[Team velocity 4] Exit points

Copyright:http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org

A key factor in designing the team according to Highway Theory.

A well designed highway has the quality that you have a smooth exit, well signaled with kilometers ahead, for an easy transition. A well designed team has the quality that there is a smooth development of the team, as well as the smooth leave of a member. There is no wonder that some team member choose to leave for  various reasons. There are sophisticated reasons behind, that are hard to grasp, as well as easy to understand ones like "My wife wants to move to another city" or "I need to change the city, my kids go to college and I want to be close to them". It's hard to cope to objective reasons, even harder to cope with subjective ones. 

Doesn't matter now. The change will happen and it's always about how smooth the transition will be. As a manager, you will be measured according to this. As a team member, you will suffer the consequences, good or worse. The art of designing a smooth exit stays at manager, the art of implementation stays in the team.

For the knowledge workers, a critical aspect is to have a comprehensive knowledge transfer. Corporations are selling their know-how and pay the employees even to distribute their know-how within the organization. This is not a coincidence. The people are the keepers of the know-how, but it cannot be only one to have the knowledge. You need small communities, little circular relationships where people learn one from another. Thus, the knowledge transfer can be done continuously, having in mind the win-win principle. Putting two great guys and one novice in the community, you can stimulate the experienced ones to work together, as well as to foster the development of the beginner.
The other principle to have in mind is that knowledge is overlapping. The knowledge is nowadays like a niche. I am the expert in X or Y. This is not fun for the team member. Sorry to disappoint you again, the professional life cycle is about 40 years. The expertise is useful for about 15 to 20 years. Afterwards, the technology will change, maybe the niche will disappear, therefore it's highly appreciated when the team offers the opportunity to slightly extend your expertise. On one hand, the manager has the famous back-up solutions. On the other one, the employee intrinsic value on the market is increased. Everyone has something to win.
The overlapping of skills is not done by accident or just based on the interest of the team members. This shall be based on skill inventory for the team and the team's replacement strategy. In both cases, it's a little bit about strategy. To have the team skill inventory you need to understand almost perfectly the needs of the business and !!! the future of the business. You need some years to build the needed skills for the knowledge workers. You need some days to loose a key person. It is highly dependent on you the impact such a change (resignation, promotion) is having on your business. We will speak more about skills inventory, how this can be transformed in a powerful tool. But I will not speak about the future of your business. This is your job to understand and to deploy a meaningful replacement strategy. Overlapping knowledge, distributing tasks in such a way that you can share the work of the guy who leaves the team could be the secret of a smooth exit point.

The most powerful team is that where people feel free to remain. This should be no coincidence. When the team members can choose at any moment to leave or stay (and THEY STAY), this should be the best motivation strategy you ever imagined. Any exit point they will encounter will be skipped.

Stay tuned for the next ideas about exit points:
Communication of changes,, trusting in the people leaving the team, preparation of the future collaboration.


Read also

Team velocity [1] - the idea
Team velocity [2] - the relation between the mission of the team and its velocity
Team velocity [3] - The entry points on the highway
Team velocity [5] - The signs