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  <mainDescription>&lt;h3>&#xD;
    Getting started&amp;nbsp;&#xD;
&lt;/h3>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    There are several steps to get started with the Whole Team practice.&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    &lt;b>Understand the underlying philosophies behind this practice.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/b>&lt;br />&#xD;
    These philosophies are captured in the&amp;nbsp;&lt;a class=&quot;elementLink&quot;&#xD;
    href=&quot;./../../../practice.mgmt.whole_team.base/guidances/guidelines/self_organize_work_assignments_F47FC314.html&quot;&#xD;
    guid=&quot;_rmBEkJjsEduad8I_c-ogIA&quot;>Self-Organize Work Assignments&lt;/a>,&amp;nbsp;&lt;a class=&quot;elementLink&quot;&#xD;
    href=&quot;./../../../practice.mgmt.whole_team.base/guidances/guidelines/maintain_a_sustainable_pace_A132240B.html&quot;&#xD;
    guid=&quot;_KzYHYMLmEdysDsQChI42QQ&quot;>Maintain a Sustainable Pace&lt;/a>, and&amp;nbsp;&lt;a class=&quot;elementLink&quot;&#xD;
    href=&quot;./../../../practice.mgmt.whole_team.base/guidances/guidelines/daily_meetings_3690A7AD.html&quot;&#xD;
    guid=&quot;_251UMCmREdyy6Oss2-0s1g&quot;>Daily Meetings&lt;/a>&amp;nbsp;guidelines.&amp;nbsp;&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    &lt;b>Discuss the implications of this practice with management.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/b>&lt;br />&#xD;
    The Whole Team practice often requires changes to the way that projects are managed and&amp;nbsp;governed, because &quot;whole&#xD;
    teams&quot; are&amp;nbsp;often more self-contained than traditional project teams.&amp;nbsp;For example, with self-organization,&#xD;
    detailed planning is typically&amp;nbsp;performed at the beginning of each iteration in a just-in-time manner and not at&#xD;
    the beginning of the project.&amp;nbsp;The implication is that management will receive different and often better-quality&#xD;
    artifacts at different points in time than from project teams that do not adopt this practice.&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    &lt;b>Discuss this practice with your team.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/b>&lt;br />&#xD;
    The concept of maintaining a sustainable pace is often attractive to&amp;nbsp;team members.&amp;nbsp;But are&#xD;
    they&amp;nbsp;comfortable with self-organization?&amp;nbsp;Are they comfortable with sharing their current status in daily&#xD;
    meetings?&amp;nbsp;Do they appreciate how a Whole Team approach can improve their overall productivity?&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    &lt;b>Identify viable aspects of this practice for your situation.&lt;/b>&lt;br />&#xD;
    Your team may not be able to adopt all aspects of this practice.&amp;nbsp;For example, if your project is a high-priority,&#xD;
    &quot;emergency&quot; project, perhaps you will not be able to adopt a sustainable pace in the short term.&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    &lt;b>Prioritize your adoption efforts.&lt;/b>&lt;br />&#xD;
    Some project teams can adopt this practice all at once, while&amp;nbsp;other teams find that they need to ease into&#xD;
    self-organization or into daily meetings.&amp;nbsp;Adopt the aspects that are easy for your team right away, and then adopt&#xD;
    the other aspects one or two at a time, as appropriate, over a period of several weeks.&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;h3>&#xD;
    Common pitfalls&#xD;
&lt;/h3>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    There are several common pitfalls that project teams run into when adopting this practice.&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    &lt;b>Traditional project management culture&lt;br />&#xD;
    &lt;/b> In many ways, the whole team practice is all about pushing many management activities into the hands of the people&#xD;
    who do the actual work, a philosophy&amp;nbsp;that goes against the grain in some organizations.&amp;nbsp;For example,&#xD;
    your&amp;nbsp;organization may&amp;nbsp;have a belief system where &quot;managers do the planning; the rest of the staff does what&#xD;
    they are told&quot; or an &quot;estimation should be left to estimators&quot; mindset. You will need to overcome those kinds&#xD;
    of&amp;nbsp;beliefs when adopting this practice.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    &lt;b>Insufficient time to change&lt;br />&#xD;
    &lt;/b> It can take weeks, if not months, for experienced professionals to get used to some of the aspects of this&#xD;
    practice, in particular daily meetings and self-organization.&amp;nbsp;You cannot expect people to change overnight.&amp;nbsp;&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    &lt;strong>Individuals struggle at first to see the &quot;whole team&quot;&lt;/strong>&lt;br />&#xD;
    Many people, in particular specialists, are used to working on their own and not as part of an overall team.&amp;nbsp;They&#xD;
    often struggle to understand why it is&amp;nbsp;important to do so.&amp;nbsp;For example, you may hear people ask why they need&#xD;
    to participate in&amp;nbsp;a daily meeting when a weekly status report is easier to write.&amp;nbsp;They do not&amp;nbsp;realize&#xD;
    that it is&amp;nbsp;critical for everyone on the entire team to understand everyone's status, not just for the manager to&#xD;
    know.&amp;nbsp;Although the individual might be proceeding effectively on one task, they might not realize that several&#xD;
    others are being blocked by their lack of progress on other tasks that they haven't started yet.&amp;nbsp;&#xD;
&lt;/p></mainDescription>
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