Team Dynamics & Collaboration

Team effectiveness grows from shared ownership, trust, and collaboration. These parables explore the social and emotional aspects of working in a team.

Concept Agile Relevance Usage in Agile
Chicken & Pig Stakeholder vs. team roles. Explain roles and commitments in Scrum.
The Old Man and His Sons Team unity and strength through collaboration. Emphasize collective resilience and the power of working as one.
The Lion & The Mouse Psychological safety, humility, and inclusive contribution. Reinforce team trust and the importance of empowering every voice.
The Four Oxen & The Lion Cross-team alignment and system-level resilience. Highlight the risks of siloed delivery and the need for coordinated, purpose-driven collaboration across teams.
Stone Soup Collective contribution and co-creation. Foster collaboration across silos and teams.
The Fox & The Grapes Cognitive dissonance, rationalization, self-sabotage. Address limiting beliefs that block improvement and growth after failure.
Painter With a Broken Brush Creativity through constraint and mutual support. Encourage adaptive thinking and team collaboration under imperfect conditions.
The Scrum Master's Puzzle Role clarity and hidden constraints. Help new Scrum Masters understand their leverage points.
The Team of Rowers Alignment, role clarity, and coordinated execution. Help teams and leaders focus less on effort and more on rowing in the same direction.
The Team in The Maze Navigating complexity together. Illustrate the value of collective problem-solving.
Two Teams & a Mountain Perspective and shared understanding. Highlight value of cross-functional alignment.