Teams need to know the purpose of their work, the context in which it’s done, and how they’ll align their work styles. A great way to do so is chartering, and we were fortunate to have Diana Larsen join us for a lively discussion in this week’s book club session.

Diana is the co-author (with Ainsley Nies) of Liftoff: Start and Sustain Successful Agile Teams, Second Edition, an excellent book about chartering Agile teams and the inspiration for the practices in The Art of Agile Development.

Reading:
📖 Purpose
📖 Context
📖 Alignment

🎙 Discussion prompts:

• Which aspects of chartering are particularly important to you or your teams?

• Share a story about how purpose, or lack thereof, made a difference to a team you know.

• Have you seen teams surprised by their context (that is, their boundaries and interactions, resources, and so forth)? What happened, and how did it work out?

• What techniques have you used to create alignment on your teams?

About the Book Club

From October 2021 to August 2022, I hosted a call-in talk show based on the second edition of The Art of Agile Development. The series used the book as a jumping-off point for wide-ranging discussions about Agile ideas and practices, and had a star-studded guest list.

For an archive of past sessions, visit the book club index. For more about the book, visit the Art of Agile Development home page.