Leading a SLAM Team

The rest of this Wiki should arm you with the tactical information to run a SLAM team, but there are certain beliefs and behaviors that are critical to the success of your work.

Cultivate a Culture of Trust: It is important to entrust your team members. A newfound sense of autonomy may cause problems at first but try to lead with a soft hand. Allow your team to fail before intervening, and when they make a mistake, encourage objective reflection and improvement.

Establish Roles / Ownership: Make sure your team members and external parties have clarity on their roles, domain, and responsibilities. Check in and revise as the nature of the work changes.

Empower your Team Members: Once you have established the roles, get out of the way. Embrace your role as a coach, rather than a manager.

Assess and Address Barriers: Critically assess your team and gather feedback on the way they work and what barriers are keeping your team from being responsive. Be proactive about taking the necessary steps to address these issues.

Continuous improvement: Establish test and learn as the norm and place precedence on honest criticism. Reinforce the iterative nature of the work.

Embrace Crises: If a project goes well, senior leadership will likely enjoy the new way of working, but in times of crisis, you must observe, reflect and respond to how team members and senior leadership alter their roles and domain in a hostile environment. When appropriate, mitigate departure from the responsive ways of working.