Dynamic Teams: Reteaming Patterns & Practices • Heidi Helfand & Charles Humble

Dynamic reteaming is natural and inevitable in growing organizations - stable teams are often impractical and change should be embraced rather than resisted

Five key patterns for reteaming:

• One by one: Individual joining/leaving
• Grow and split: Team grows too large and divides
• Merging: Teams combine
• Isolation: Teams work separately
• Switching: People move between teams

Signs a team needs to split:

• Meetings getting too long
• People not paying attention
• Work diverging
• Decision-making becoming difficult
• Stand-ups extending beyond 10-15 minutes

Isolated/“skunkworks” teams can be valuable when:

• Developing new products
• Handling emergencies
• Needing faster iteration cycles
• Requiring process freedom
• Direct executive reporting needed

Keys for successful reorganizations:

• Involve people in designing the change
• Be transparent about plans
• Consider individual career goals/aspirations
• Have clear timelines and milestones
• Bring in project managers to help

Effective onboarding requires:

• Focus on helping new hires feel belonging
• Pairing/buddy system for guidance
• Considering impact on existing team members
• Allowing people to share about themselves
• Clear communication channels

Company values are most useful when:

• Actually used to guide decisions
• Defended when challenged
• Embraced organically by employees
• Helping navigate growth/change
• Maintaining culture through transitions

Toxic team dynamics require:

• Understanding root causes
• Giving benefit of doubt initially
• Having difficult conversations
• Coaching/mentoring when possible
• Making tough decisions if needed

Visualization tools help with:

• Timeline activities for team history
• Whiteboard reteaming exercises
• Mapping future organization designs
• Showing open roles/opportunities
• Getting team input on changes

Growth requires evolving:

• Communication architecture
• Decision making processes
• Team structures
• Ways of working
• Cultural elements to preserve