Small is beautiful when it comes to service delivery – and a certain everyday vegetable forms the perfect model, writes Pete Stanton

27 January 2022

What makes a multidisciplinary team so great?

Following a similar ethos to the Jeff Bezos ‘two pizza rule’ (never have a meeting where two pizzas couldn’t feed the entire group), a small, multidisciplinary team can work more productively, and faster, than a larger one – as we discussed in a post last week about a Natural Resources Wales discovery (the initial research phase of a project) on hazardous waste treatment.

The origins of the small, multidisciplinary team approach came from Japanese manufacturing in the 1950s, with firms such as Toyota and Honda using small, empowered, mixed teams working in experimental iterations towards a clear outcome – the technique that became known as ‘Agile delivery’. 

A team working in a car factory
Agile service design has its origins in innovative team working in the automobile industry © Carlos Aranda/Unsplash

Move the scenario from car manufacturing to, say, a government department and the same rules apply. A multidisciplinary team assigned to a specific task or problem often prevails because:  

  • smaller teams make assigning tasks easier – particularly when each person on a team has a particular ability or area of expertise, so it's clear who does what 
  • insights come from multiple perspectives – each expert on your team can suggest a solution from a different point of view 
  • different perspectives encourage rethinking and restructuring – in short, a clash of ideas can lead to innovation and improvement
  • everybody learns from each other – every person on a team can learn something new from their colleagues, which includes getting involved with something outside their specific role (for example, user research)
  • service or product quality often increases – a wide vision helps to create a better product or service by bringing diverse expertise to the table 
  • the team continuously improves – working together is the easiest way to learn; as a bonus, this knowledge gets shared with projects that follow 

These strengths make multidisciplinary teams central to the Digital Service Standards for Wales. 

Splicing the onion 

Multidisciplinary teams can, in turn, reap benefits from a support and collaboration network modelled on that ever-useful vegetable, the onion. 

For a multidisciplinary team to succeed, it needs wider support within an organisation. If a team is siloed from the rest of the business, it can hamper communication and eventually slow down delivery.  

How to address that risk? Enter the team onion…  

In the 'onion' model, a small central team builds relationships with collaborators and supporters

Originated by the Agile practitioner Emily Webber, a team onion is a way of getting core functions within an organisation (for example, legal, policy, finance, communication) involved in a project’s mission without:  

  • enlarging the (small and effective) size of the multidisciplinary core team  
  • affecting the day-to-day workload of collaborators and supporters   

In its simplest form, a team onion breaks down like this:  

Core (multidisciplinary) team  

  • purpose: deliver digital services  
  • communication: daily (runs all stand-ups, retrospectives, planning, show-and-tells)  
  • co-located (in the same physical location): daily, all day  
  • roles: product owner, delivery manager, developers, designers, subject matter experts

Collaborators (who might be working with several teams):

  • purpose: bring specialist information to team, provide assurance, reduce dependencies and blockers (‘open doors’)
  • communication: regularly; they come to some Agile meetings 
  • co-located: regularly (1-2 days a week or less often depending upon the phase of project but enough not to block anything) with the core team
  • roles or teams: other delivery teams within the same portfolio, such as IT, policy, portfolio management, operations and suppliers  

Supporters

  • purpose: keep team informed and connect its work with broad organisational priorities  
  • communication: at every sprint or iteration (show and tells, ad-hoc when needed) 
  • co-located: monthly, or as needed, with the core team 
  • roles or teams: steering groups, senior leaders, wider organisation

Pete Stanton is Delivery Manager for the Natural Resources Wales hazardous waste discovery project