Facilitation Crew

Crew Type

A Facilitation Crew enables other Crews to get their work done.

Purpose

Sometimes, you need a Crew whose sole purpose is to help other Crews do a great job. Such teams have no value stream of their own. Instead, they ensure that the Value Stream Crews in the Base can operate smoothly. Examples would be a team of Scrum Masters or agile coaches.

The work on a Facilitation Crew is typically a full-time job. The number of Crew members could be smaller than the number of Value Stream Crews, so each member of a Facilitation Crew might divide their time and availability across more than one team.

Notes

Besides coaches and facilitators, others who could organize themselves as Facilitation Crews are product managers, architects, and testers. On their own, they have little to do. Their work entirely depends on what happens on the value streams. That's where they contribute their value, and that's where they do their job.

The Facilitation Crew is inspired by (but NOT the same as) the “enabling team” in Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow.

Rules / Constraints

  • The Facilitation Crew supports the Value Stream Crews.

  • The Facilitation Crew does not have its own value stream.

“Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.”

(Source: Virginia Burden)