When agile is implemented in large organisations, the departments often develop their own methods and objectives, and this may create disjointed progress among the teams. It creates inefficiencies in the organisation and hampers progress due to conflicting priorities of the teams. The alignment between strategy teams is complex, and the leaders play a key role in aligning strategy with the teams and fostering value delivery to the customers.

Importance of aligning the strategy with the teams

Team alignment with the organisational strategy is not about making them agree on the terms but about syncing mindsets, behaviours, and decisions to take the organisation ahead as a unified entity and deliver value to the customer. The leaders who can understand and leverage these interdependencies can align the strategy with the team for effective value delivery.

Strategies for the leaders to align teams with the strategy

A compelling strategic vision

A clear vision from the leader will direct the team’s effort towards goals. To align teams with the goals, the leaders should break the objectives into smaller tasks and link them with organisational priorities. These small, flexible tasks should guide the teams in their daily activities.  The teams should be able to give their inputs and refine the objectives which makes them feel that strategic alignment in the organisation is a collaborative effort rather than a directive. The teams will be striving to achieve a common purpose, and the leaders should connect individual contributions to the shared goal so that the teams can understand their role in achieving the purpose.

 Encourage Transparent Communication

The leaders should establish clear communication between team members for better alignment. It helps the teams to share ideas and concerns without fear. Developing a sense of trust among the team members keeps everybody on the same page. The leaders can use tools to establish structured communication and provide regular updates to the team members to ensure that the decisions are made with complete information.

Build a culture of collaboration across cross-functional teams.

The leaders should conduct meetings and encourage teams to share goals and progress with each other. This develops a shared  purpose among them. When the cross-functional departments come together to discuss their goals, the leaders can identify conflicts early and foster collaboration between departments to achieve shared objectives. The leaders can create an interdepartmental workforce between different teams when the project’s progress requires input from multiple teams. The leader can build a strong relationship between the teams, making future collaboration much easier. Also, the leaders should organise regular knowledge-sharing sessions to help the teams handle challenges and create a strategic alignment at a personal level.

Implement Role-Based Clarity

The leaders should offer strong support to the teams by providing clear direction to achieve strategic objectives. They should define clear roles to remove the confusion among the team members. Documenting everybody’s responsibility will let them know how their efforts contribute to organisational success. They should standardise the work process to set the stage for alignment. Also, the leaders should regularly review and redefine the roles constantly to meet the  changing needs of the business. The leaders should offer constant support to remove the roadblocks to project success and inspire teams to stay focused on achieving objectives.

Regular check-ins and feedback loops

The leaders should conduct regular check-ins to review project progress to identify roadblocks. These reviews help the leaders conduct one-to-one meetings and identify challenges easily. Once the leader identifies alignment gaps between team members through feedback mechanisms like surveys and retrospectives, they act on changes by communicating with the teams. This helps the leaders build trust and alignment among the team members by indicating that their valued inputs can drive meaningful changes in the organisation. Team alignment with organisational strategy needs continuous evaluation, so the leaders should always work on identifying opportunities for improvement.

Leverage Technology

The leaders align teams with organisational strategy by leveraging technology. These tools connect the strategic goals with the performance metrics and offer clear visibility into the progress. The centralised dashboards collect the data from different sources to keep both teams and leaders informed about the progress and identify gaps. It also helps in establishing effective coordination between the departments by linking the objectives. By leveraging the technology, the leaders can make sure the teams are aligned with organisational strategy and deliver value when needed.

Invest in Team Training and Development

The leaders should encourage the organisations to invest in training and development to help the teams earn the necessary skills to handle new challenges. The leaders can focus on enhancing both the technical and interpersonal skills of the team members by enrolling in SAFe Agilist certification training. The leaders should integrate these learnings into everyday work to encourage alignment among the team members, and they can invest efforts in achieving the shared goals.

Recognise and Reward Aligned Efforts

The leaders should recognise and reward the teams that could align their work with the organisation in a better way. By celebrating the success, the leaders can motivate teams and let them know the value of strategic focus in the organisation. The leaders who can acknowledge these achievements publicly can motivate other teams in the departments to align their efforts with strategic goals.

Conclusion

The effectiveness of the organisation is a mere reflection of the ability of its leaders. They should be able to align the teams with the strategic objectives of the organisation and deliver value to the customers. Staying aligned to strategic objectives of the business is as important as delivering value to the evolving needs of the customers, so the leaders should state a clear vision, design structured workflows, and foster open communication to inspire teams to stay aligned with the organisational objective while staying flexible to experiment and innovate to deliver high value to the customer.