The Struggles of Team Self-Organization

There is always that one team that is the organisations’ star child. The team that delivers what it promises, always proudly presents its results while attracting many spectators, and does it by occasionally breaking a rule or two. From a distance, these might be the characteristics of a self-organising team. A team that follows its own course by adhering a self-made overarching goal, with a dynamic and collaborative approach to pursue it. 

In this article, we elaborate on the characteristics of the truly self-organising teams that we have encountered. Additionally, we take you along the roadmap to self-organisation based on Tuckman’s “Stages of group development”, and the input of various BlinkLane colleagues, who kindly shared their experiences and best practices for the purpose of creating this roadmap. 

In addition to this article we have visualised the journey towards self-organisation into an easy-to-use hand-out for quick tips for facilitation.