Team autonomy doesn't work

I often hear “All our teams are autonomous.” but what does that mean? The word autonomy means “able to do things and make decisions without help from anyone else” or “freedom from external control or influence.”, in other words autonomous teams have the power to form their own path without control from external influence to the team. But that is utopian in the sense of most company cultures. Why?

Because most of us do not believe it is possible, “at least not here…” and because of that we unwillingly and unknowingly put obstacles in the way. These obstacles originate from all sources all the way from cultural rules, via leadership in an organization all the way to the individuals within the team.

 

 

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It is easy to say the word “autonomous teams” or “empowered teams” and then give the team some power on how to implement some code. That is as much autonomy as giving pocket money for bus trip home to your 12 year old kid. As a parent that might be scary enough both for the kid and the parent. But for a team with a good knowledge set of grown up people, can’t we can’t trust them with more than pocket money have really made the effort to create the best conditions for the team to thrive?