leadership structures in agile - meetupfiles.meetup.com/1412202/apln chicago - leadership...
TRANSCRIPT
Leadership Structures in Agile Organizations
APLN Chicago
Agenda
• Networking & Pizza 6:00 – 6:30
• Introductions 6:30 – 6:40
• A Word from our Sponsor 6:40 – 6:45
• Main Topic 6:45 – 7:30
• Open Space 7:30 – 8:15
• Final Announcements 8:15 – 8:30
• www.aplnchicago.org• www.meetup.com/APLN-Chicago/
• APLN Chicago Board– Lance Welter ([email protected])– Michael Marchi ([email protected])– Dave Babicz ([email protected])– Steve Young ([email protected])
Our Mission
• We are building a new community of Agile professionals in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, focused on learning, innovation, and thought leadership.
• Our mission is for this community to shape the direction that Agile will take in Chicago for the next decade.
Sponsors
AIM Consulting Group, LLC
• Room & Food
Endorsements
• APLN Chicago has been endorsed as an official SCRUM USER GROUP® by the SCRUM ALLIANCE®.
• Attendance to each APLN Chicago meetup will now allow you to earn 2 Scrum Education Units (SEUs)
SCRUM ALLIANCE®, SCRUM USER GROUP®, and the corresponding logos are service marks of Scrum Alliance, Inc., and are used with permission.
QAI QUEST 2016 – North American Conference
• Chicago, IL – April 18-22, 2016
• 10% Registration Discount by registering with code “Group10” (good thru February 16, 2016)
• http://qaiquest.org/2016/
GETTING INTENTIONAL ABOUT RANK AND POWER IN AGILE ORGANIZATIONS
Guest Speaker: Kelly Fidei
Getting Intentional
About Rank and
Power
in Agile
OrganizationsKelly Fidei
Enterprise Agile Coach & Transformation Lead
February, 2015
Does agile mean…
There will be no more
rank in our organizations?
No more power differential?
No more senior leaders killing agile without agilistas having a voice?
No more abuses of power or misuse of rank?
How to deal with rank and power in
agile organizations?
Why do we care? Because:
It has to do with respect, a core value of agile
Middle and senior management sometimes make decisions affecting agile without understanding it or without agile practitioners having a say
Agile practitioners marginalized in low rank don’t have enough of a voice in the business overall to use agile to positively impact business outcomes
How rank and power are used or abused impacts agile sustainability (“We tried agile but it didn’t get past management.”)
How to create agile environments where people can bring their “whole selves” to work, all their talents vs trying to fit into a box?
What IS rank anyway?
Power and privilege
Earned or inherited
Conscious or unconscious
Social or personal
It organizes your communication and identity
Outer role, eg CIO, CEO, Director who supports or doesn’t support agile
Inner role, eg, highly experienced scrum master, team with high collaboration and high velocity
Ways to recognize rank out in the world
Cultural Hegemony Marginalized Groups
White Non-white
Male Female
Heterosexual Gay or lesbian
Fit Obese
Healthy Handicapped
Rich Poor
Employed Unemployed
Socially skilled Autistic / ADD/ADHD
Educated Uneducated
1st world Developing country
Ways to recognize rank in agile organizations
The guy who thinks he’s better than you because he knows more about agile*
The kickass team vs the struggling team
Money – who gets paid more
Parking – heated underground garage
“In crowd” vs “out crowd”
Hackthon winners
Outward rank – Sr. Director, Sr VP, CIO
Inner rank – the QA of low outward rank who is sleeping with the Sr. Director
Spiritual rank – the “wise” agile coach (ug )
*Conveniently forgetting agile is about who and how you are being as well as what you know
Rank is not going away
So how do we get intentional about rank
and power in agile organizations?
Grow agile leaders
Grow agile culture – “organizational
agility”
Leaders are the architects of culture –
this means YOU• Leader – someone who sees something they care
about, and takes action with others
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead
• If elements of the culture are not getting you the business results you want, leadership sometimes takes action to speed up culture change
• Values based leadership: Respect, courage, willingness to tell the truth, commitment to creating a safe environment to tell the truth
Leaders manage culture, or culture
manages leaders
• If leaders are not proactive about managing culture, then culture will manage THEM
• What does an agile leader look like? Sound like? Who is one you’ve known?
• What are some ways an agile leader can impact culture?
How to create an agile culture?
(vs being a “buzz saw leader” or a “cog in
the wheel culture”)
Culture trumps a good idea every time
Culture eats agile for breakfast
• Even the best leaders can’t create great agile outcomes unless they are supported by an agile culture
Agile
Agile and
non-agile
styles of
culture,
governance
and
leadership
Agile
cultural
styles
Non-agile
cultural styles
A portrait of a culture
Humanistic Encouraging
Develops others
Resolves conflict
consistently
Affiliative
Cooperates
Be friendly
Achievement
Works toward self-set goals
Takes on challenges
Self-actualizing
Maintains personal integrity
Emphasizes quality
Portrait of an agile culture
Experiential game on rank and power
in agile organizations (10 minutes)
Debrief (5 minutes)
Open space (40 minutes)
Game: “Raising Awareness and Creating Choices:
Rank and Power in Agile Organizations*1. Set the context – this is a game to become more aware of rank and power in agile organizations, and to create
more choices around these
2. Everyone comes to the table holding facedown cards with roles. No peeking.
3. Pick up one role card arbitrarily, and tape it on the back of the person next to you. (See tape on table)
4. Everyone gathers in a rough circle
5. Facilitator tells the group the setting, and asks them to enter in twos and threes til everyone is in the space.
6. As soon as you enter the space or a new group, make up things to say or do with the other people near you.
7. Cardinal rule – you can look at other people’s role cards on their backs, but you cannot look at your own or ask
someone to tell you what it is. Just interact with others per their roles.
8. Play for 5-10 minutes
9. Facilitator asks participants to line up from lowest rank to highest rank according to their best guess of their role
(as learned from interacting with others during the game). Observer.
10. Tell each other what your roles are. Ok to take off the card from your back and look at it.
11. Debrief – observations, learnings, actions, next steps
*Credits to Second City Improv Training Center. This is an adaption of an improv game learned there by Kelly.
Context options for game On break from agile demo – milling around the water cooler
In demo
In a discussion on:
Whether to try agile at your company
Whether to stop trying agile at your company
“What’s “true” agile?”
Scaling agile at your company
Agile team building event – at the pizza parlor after demo
Roles (write on cards, place on table
facedown, near several rolls of tape) CEO – Outspoken in demos
CIO – “Chainsaw”-Aggressive-Defensive style
Sr. VP (stakeholder)
A senior director who opposes agile, doesn’t understand it, and is planning to kill it (command and control)
A senior director who supports agile (servant leader)
An agile coach who is the “sage on the stage” vs the “guide on the side”
An agile coach who is the “guide on the side” vs “sage on the stage”
Scrum master – Constructive leadership style (humanistic, encouraging, affiliative)
Scrum master – only recently a command and control project manager
Dev Lead
QA Lead
Team member who ways she’s agile but does 1 hour stand ups
A developer who has religious debates on the “right” way to do agile
QA – Passive-Defensive style, super into manual regression testing
Junior QA – sleeping with the married CIO in secret
Experienced QA – in a wheelchair, likes to learn, sees self as father figure, swears a lot
Developer – brilliant, high introvert
Janitor (speaks only Polish)
OPEN SPACE TECHNOLOGY
A tool that allows people to gather, exchange ideas, learn and contribute in a self-organizing way…
Open Space
Four Principles• Whoever comes is the right people• Whatever happens is the only thing that could have• Whenever it starts is the right time• When it’s over, it’s over
One Law• The Law of Two Feet
Two Species• Bumblebees• Butterflies
ANNOUNCEMENTSAren’t you glad you stuck around?
Next Month…
• Thursday, March 10, 2016
• Topic: Agile Tools v. Physical Boards
• Speaker: TBD
www.aplnchicago.org– Meets here on the 2nd Thursday of the Month
www.meetup.com/The-Chicago-Agile-Methodology-Group/– Meets the 3rd Tuesday of every month at Catalyst Ranch
(downtown)