Often a lot of Project Managers struggle when the team is dependent on them for every single decision/ step/ way forward in any project (irrespective of the domains). As we grow in the field of Project Management, we need our time and energy to go into areas like growth of account, contributing to the organisation, working on new proposals or prospects, but we keep on struggling with the team’s challenges of deliveries/ impediments / blockers.

Hence, creating our teams to be self organised becomes very important to the growth of the team, its PM as well as the organisation.

What is a self organised team?

A group of individuals, who work together for a common purpose, who manage their own work and make collective decisions without being supervised or micro-managed by a Project Manager at every stage.

What decisions does a Self Organised team take?

• Planning and Assigning Work
• Setting priorities – within the given goals
• Remove impediments
• Make decisions
• Retrospect and improve processes and performance

What decisions should not be expected from the team without supervision?

• Defining company strategies
• Deciding on budgets and business goals
• Operate in complete isolation

Factors restricting a team to be Self Organised:

• Unclear team KRAs

If the team struggles with not knowing what their defined KRAs are, it’ll always keep the team confused and under confident. And hence, they can never take a call for what all they are supposed to do and can own completely.

E.g.  I have seen the situations where the team is always dependent on the PM for letting them know their daily deliverables, which comes ad hoc to them, leading to always being in a state of confusion and hence delays.

• Lack of Ownership

Team members lacking the intent of ownership, always refrain from keeping things organised and transparent, and hence leading to issues. The cycle below shows the impact of teams that do not own their deliverables:

• Overload of work

Self organisation is basically the art of managing the work of self as well as making the team achieve the end goal by eliminating the impediments/ dependencies in between. If a team is already overloaded with the work more than the capacity, they’ll never get that time and bandwidth to look for deliverables from a holistic end and operate better. Team over loaded with the work, might not be able to make right or better decisions and hence at times the team dynamics is impacted.

• Unrealistic timelines

Commitment to unrealistic timelines, brings the team into a situation that everyone’s focus gets shifted to just meet the timelines and close their deliverables instead of helping each other to operate better.

For instance, if a deliverable is given less than the required time, it’ll lead to reduced quality of work, as multiple processes will be bypassed to meet the delivery dates, increasing stress and burnout in the team.

Unrealistic short-term goals can force teams to neglect strategic planning, technical debt management, or skill development.

What happens when the teams are not organised?

1. Failed Products/ Projects – Disorganisation weakens execution and decision-making, which eventually breaks the project, regardless of how strong the initial idea or team is.
2. Follow ups – Team only delivers after multiple followups even on very small tasks. They tend to be attentive only when they are asked about the statuses. Which always leads to missing the deadlines
3. No learnings – A team that is not organised, will be limiting themselves on the learnings too. People will have limited collaboration and hence limited knowledge sharing amongst themselves. Teams at times become hesitant to feedback too restricting their learning opportunities at all the ends.
4. Lack of intent – Team lacks the intent of taking ownerships as all they focus is to close their daily deliverables just for the sake of logging hours/ providing status. Even if someone is willing to take ownership of things, the disputes and conflicts with the teams make them restricted to their own work only
5. Hand holding and creating bottle necks – Team becomes dependent for each and every decision / step and starts creating bottleneck for availability of a PM/ Scrum master to proceed ahead.
   For instance, team doesn’t communicate for the blockers themselves unless asked by the SM/ PM in the status meetings

How to create self organised teams?

Self Organised Teams

Clear defined KRAs

Not only for creating the self organised teams, providing clarity of role deliverables always enables the team to achieve the best results. Not only they know their scope of deliverables, they understand the KRAs of others and hence understand who can help best in meeting the end goal.
Details of how important clearly defined KRAs are for making a team self organised, can be referred to from the blog “Clarity is Power”.

Balanced team structure

Balanced Team

• To be effective, a team must have an even distribution of levels of experience in all hierarchies. The appropriate ratio of junior, mid-level, and senior members provides a good blend of execution capacity, decision-making, and strategic thinking.
• An imbalance can create problems—too many junior members can mean too much emphasis on hitting deadlines without context or vision, while too many senior members can give rise to duplicate responsibilities, decisional conflict, and diluted ownership.
• A balanced team not only works together better but also enjoys communal verification, greater solutions, and timely, high-quality delivery supported by experience and executional capability.
• Hence providing a right balance becomes a key to a successful project

Building ownerships

Ownership

• The team can take ownership of things only if they what they are supposed to do and what is to be achieved. Defining their scope of work becomes important for them to understand what additional scope can they take up to achieve the goal in a better and faster way.
• Involving team members in the planning, rather than just imposing them will the planned deliverables make them feel a part of decision making and hence automatically embedding that sense of ownership to things they committed for
• Connect their work to a bigger picture and letting them know the importance of of every small task they work on, and how it impacts the larger vision directly or indirectly
• Encouraging peer reviews and validations, this brings a sense of trust within the team and they understand everyone sharing a feedback for the work done is ultimately for their skills and overall product quality improvement

Encouraging decision making

Decision making

• Empower individuals to make decisions within their scope without waiting for approvals
• Support their choices and provide constructive feedback if corrections are needed
• Share the “Why,” Not Just the “What”, When teams understand the purpose and context behind work, they make smarter decisions.
• Avoid blame when mistakes happen and own everything as a team

 Provide Tools & Frameworks

• Offer decision-making frameworks (e.g., RACI, DACI, impact/effort matrices).
• Team can do a self validation as well when we have the right framework and tools in place

Recognitions

Recognition

• When team members are recognised for their work, it signals that their efforts matter.
• This validation encourages them to care more deeply about outcomes, not just tasks.
• When people feel valued, they naturally become more committed and take greater pride in their work.
• Recognition from leaders or peers builds mutual respect and psychological safety.
• When people feel trusted and appreciated, they are more willing to make decisions and own outcomes.

Lead by example

Lead by example

Teams learn from the environment they operate in. When a leader consistently demonstrates ownership and shares their learnings, it fosters a culture where team members mirror that behaviour and develop a similar sense of accountability

Conclusion

organised teams succeed because they work with autonomy, accountability, and a growth mindset. In contrast to dependent teams that depend significantly on external guidance, self-organized teams actively resolve issues, respond rapidly to challenges, and learn constantly from their surroundings. With supportive leadership that exemplifies ownership without imposing it, these teams internalise a sense of responsibility and initiative. This eventually leads to a stronger, more innovative, and productive workforce with the potential for long-term success.