About Agile Team Builder

Barry Henrichs

Greetings! I am passionate about building healthy, high-performing teams, and I’d love to help you and your organization. Please feel free to reach out to me for a conversation about your team development needs!

My story as a team builder starts over fifteen years ago, when a CIO asked me to help turn around an enterprise technology team that had been rocked by the sudden departure of the team lead. The team was in crisis, technologies were failing, customers were complaining, and team members were seeking new jobs.

Over the next ten months, I held the group together, helped them reenvision what was possible, and worked to replace internal hierarchy with collaboration and co-ownership of outcomes. When I moved on to my next challenge, the team was intact, growing, and delivering more value to more customers than ever before.

Overall, it was a successful transformation. However, I made many mistakes along the way, and I started to understand how complex, challenging, and specialized the work of team building can be.

Head Coach
Agile Team Builder

Transforming a diverse and conflicted group of individuals
into a team that functions and performs like a single entity
is profoundly difficult—but the results can be truly remarkable.

Following this first deep dive into team development, I dedicated my career to the complex art and science of team building, and over the past 15 years, I have established deep expertise in the field. This expertise is founded on extensive training including:

• a master’s degree in organizational communication with a focus on team dynamics,

• more than 1000 hours of specialized training in:

  • Agile team-based operating models (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, LeSS),

  • individual and systems coaching (Co-Active, ORSC),

  • group facilitation and training (Vertical, Integral),

  • psychometric and performance assessments (Everything DiSC®, Five Behaviors®),

  • project and change management (MCPM, ADCAR),

• and a library of books, articles, case-studies, and other resources.
  

I have honed my expertise in my work with more than 120 teams in technology, operations, service delivery, and leadership, in various sectors including healthcare, fintech, real estate, and education.

Along the way, I have designed and facilitated 100s of virtual and in-person workshops and trainings; coached dozens of team leads, Scrum Masters, managers, and executives; and collaborated with numerous expert coaches and facilitators.

As I continue toward ever greater mastery, my goals remain the same:
⮞ to help groups form healthy, highly effective teams, and
⮞ to help teams perform at levels that surpass expectations.

Examples of team development successes

Agile Center of Excellence

In the course of a two year engagement, I assisted a regional healthcare network with the design and launch of an Agile Center of Excellence, building ten Agile teams focused on enterprise strategic priorities.

By combining the expertise of staff from operations, patient care, and technical departments into cross-functional teams, and by teaching these teams new, Agile ways of working, we succeeded in dramatically accelerating progress toward enterprise goals.

Outcomes of the program included a 100% ROI ($7m+) in hard and soft dollars in the first year, with additional improvements in employee engagement, patient satisfaction and safety, and healthcare quality.

Technical Innovation Team

While working with technology and operations teams at a growing medical data company, I coached a team charged with creating a new, AI-powered version of their flagship product. Years of prior investments had failed to deliver usable results, and this latest attempt was similarly at risk.

Over a six-week period, I helped the team to improve their collaboration and teamwork, refine and prioritize their backlog, and adopt Agile design, planning, and estimation techniques.

These focused efforts led to a remarkable turnaround: within six months, the team had key components of the new product in production and available for customer evaluation.

In the months that followed, the team’s technical innovations became the cornerstone for a major step forward in the company’s product offerings, attracting substantial new investment and setting the stage for continued growth and success.

Team Development Program

In partnership with a leading medical college, I created and delivered a teamwork development program for anesthesiology and obstetrics residents, focused on improving interdisciplinary collaboration and communication.

Over 18 months, I facilitated 36 workshops for more than 80 participants before transitioning the program to internal leaders.

An impressive 90% of participants reported intent to change their teamwork behaviors, and significant positive changes were observed across several facilities. The program was highly rated and remained successful for eight years until disrupted by the Covid pandemic.

Savvy business leaders invest in team development
because it returns impressive business outcomes.
⯌ ⯌ ⯌
I am passionate about this work because it also delivers
overwhelmingly positive human outcomes.

“I don’t ever want to go back to the way we used to work!”

I have heard this sentiment many times from team members I have coached.

It is easy to see why: People thrive when collaborating in a group that is tightly aligned, highly supportive, and empowered to make key decisions. Delays and frustrations are reduced, work gets done, and ownership is clear.

The impacts of an effective team-based operating model include significantly higher job satisfaction, employee engagement, and retention. I have observed this at multiple clients, particularly among high-potential individuals whose commitment to their organization strengthens because of their connection to a team.

In short, people want to work on healthy, high-performing teams.
When they do, they achieve outcomes that far exceed
what they could do as individuals.

This is why I do what I do.

I help people create and sustain healthy, high-performing teams.

And I help leaders create the conditions needed for these teams to thrive.

I do this because it is a better way of working, both for the organization and for the people who make up that organization.

I look forward to talking with you
about how I can help launch or accelerate your teams!