Football Teams as Example of Development Teams

I was watching a football game the other day (please do not blame me for that I can afford it) and I realized that I am watching a high-functionning multi-functional product development team. To me, this is how product development should be implemented. I started highlighting similarities between the football team and a manufacturing product development team - and found a lot! The football team's "product" - game - is delivered through their performance. The better performance of the football team will be - the more "customers" (fans) the team will have.

During the game (product development process), the audience (stakeholders) has the opportunity, at the end of each time (milestone) to assess (review) and applaud (approve) the work accomplished so far. This is real-time customer feedback. It emphasizes our debate about Mod IV team, when leadership did not create such an environment where interim achievements are rewarded. In a fottbal game, each goal (an interim achievement) is rewarded by thousands of people watching the game. Isn't it motivating when 40,000 people applaud you?!

Fantasizing on, I matched football players with core product development team. Any football team consists of players with different responsibilities, deliverables and expertise (goal-keepers, full-backs, half-backs, insiders, wingers, forwards). At that, since it is a National team, each of these football players is best in class in their role - they are the ones that everyone wants to have on their team! Although they perfectly are aware of their responsibilities and the common shared goal (to win the game), they are quite interchangeable (a forward can go back and help defend their goal, or a full-back can help forward score a goal).

I hae also found similarities in the organizational structure. All footbal teams have a manager or coach (Project Manager) and a captain (Team Leader). While the coach is responsible for the overall leadership, the captain ensures that a greater...