T-shaped — Cross-functional agile team
What is cross functional team in agile?
A cross functional team is a squad comprising of different functional / technical professional pundits working together.
The basic difference between waterfall and agile described in below image
In waterfall model all professional pundits are working in silos while in agile they are working as a single team to achieve common sprint goal.
The main advantage of cross-functional team is they are mostly not depending on a professional outside team boundary. This can reduce the communication time between different professionals. Also the cross-functional team is working for a same goal and having interest so there will be no conflict in priorities within the professional pundits. On the other hand there will be different priorities & interest for Dev, BA, Testing &DBA team in waterfall which can result into delay.
What is T-shaped professional pundits?
Cross-functional team works best in an environment where professional pundits work together but also self cross-train themselves to learn each others competencies. The professional pundits who can work outside their preferred skillset are known as T-shaped professional pundits. The vertical part of ‘T’ represents their main preferred competency and the other horizontal part of ‘T’ represents their other skills they can use to achieve the single interest and/or interest of the team.
T-shaped cross-functional Indian cricket team
I would like to give two legendary names of the Indian cricket history ever as truly cross-functional T- shaped players, they are Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid.
In 1993 Hero cup semifinal against south Africa, South Africa needed only 6 runs in a last over. Everyone’s surprise Mohammad Azharuddin gave Sachin Tendulkar the task to bowl a last over. South African team got relaxed as Sachin Tendulkar is famous for his batting ability. His primary competency is batting and not bowling. In this match Sachin already failed while batting. To everyone’s surprise Sachin bowled 3 dot balls to Allan Donald, followed by a runout and Brian Mcmillan fail to achieve the target and India won!!!
Rahul Dravid — The Wall of Indian cricket is also know as a batsman. There was a phase where the Indian cricket team is in search of a reliable wicket keeper. Even though Rahul Dravid is not a natural wicket keeper but took challenge as a truly T-shaped player of the Indian cricket team. Everyone know the result he did wicket keeping until MS Dhony started his career as a wicket keeper. Rahul Dravid played 71 one-day international as a wicket keeper, he took 71 catches and 13 stumps.
What are the benefits of truly T-shaped cross-functional team?
Getting done — Team that is non cross-functional can not give potentially shippable product increment alone. For example only testers or developers can not release the shippable product increment alone without each other’s help.
Self-organize — Agile T-shaped cross functional team working with a guidance of a scrum master is more self organized than the silo team working with the manager.
Innovative — Agile T-shaped cross-functional team is more innovative, more flexible and adapt swiftly with the changes as they are equipped with vast variety of skillset than silo team.
Maintained flow of valuable work— As T-shaped cross-functional team is not/less dependent on outside team boundary they can maintain flow of valuable work
