Role clarity deficiencies can wreck agile teams

BACKGROUND: One of the twelve agile principles is to build projects around motivated individuals and trust them to get the job done. Such agile teams must self-organize, but this involves conflict, making self-organization difficult. One area of difficulty is agreeing on everybody’s role. BACKGROUND: What dynamics arise in a self-organizing team from the negotiation of everybody’s role? METHOD: We conceptualize observations from five agile teams (work observations, interviews) by Charmazian Grounded Theory Methodology. RESULTS: We define role as something transient and implicit, not fixed and named. The roles are characterized by the responsibilities and expectations of each team member. Every team member must understand and accept their own roles (Local role clarity) and everbody else’s roles (Team-wide role clarity). Role clarity allows a team to work smoothly and effectively and to develop its members’ skills fast. Lack of role clarity creates friction that not only hampers the day-to-day work, but also appears to lead to high employee turnover. Agile coaches are critical to create and maintain role clarity. CONCLUSIONS: Agile teams should pay close attention to the levels of Local role clarity of each member and Team-wide role clarity overall, because role clarity deficits are highly detrimental.