Introduction

There was a technique that was shared in our ORSC: Geography class that focused on creating a Paper Constellation (a paper version) of a system. There was also discussion and examples around setting up a spatial constellation on the floor so that a team, group, or system could orient itself around some sort of question, position, inquiry, or challenge.

I’ve also experienced similar exercises in workshops and at conferences by several other coaches who’ve been professionally trained (for example: Lyssa Adkins & Michael Spayd).

The idea is to set up a circle with concentric levels within it. At the center is placed a challenge the team is facing. Or a theme, situation, context, question or simply something to explore. Then, everyone on the team or in the room, orients themselves to the central theme.

OR

Just simply identify objects representing team members and spatially orient them on a table.

What’s interesting about constellating, at least to me, is the flexibility of the tool. You could literally constellate anything in your coaching. And the team (the system) gets immediate feedback to consider and reflect upon.

TBD: Include references to Systemic Constellations

https://coachingconstellations.com/

Examples of Constellations

Psychological Safety

I’ve used a version of it to check on various aspects of a system. For example, if you’d like to check on the Psychological Safety in system (team or group) you could draw a circle and place “Safety” in the middle of it.

You could draw a few concentric circles that represent—high safety, moderate safety, low safety as they expand from the center. Then ask the team or group to orient themselves as to how safe they feel within the system. If they feel quite safe, move closer to the middle. If they feel unsafe, move further away. Keep moving until each person finds a place that best aligns them with the question.

Once you’ve revealed this to the team, then you can ask questions around—

  • Look around you, what do you observe?

  • Does anyone want to share why they are where they are?

  • Does anyone want to share what it would take for them to change position? Either closer to safety or further away.

  • If you were dreaming of improved safety, where would you move to? And what would that feel like to you?

  • Is there anything that the system can do to improve your safety position?

There’s something special about constellations in how the spatial orientation quickly reveals information to the system. But the incredibly flexibility is also valuable.

For example, I could constellate a team around having Thai food for lunch or whether they’d like to go bowling as a team-building activity.

Now let’s explore another example…

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Scrum Team

I’m a new Scrum Master for a team. I’ve only been with them for 2-weeks or so and I’ve observed some things around my relationship with the team.

I ask them to draw a constellation that illustrates the current system. That is show graphically and spatially how you view the current team, our roles and relationships. I could just as easily created a circle on the floor and asked everyone to orient themselves physically as well.

What it did is illustrate the current system (relationships, tension, etc.) to the team and improve things?

For example, you can see the cohesiveness of the existing Scrum team. You can see the alignment and the firm relationship between the Product Owner and the team. And you can see the tenuous relationship (dotted line) and remote nature (distance) of me as the Scrum Master.

This would reveal the current system to itself and I could begin inquiry so as to explore and better understand the team. For example—

  • What are the dynamics within the team?

  • Why is the team so tightly coupled? How does the Product Owner fit into the system.

  • How does interaction in the team feel?

  • How does the Scrum Master fit into the system? Why are they aligned differently?

  • What would it take for the Product Owner to move closer to the team? And how about the Scrum Master?

5 Dysfunctions of a Team

Explore the notion of using a constellation to explore each of the 5-Dysfunctions of a Team with either a Scrum Team (interesting) or a Organizational / Leadership Team (even more interesting because of the culture-shaping implications).

This idea came up in our October 2020 residential session.

Agile Examples for Constellating a Team/System

In true brainstorming fashion, let me list some scenarios where constellating the system might be something useful to do in agile contexts—

  • As I mentioned above, constellations can be useful to explore Psychological Safety and Trust within a team, group, or organization.

  • You could constellate the alignment within a leadership team. For example, put—How onboard are you with “Agile Transformation”, in the middle and then see what spatially unfolds. Another them would be—How aligned are you with the current Product Roadmap? or Business Objectives? or Business Priorities?

  • What’s interesting about the Paper Constellation example above, is not only the spatial orientation, but the relationships (groupings, connections, tensions) that are identified. This creates a wonderful backdrop for coaching. You could use it for—

    • Organizational structure relationships.

    • Leadership team relationships.

    • Leadership pairing (2-3 leaders) relationships.

  • A common challenge in agile transformations is, what I’ll refer to as “Role Confusion”. You could—

    • Constallate for role confusion amongst all roles; trying to show the nature and focus of it.

    • Constellate on specific roles, for example—Clarity around the role of Scrum Master or Agile Coach?

    • Constellate for x-organizational roles; for example—determining the role of, need for, and focus of a PMO in an agile context?

And these are simply some quick examples to illustrate the power and flexibility of constellations.

I hope I’ve piqued you interest in Constellations. Now I want you to try and constellate “everything” ;-)