virtual teams - learnings from crisis management teams for distributed agile teams

V i r t u a l t e a m s - l e a r n i n g s f ro m C r i s i s M a n a g e m e n t

w w w . l e a n b e e . s e

R O L F @ L E A N B E E . S E | @ R O L F H A S A N E N

Goals

1. Share my experience applying research from CrisisManagement area to distributed developmentteams with people in Nordics and India.

2. Describe why we need to pay attention to Team Situational Awareness especially for distributed / virtual teams.

3. Describe the Team Situational Awareness Model and how it can be used

Background – Research in Crisis Management

Nordic IT Developmentusing EDC in India

Appli-ed to

The question:How can we utilizevirtual teamsto managelong living crises?

+Agile

2003-2005 2010-2011

Almost Agile

LAW

Mental vacuum does not

exist!Every person comes with existing values, assumptions and mental models that

they apply to all situations believing that their interpretation works well.

It takes time and effort for people to gel into a high performing teamduring that time people actually sync and update their mental models

this process can be speeded up, the rest of the talk is about how to do that

Team Performance

Prerequisites for Tactical / Strategic performance mode

1. Shared Situational awareness

2. Free flow of information

3. Common vision/goal

4. Shared memory

5. Domain understanding

6. Trust

ScrambledOpportunis-

ticTactical Strategic

Reliability ofperformance

Mental Mode of control

COCOM model

Shared Situational Awareness::Definition

is the ability to identify, process, and comprehend the

critical elements of information about what is

happening to the team with regards to the mission.

More simply, it's knowing what is going on around you

and what to do about it.

Important information/ conceptsin our context

1) What WE “know” needs to be shared

Team Situational Awareness Model

When people do not

have common view of

what needs to be

shared we either get

too much noise or

people do not get

right information in

right time

Important information/ conceptsin our context

1) What WE “know” needs to be shared

2) Devices used to share information on

Team Situational Awareness Model

Tools are an

important hygiene

factor that enables

free flow of

information and

common team

memory

Information sharingin CM centres

Sambandstablå

Hä

nd

els

ein

form

atio

n

Ko

mm

un

ika

tio

nsp

lanSAMBAND

INFORMATION

LEDNING / ANALYS

Resursplan

PERSONALSERVICE

An

aly

s

Organisationstablå

MAT & MÖTE

BIS

Chef stab

Chef

Informationsansvarig

Crisis

Management

centres all around

the world put a

premium on large

scale visualization

of almost

everything

Important information/ conceptsin our context

1) What WE “know” needs to be shared

2) Devices used to share information on

3) Effective processesfor sharing SA information

*Planning as Design Effect Mapping Competence maps

Team Situational Awareness Model

Agile approaches

provide a lot of

support for shared

SA but can be

improved further

Planning as Design

We work with Combat Planning* in order to:

1. Design how we build our product / service

2. Design our path to the future

3. Create common memory of the future

4. Collaborate to get diverse views on the table

5. Provide shared goals

Mindset change from #NoPlanning crowd

Critical for creating

and aligning

common goals for

a distributed team

* Lean Product Development planning approach

Important information/ conceptsin our context

1) What WE “know” needs to be shared

2) Devices used to share information on

3) Effective processesfor sharing SA information

*Planning as Design

Learning dialogue

Effect Mapping Competence maps

4) Shared mental models

*Double loop learning *Empathy walks

Team Situational Awareness Model

Critical foundation

element is shared

mental models

regarding team

way of working

Double loop learning

Assessing beliefs & assumptions by observation or catalytic questions:

• What is Testing?

• What is included in development?

• Are we solving the right problem?

Goal: develop new beliefscongruent with Agile development

A team that does not run effective standups, sees testing as something that only testers door does no improvements has clearly not beliefs and mental models that are in conflict with Agile development.

Empathy walks

All non nordic team members had to visit stores / branch offices to understand the customer experience.

Goal: Change mindsetsUnderstand the level ofquality in Nordics when it comes to design, robustness, aestethics & overall experience for products and services.

”Even milk cartons are designed”

Results• Team scored in top 1% in

job satisfaction & growthout of 30 000 people

• Combined management experience was that thisteam produced and workedbetter than previousoffshoring teams had done.

Velocity (sp)

Quarters

Happy Index

Quarters

Relocation back to India

In Sweden

Summary

• Team Situational Awareness Model helps in assessing

Situational Awareness mismatches between team

members and designing counter measures

”There is always a better way!- even if we do not know it today”

rolf@leanbee.se

@RolfHasanen

If you want to have a fika* and talk – reach out on *