Self Organizing teams.

It seems like kitchen based analogies are all the rage these days. In the interest in cashing in on this phenomenon I will relate watching Top Chef (Season 5, Restaurant Wars) with running self-organizing teams. Radhika was the "Chef/Owner" and took self organizing teams to its extreme level. Every chef on her team was allowed to do what ever they wanted, picking what ever assignments they wanted (regardless of who was best suited for which task), and she provided no guidance during the preparation of the meal. Regardless of how talented the individual team members were, not have any structure proved the downfall. And the food was really well prepared, but it was not enough.

Self organizing teams does not mean that a Team Lead can "Manage by being a lazy bastard" It still takes work. As tempting as it is to translate "allow developers to do the job as they see fit" into "I can go to the beach while developers do the work" if you do, you are done.