Market of skills

Subject

Team Start-up / Team identity

Participants

The whole team

Facilitator

Agile Coach / Agile Master

Summary

In this exercise, team members get to know each other's skills and strengths. It is often used during a new team's start-up phase.

Definition

Personal profile with focus on skills.

Motivation

Strengthens the team members regarding the power of their mixed skills. It reveals, where team members can support and develop each other. Teammates will understand one another's skills to effectivly share their work.

Results

You get an overview of the existing skills in the team and can think about how to use the full potential of the team or identify missing skills.

Benefit

Empowering people to think outside the box and to reflect about themselves.

Procedure

Each person draws a poster containing the following three categories:

• his/her own skills/strengths related to the team
• previous/hidden skills
• skills one would like to learn or improve

After all posters have been completed, they are all pinned to a wall to form the 'marketplace'. Team members then present their posters one by one while the audience takes notes about what skills might be useful in their work, where they can support, develop or teach a new skill. After the presentation, the audience puts sticky notes next to the person's poster and the audience is allowed to give a short feedback.

Tools

Flipchart/whiteboard, sticky notes

Hints

The team members should not just think about their skills in the context of the current project, they should include the skills they use int their everyday life, too. Don't forget to keep in mind the JoHari Window: there might be skills not known by the individuals or skills that are hidden by intention.

See also

Lyssa Adkins,'Coaching agile teams'