Team Facilitator
Delegator |
The Team that needs to role + Organizational Development |
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Role Keepers |
Jessica Wyrsch |
Contact |
Purpose
At VSHN, teams are expected to work in a semi-autonomous and self-managed way, which includes not only delivering value but also organizing their work, coordinating with stakeholders, and continuously improving how they function.
We believe there is a need to assign a dedicated role in each team, focused on the team’s effectiveness and the team’s Fundamental Team Responsibilities. By assigning this role, the team reduces the cognitive load on individual members and can focus more effectively on value-creating work while keeping responsibility for how the team functions shared.
Key Responsibilities
- To the Team
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Facilitate reflection, learning, and improvement of the team’s way of working.
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Coach team members in self-management and collaboration.
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Support effective meetings and team rituals (facilitate or enable facilitation).
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Facilitate impediment identification and ensure they are addressed by the right individuals.
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- To the Organization
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Act as an interface for questions about how the team works
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Facilitate collaboration on the interfaces of the team
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Stakeholder and Key Deliverables
- The Team
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Regular, facilitated moments for reflection and improvement (like retrospectives, reviews of how the team works).
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Clear, agreed ways of working and team agreements.
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Visible handling of team-level impediments and governance topics.
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- Team members
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Access to facilitation and coaching support.
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A neutral space for addressing tensions or working challenges.
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Clarity on expectations related to team processes and collaboration.
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- Delegator
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A reliable point of contact regarding how the team functions.
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Transparency on recurring impediments, constraints, or support needs.
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Feedback on how organizational principles and structures play out in the team.
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- The Organization
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Representation of team-level learnings and needs in cross-team contexts.
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Shared patterns and insights on effective team practices.
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Lightweight, maintained documentation of team ways of working.
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Skills and Mindsets
This role requires specific skills and mindsets to be effective. If a role keeper doesn’t meet the requirements, training is required. What is needed at which level depends on the context the Facilitator acts (which team, used methodologies / frameworks, etc.), the following is the needed minimum.
- General
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Strong facilitation and interpersonal skills
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Practical experience with Scrum, Kanban, or similar frameworks
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Ability to work with goals (for example OKRs), feedback loops, and retrospectives
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Solid understanding of how VSHN works
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- Mindsets
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Servant leadership
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Sociocracy 3.0 principles (especially Consent and Equivalence)
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Agile, iterative learning and improvement
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Constraints and Boundaries
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Leadership in this role means servant leadership: enabling others without becoming “the boss.” See what this means at VSHN.
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Responsibility for the team’s domain and Fundamental Team Responsibilities remains shared by the whole team - not centralized in this role.
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Facilitate and lead the topics defined in this role, but avoid becoming the person doing all meta-work - ensure shared ownership.
Role Assignment
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Every VSHN team must cover this role’s responsibilities - delegating it to one person is the recommended approach.
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Teams decide how to implement this role within the provided constraints.
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Value Stream Teams applying Scrum will emphasize the Agile/Scrum/Kanban responsibilities as part of the same role.
Delegator Responsibilities
- The Team
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Ensure that what is outline in this role, and especially the Fundamental Team Responsibilities are addressed good enough.
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- The Delegator of the Team
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Break up situations where the Team doesn’t understand their responsibilities yet because of the lack of a role like this.
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