Teams need direction.
They need a path.
They need a way forward.
We call these a Theme.
If your team does not have a theme, they are operating without an objective or goal in mind that they can always rely on and look back to, to ensure they are on the right path in whatever is they are doing.
When a team has a theme, everything they do comes back to it.
How we code.
What we deliver.
How we work with other groups.
How we work within our own group.
What our priorities are.
The list goes on and on for every activity you are working on.
Where it Starts
As the leader, your role is to set direction and help the team to grow and develop, whatever theme you pick will be driven by you. You WILL be the one to keep reminding everyone of it in everything they do.
This doesn’t mean you’ll come up with it on your own, it means you’ll get the ball rolling on it.
Critical to any Team Theme is the adoption of your team, and there is no better way to garner adoption than to invite everyone to be part of the process. When your entire team is involved in developing the team, they inevitably will own it because a piece of them exists within it.
Keep it Simple
The best themes are the simplest and they can boil down to a quick mantra that the team can recite with little thought and immediately value all the many contributions, discussions, and meetings that were held to get there.
Some examples of ones I have used in the past…
Make it Simple. Make it Stable. Make it Sexy. — this one was for a startup where we were introducing a new product into a competitive, complicated landscape with minimal testing. We wanted our code to look cool but never fall over.
Anyone can go on Vacation — it’s pretty common in small teams for there to be “experts” in the team, but at some point, they become stressed out as everyone goes to them for answers and they start to feel like they can never take time off. This theme was…
