Team Cadence

The foundation of team cadence starts with one-on-one meetings.

The purpose of one-on-ones is not to discuss the actual work or tasks someone needs to complete. In fact, if the conversation drifts into deliverables, that should be taken offline and handled in a status meeting instead.

One-on-ones centre around three key questions:

• How are you? (How are you really?)
• What is working — and what isn’t — in your world?
• What can I unblock for you?

This process primarily builds trust and support between the team lead and team members. It also reinforces the first thing most people in high-performance teams tend to say: “My team lead cares about me.”

After this, we teach teams how to conduct daily stand-ups effectively and how to establish a consistent rhythm of delivery.

Here, teams learn to focus on the following:

• X to Y by when
• What will shift the needle here?
• How do we measure adherence to our goals?
• How do we address divergence from our priorities?

Cadence is the antidote to failing willpower. It is not only a way of working but also a rhythm of working.

An example would be a development team that works in two-week sprints.

Alongside stand-ups, other types of meetings may be built into the cadence to help the team stay on track — such as status meetings, stakeholder meetings, decision review sessions, or simulation sessions, depending on the type of team.

Ultimately, the core DNA of cadence lies in the journey from being a group of colleagues to becoming a cohesive team — one that learns how to align with each other both relationally and in terms of tasks.