teamwork - making your dream team come true (agile iowa 10.16)

Teamwork: Making Your Dream

Team Come TrueRon Lichty | Ron Lichty Consulting

Ron@RonLichty.com | www.ronlichty.com

Ron Lichty, Managing Software People & Teams

SOFTWEST

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Coauthor, Study of Product Team Performance

http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html

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Addison Wesley: http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net

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Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*

* 300 in the book / more at http://managingtheunmanageable.net/morerulesofthumb.html

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Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*• Measure twice, cut once.• Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.• Brooks’s Law: Adding manpower to a late

software project makes it later. --Fred Brooks • I don’t care how good a team is today; if they

aren’t better a year from now, they’re not agile. --Mike Cohn

* 300 in the book / more: http://managingtheunmanageable.net/morerulesofthumb.html

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Agenda• Teams

– and dream teams• Agile Practices

– and agile values• Doing Agile

– and being agile• Fostering Greatness

– Practice Greatness(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come True 7

Teams

By Pictofigo (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commonsense, This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Free to share and remix/adapt. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pictofigo-Scrum.png

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• Think about…The best team you’ve been on?

The most high performance team?

Brainstorm: What were the…• characteristics• relationships• qualities• ways of being

. . . that made it stand out?

Teams

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“It isn’t teamwork that is difficult.

“It’s initiating teamwork in a world of business [inside hierarchy] that is antagonistic toward teamwork.”

--Christopher Avery, Teamwork Is an Individual Skill

Teams

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Agile

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Agile Practices Deliver Value

(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come True 12By Michaelblinkpipe (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAn_Abcam_stand_up_meeting_using_BlinkPipe_video_conferencing..png

Agile Practices Deliver Value

• Planning Daily• Planning Weekly (or biweekly or…)• Planning Publicly• Ordering Work Based on Customer Value• Together defining “Done”• Delivering Frequently• Sharing how we’re doing• Reflecting on how to do better

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Agile Practices Deliver Value

• Standups– Standups matter:– Effective, Daily Standups

--2015 Study of Product Team Performance

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Agile Practices Deliver Value

• Definitions of Done– Definitions of Done matter:– Created within the team

--2016 Study of Product Team Performance

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Agile Practices Deliver Value

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Voting Machines Deliver Value, too

17(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come TrueBy Seattle Municipal Archives from Seattle, WA (Voting machine, 1971) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Voting Machines Deliver Value, too

• But voting machines don’t make us a democracy

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Voting Machines Deliver Value, too

• But voting machines don’t make us a democracy

• Democracy emanates from– Values– Principles

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Similarly…

Agile Practices Don’t Make Us AgileAgile Practices Don’t Deliver Great Teams

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Agile Values Inspire Great Teams

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Agile Values Inspire Great Teams

• Build projects around motivated individuals

• Trust… to get the job done • Face-to-face conversation • Self-organizing teams• The team reflects, …tunes, …adjusts -- http://agilemanifesto.org/

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Self-Organizing Teams

• If our self-organizing team were an acting troupe, …

What kind of acting do we do?

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Self-Organizing Teams

• If our self-organizing team were an acting troupe, …

What kind of acting do we do?• If our self-organizing team were a

music group, …What kind of music do we

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Self-Organizing Teams

• If our self-organizing team were an acting troupe, …

What kind of acting do we do?• If our self-organizing team were a music

combo, …What kind of music do we perform?

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Best Teams

• A relationship? between– Shared Leadership (Agile Values)– Best Team characteristics

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Shared Leadership Best Teams?

• Build projects around motivated individuals

• Trust… to get the job done • Face-to-face conversation • Self-organizing teams• The team reflects, …tunes, …adjusts -- http://agilemanifesto.org/

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Projects Not Suitable for Agile?

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Projects Not Suitable for Agile?

• Micromanagement

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Projects Not Suitable for Agile?

• Micromanagement disrupts Agile• Micromanagement prevents Best Teams• Micromanagement prevents Learning• Micromanaged teams become order-takers

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Projects Not Suitable for Agile?

• Micromanagement disrupts Agile• Micromanagement prevents Best Teams• Micromanagement prevents Learning• Micromanaged teams become order-takers

• Agile calls for everyone on the team to step up• Micromanagement causes everyone to step back

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• Managers of teams• Project managers• Program managers• Scrum masters• Product managers?• Product owners?

Shared Leadership… and Managers

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• What do all those managers have in common?

Shared Leadership… and Managers

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• Traditionally, managers:– run things– give direction– tell people what to do– like being the center of attention

Shared Leadership… and Managers

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“If you’re the ScrumMaster and everyone is looking at you, you’re doing it wrong.” --Marilson Campos

Shared Leadership… and Managers

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Managers and Agile• “A common misconception is that because

of this reliance on self-organizing teams, there is little or no role for leaders of agile teams. Nothing could be further from the truth.” --Mike Cohn, Succeeding with Agile

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--Agile Learning Labs, Laura Powers

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Agile: “Servant Leaders”

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Managers and Agile• Fostering an Agile Culture• Modeling, Defending, Evangelizing Agile

Values• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence

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Managers and Agile• Fostering an Agile Culture• Modeling, Defending, Evangelizing Agile

Values• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence• Removing Impediments

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Managers and Agile• Fostering an Agile Culture• Modeling, Defending, Evangelizing Agile

Values• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence• Removing Impediments• Counseling, Coaching and Mentoring• Scaling Scrum• Hiring and Firing

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Managers and Agile• Fostering an Agile Culture• Modeling, Defending, Evangelizing Agile

Values• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence• Removing Impediments

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Creating an Agile Culture• Theory Y: “enabling”, “empowering”, “developmental", “continuous

improvement” -> Servant Leadership

McGregor's X-Y Theory43(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come True

Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams , http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net

Managers and Agile• Creating an Agile Culture

Lean-Agile management is the art of leading people, not managing them... Leading people involves creating the correct environment, focusing them on the right things, and trusting them to do their work...

In Lean-Agile, the manager has two primary responsibilities: • setting the outcomes or goals expected of the team; • assisting the doers in creating a better process and workspace to get their jobs done... --Alan Shalloway, Net Objectives

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Leaders and Agile• Rules of Thumb

Management sets the boundaries of what needs to be done and says to the team, I trust you to figure out how to get it done.

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EmpowermentTrust but verify.

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Empowerment

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Trust but verify.

-RONALD REAGAN

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Empowerment

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Trust but verify.

-RONALD REAGAN quoting VLADIMIR LENIN

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– imperative not to micromanage– the essence of delegation– setting expected outcomes for teams

Empowerment

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Trust but verify.

-RONALD REAGAN quoting VLADIMIR LENIN

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Empowerment

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Trust but verify.

-RONALD REAGAN quoting VLADIMIR LENIN

I inspect what I expect.

- ALAN LEFKOF, Netopia CEO, quoting LOU GERSTNER

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Creating an Agile Culture• Establishing Culture

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http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net

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Managers and Agile• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence

When teams self-organize there's still plenty for managers to do... a managers job is to engineer the organization so that teams can do their best work. --Esther Derby, co-founder, Scrum Alliance

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Managers and Agile• Removing Distractions and Impediments

Be a damper to the noise. --Joe Kleinschmidt, CTOJohn Evans, Winchester, Hants, United Kingdom, www.thetippingpoint.co.uk

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Managers and Agile• Model, Defend, Evangelize Agile Values

“Managers are still needed. Not so much for their planning and controlling ability, but for the important job of interfacing on the team’s behalf with the rest of the organization.” --Diana Larsen, co-author, Agile Retrospectives

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Communicating

• Create a culture of communication– at every level– with everyone

• up, down, within and across

• “We have two ears and one mouth. Use them in this ratio.”— Kimberly Wiefling

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Communication

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You cannot overcommunicate.

-RON LICHTY

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Virtual Teams• There is never enough communication• Commitment to communicate• No substitute for face-to-face meetings

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The more distance between teammates, the more you have to formalize communication and make it explicit.

-TED YOUNG, Development Manager & Agile Coach, Guidewire

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How Do We Foster Dream Teams?• Foster shared leadership & an Agile Culture• Model, Defend, Evangelize Agile Values• Trust Our People• Shield Teams from Politics & Distraction• Remove Impediments• Empower Self-Organization & Excellence• Create a Culture of Communication

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Ron Lichty Consulting • Mentoring, coaching, training, consulting:

– http://ronlichty.com, Ron@RonLichty.com• The book:

Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools & Insights for Managing Software People & Teams– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----tools, excerpts, more rules

of thumb

• The study: The Study of Product Team Performance – http://ronlichty.com/study.html

• Training:The Agile ManagerManaging Software People and TeamsZero to Agile in Three Days

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