Self-organizing teams?

If you've spent any time at all working with agile teams, you've heard that the teams should be self-organizing around the work. In theory, it sounds grand! "Ask the team...let the team decide", but in practice what does it mean? Does it mean they just get to pick the story cards for the sprint, or maybe the project they get to work on for the next ten sprints?

Or could it mean they can decide what to work on and who to work with all while delivering the most valuable items that the business actually wants?

Does your organization suffer from too many "Number One Priorities" from different parts of the organization? Everyone believes their thing is the most important and it should be the #1 item. Shoulder taps "Can you just do this one thing real quick or can you slide it into your next sprint?". Which department takes priority? Who's work is more important? What is the true business value of the work the team is tasked with delivering?

What would it look like to let the teams actually decide? What are the unspoken rules of engagement for a self-selection activity? Come with us to see how one scaled organization, from a large enterprise, went on an 8-month journey of continuous improvement to move from teams organized by systems and processes to a group of teams self-selected and self-organized based on business value..