Creating Great Teams: How Self-selection Lets People Excel

People are happiest and most productive if they can choose what they work on and who they work with. Self-selecting teams give people that choice. Build well-designed and efficient teams to get the most out of your organization, with step-by-step instructions on how to set up teams quickly and efficiently. You'll create a process that works for you, whether you need to form teams from scratch, improve the design of existing teams, or are on the verge of a big team re-shuffle.

Discover how New Zealand's biggest e-commerce company completely restructured their business through Self-Selection. In the process, find out how to create high-performing groups by letting people self-organize into small, cross-functional teams. Step-by-step guides, easy-to-follow diagrams, practical examples, checklists, and tools will enable you to run a Self-Selection process within your organization.

If you're a manager who wants to structure your organization into small teams, you'll discover why Self-Selection is the fastest and safest way to do so. You'll prepare for and organize a Self-Selection event and make sure your Self-Selection participants and fellow managers are on board and ready. If you're a team member, you'll discover what it feels like to be part of a Self-Selection process and what the consequences are for your daily work. You'll learn how to influence your colleagues and bosses to be open to the idea of Self-Selection. You'll provide your manager with a plan for how to facilitate a Self-Selection event, and with evidence that the system works.

If you're feeling the pain and chaos of adding new people to your organization, or just want to ensure that your teams have the right people with the right skills, Self-Selection will help you create the effective teams you need.

Sandy Mamoli is an Agile enterprise coach and consultant at Nomad8 with a focus on culture and leadership. From working in Amsterdam and Copenhagen to being one of New Zealand’s leading coaches, she brings her practical European flair and passionate advocacy for all things Agile to businesses around the world. Sandy is a former Olympian, a geek, a gadget junkie, and an international public speaker.

David Mole coaches, consults, and presents about Agile processes, teams, and motivation. He recently led an Agile transformation at Trade Me where, building upon the work of Spotify's culture, he created dozens of high-performing Agile squads. He is a highly regarded public speaker and author for InfoQ. A former professional poker player, David works for Nomad8 helping teams and organizations perform better.