crucial role in coming up with the arguments.

We introduce the basic rules of the self designing team process: identifying and visualizing skillset and creating constraints for team build-up. In the second part, we train visualizing skillset by asking participants to declare their skills using a role playing game character sheet which includes six skills:
1. strength (tech skills)
2. dexterity (physical condition)
3. constitution (stress resistance)
4. intelligence (how fast you learn)
5. wisdom (knowledge in favorite field)
6. and charisma (soft skills).

After declaring their skills participants form various types of groups, which require certain skillset. In the final part, teams are given a complex task to do with requirements changing during the process. In the summary we discuss the effects of the workshop. How did the process of self designing teams worked out and where it can be used in IT and non-IT context.