The Liberators Podcast
This is the podcast of The Liberators. Our mission is to unleash organizations and teams all across the globe from ineffective product development. We rely on insights from scientific research as much as possible so that you don't have to take our word for it.
In each episode, we look at the challenges faced by Agile teams, software teams, and product teams. We discuss relevant research, share our experiences, or challenge existing beliefs. Each episode ends with practical and actionable recommendations on what you can do with your teams.
Most episodes are written and presented by Christiaan Verwijs. Our music was written and performed by Jasper Huiskamp a.k.a. Basanite. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp. The music for episodes before 91 is licensed from Yummy Sounds.
The Liberators Podcast
In-Depth: How To Create Better Work Agreements For Your Team
Do high-performing teams communicate more than low-performing teams? 🤔
If you think "Yes!", you may want to reconsider. Scientific studies often find the reverse. When researchers compare high-performing teams with low-performing teams, they consistently find that high-performing teams communicate less. This has been observed with flight crews, nuclear plant control crews, and work teams.
These teams have not developed telepathy, but they've learned so well what is expected of each other that they don’t need to communicate explicitly for day-to-day coordination. This effectively keeps a lot of their bandwidth open for problem-solving, critical communication, and maintaining focus - and that makes them more effective.
There is so much to unpack here. It tells us much about cross-functionality, team cognition, and what it takes to grow high-performing teams. In a very practical sense, I think it shows us how important it is to develop work agreements and mental team models about how to:
- Coordinate work
- Coordinate the use and application of skills
- Coordinate the navigation of conflict
- Coordinate psychologically safety (the proper kind)
- Coordinate dealing with work pressure and stress
Read the transcript of the episode here (including all references):
https://medium.com/the-liberators/in-depth-how-to-create-better-work-agreements-for-your-team-7738e474ad13
We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com
Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com
The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.
