May 20th, 2013

Working on a Beating Heart

It’s a very rare opportunity to be able to stop everything a company is doing to take the time to instill necessary transformational and behavioral changes. There are not many “do-overs” when it comes to company culture.

We see it over and over - let’s learn how to work together and fix broken or outdated processes but we must still deliver a three-month feature in two months while we are doing it. The patient is sick but would still like to go run a 100 meter dash tomorrow.

Breaking bad habits and establishing new ones will take time but we still have a business to run. I understand the dilemma – we must remain viable or we cease to exist.

So, how do you begin to fix what is broken while you still need to deliver? How do you care for those hurting or disengaged in your workforce while still asking them to produce? Here are a couple of thoughts:

Have an underlying cultural vision. If what we have today is not working well, what should the future look like? What will people say about their experience at your company when they leave or retire? What will be the legacy on the health and well-being of your people? Here is a great interview about knowing what kind of company culture you are looking for and how to start building it. When you know what you want to become, everyday decisions and behaviours start to align.

Build and support a team of enthusiasts. Find the passionate ones.  They are usually easy to find and once you do, bring them together often to encourage and support them in finding ways to live into the cultural vision.

Impact one person at a time. This made a world of difference for me. When the problems are so deep and the amount of dysfunction feels so daunting it often feels like there is no hope. When I feel this way I look for one person who is skeptical or find someone who at one point was passionate about their work but has been beat down by bureaucracy and distrust over the years. Connect with that one person and begin to coach and encourage them. Then connect with another…

Be a little stealthy. Remember the movie “The Karate Kid?” Throughout the movie, Daniel-son didn’t realize he was learning karate when Mr. Miyagi was having him wash cars and paint the fence. But indeed he was learning quite a bit… 

Small moves done everyday will lead to bigger changes. Mr. Miyagi didn’t need to use the word “karate” – you don’t need to use the word “agile.” Just begin modeling and teaching people new ways of working together.

Have a plan. It is possible to work on a beating heart but you must have an approach and techniques to provide a safe environment and the right results. We have often used a three-phased approach for transformational journeys and you can read more about it here.

 

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May 13th, 2013

Agile, The Amplifier

Newly formed organizations have the benefit of hiring teams, forming culture, and building structure from scratch. Mature organizations do not have this advantage and to stay competitive with newer startups will rely on change initiatives for a rebirth to bring back the spark they once had.

Many of these companies are attempting to become agile, nimbler, leaner or more customer-responsive with varying degrees of success. The struggle, I believe, for these organizations to truly change occurs when leaders are not ready for what becoming Agile will bring – the amplification of both the good and bad behaviors from their current situation.

If you have hired well, the amplification will result in a near immediate boost in a sense of empowerment and productivity for your people. Bright, hard working people thrive on Agile teams. The reaction to this amplification must be a letting go of control by leaders and of overwhelming encouragement from your leaders.

If your organization has not hired well, the amplification will put a spotlight on those who have not been performing or are not good teammates. The reaction must be a hard look at current hiring practices and your approach to performance management (if you can really “manage” performance at all). Fresh thinking from leaders will be needed in this space.

If your technology has been allowed to grow in complexity and fragility, the amplification will be in frustration. Agile teams will begin to increase the throughput of production-ready code but will not be able to realize customer value quickly enough. The reaction must be simplification and a shift to being “anti-fragile.”

If there is a history of having a fractured or siloed organization, the divide between groups will be more apparent than ever. The reaction from leadership must be to foster and facilitate reconciliation and connection. Don’t expect people “to go figure it out.” Rather, become a model for the behaviour your people need. Bring people together. Solve things together.

If there is a lack of vision, direction, or prioritization, the amplification will reveal a craving for it. The reaction must be to discover what the organization should be passionate about and provide the motivation to achieve it. Agile teams respond amazingly well to a well-crafted and well-communicated vision.

Leaders, be ready for and react to what will be amplified during your transformation to Agile. Meaningful, lasting change and more importantly, your people, will depend on it.

 

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May 7th, 2013

When Developers and Testers Collide

In an earlier post I discussed collisions and conflicts which may occur within an Agile environment. A common collision on Agile teams occurs between testers and developers so let’s dig into this scenario a little deeper.

When we begin introducing agile into organizations, the impact is often strongly felt by the testing community. Testers are an easy target when bugs are released into production and are often the focus of blame. Because of this, testing groups have built heavy processes and sign-offs to protect themselves from what they know will be coming later. Trust will need to be restored before testers will fully engage and freely interact with a team.

In dysfunctional situations, developers and testers will often come into a team thinking of each other in one of four ways:

The Outsider. You don’t know enough about what I do so I’ll keep you in the dark or ignore you for as long as possible until you just go away.

The Obstacle. You’re on the team but I don’t like it. I’ll do just enough to keep you off my back and nothing more.

The Speed Bump. I know you’re there for a reason and I should slow down a little for you but why bother.

The Enemy. “Your code stinks.” “Your testing stinks.” Repeat.

Obviously, none of these attitudes will go very far on an Agile team. We must find a place of mutual respect for each other, value each other, and become amazing agile teammates.

Start small but start with something. If the relationship between developers and testers has a history of being toxic in your organization it will not go away on its own and the effects of the dysfunction will only be amplified on an Agile team. Quality must be a team event.

Empower your Scrum Master or Agile Coaches to use subtle changes to build (or rebuild) a foundation for the testers and developers to form their relationship on. Here are a few activities to consider:

Learn about customers together. Schedule a field trip with the entire team to watch people use your product, app, or web site. Seeing the impact our work has on people (both positively and negatively) brings clarity to what is really important.

Build stories and acceptance testing together. Rallying around the user will further shift the team to a position of focus on who will receive value from what we are building. If they aren’t already, have developers and testers author acceptance criteria together.

Mature your definition of “done.” If you haven’t looked at your definition of done lately perhaps it needs some attention. As the Scrum Guide states, “As Scrum Teams mature, it is expected that their Definition of “Done” will expand to include more stringent criteria for higher quality.”

Create unit tests together. This may be a challenge but worth suggesting. Try having a developer and tester “pair” while writing a suite of unit tests. The quality perspective from the tester and the extra set of eyes could be beneficial and begin breaking the ice.

Emphasize conversations around quality and “done” over tools and process. Don’t track bugs on currently in progress stories as a defect. I have seen teams want to do this but resist the urge…the story just isn’t finished yet. If conversations aren’t enough just write a task for the bug and add it to the information radiator.

 

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March 28th, 2013

Personal Connection vs. Bringing Condemnation

The words we use with our people will leave a lasting impact. This will always be true for leaders and there is no way around it. When we use critical, demeaning, or harsh words we leave “scar tissue” and it may never go away. This scar tissue often takes the shape of guilt, fear, or inadequacy and will often move with people when they jump to another company.

An organization striving for agility cannot be truly agile with a fearful workforce. Period.

As this interview in the New Times states, “…the brain categorizes everything into one of two categories: threat or reward. We’re driven unconsciously to stay away from threat. We’re driven unconsciously to go toward reward.” The entire article is worth reading if you get the chance.

When people feel threatened, they will turn from you. They will become defensive at best and at worst, they will disconnect fully.

Now, this does not mean we accept poor performance, ignore bad team members, or avoid opportunities to teach or mentor. In fact, it should be the opposite. If we use the right words we will inspire people to expand their own expectations of themselves and dream big dreams. They will become self-motivated to live up to their own expectations – and not yours.

When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!’ – Lao-Tsu

Your entire view of leadership will change when you replace your own expectations for people with a focus on making personal connection and instilling confidence. It did for me.

Begin making personal connection with your people today by considering a few actions:

Become self-aware. The first step is recognizing your mindset must shift. You, dear leader, are the one who must change – no one else.

Love. Do we dare say this word within the walls of business. My friend Si Alhir has written a short but engaging post based on Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love. You may say “Some people are impossible to love!” If you remove your own expectations, are they really?

Connect. Know everything to know about the people who report to you. Birthdays, anniversaries, spouse’s name, kid’s name, dog’s name, everything. Condemnation becomes much harder when you recognize others are human just like you and dealing with the same stuff life is throwing at you.

Heal. It is a rare occurrence when a leader apologizes to a direct report but when it does something magical happens. This is hard to do but for the restoration of trust and connection to develop, genuine forgiveness may be necessary.

 

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March 22nd, 2013

Finding Organizational Flow (Part 9 of the Agile Leadership Engagement Series)

Becoming an organization with agility at its core will require a natural pull and flow between leadership and product teams. Especially as companies grow larger, this conduit between the organizational vision created by senior leadership, strategic planning by mid-level leaders, and the product vision created by the product owner has a tendency to become smaller and smaller, slower and slower, or doesn’t exist at all any more to the point of varying degrees of organizational dysfunction.

With the last post of the series, I’ll share a few thoughts on how we can begin to build a free-flowing partnership between leadership layers and product teams.

The communication conduit often clogs at mid-level leaders. The strategic vision does not reach the teams and if it does, the vision has been filtered to a point where it no longer resonates or inspires. Insight into user needs and potential product features found during discovery from the product teams only reaches so far into the visioning exercise or doesn’t happen at all.

To function with business agility we will need to see an unwavering level of responsiveness to changing business and market conditions. It will also require a resilient level of trust and respect to attempt new things and build on ideas from every corner of the company.Finding Organizational Flow through Leadership Partnership

To ultimately make the level of nimbleness and adaptability necessary to be competitive I believe, as others do, organizations of the future will need to be less hierarchical than they are today. But until that day arrives, here are a few starting points to consider:

Focus outward. Redirecting our energy towards our customers will require a bit of selflessness. It will mean being generous with each other, primarily through learning how to really listen to one another. Instead of being the hoarder of information, our first response when new data, theories, and ideas arrive should be “who should know this?” Become a radiator of information to all.

Learn how to resolve conflict. As we all know, there will be different opinions and beliefs on what features will best meet our customers needs. All one needs to know about how innovative an organization is can be gauged by how they work through these conflicts. From the Denma Translation of the Art of War, “This is not simply about bringing the other person over to your side but bringing him or her to something larger than either side.” This is where real innovation and collaboration lives.

Temper the vision with reality. As Thomas Edison said, “Vision without execution is hallucination.” If the vision calls for revolutionary innovation, more investment may be required or serious prioritization must occur during planning. Bring organizational feasibility into the vision by co-creating with mid-level leaders and product owners.

 

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March 18th, 2013

Learning About Our Customers (Part 8 of the Agile Engagement Leadership Series)

If a product has been flagged as “invest” during planning, the product owner and team should be in a continuous flow of discovering valuable features to deliver for that product. They should be learning everything about who is (or could be) using their product.

The output of learning and discovering our users is captured in a product vision. The product vision should simply be identifying who they are, what needs they have, and what features should be created to satisfy those needs. The features generated with the product vision will feed the product backlog created in Part 7 of this series.

Product discovery should not be done in a vacuum and ideally, not be done in isolation by only the product owner.

An earlier post of mine discussed this concept of performing user discovery as a partnership between the roles of product owner, architect, and user experience designer. Each role brings a unique perspective to the vast array of possible features and provides a balance and filter for the product owner. If possible, I would leverage this approach.

Creating a product vision is not easy and will take a considerable amount of time and energy and should be constantly evolving. I would not consider myself an expert in product visioning but there are awesome resources available from real thought-leaders in this space such as Mind the Product and Marty Cagan to help.

I have however, interacted with many product owners and coached product teams through product discovery activities. From what I have seen and experienced, here are couple simple tips to remember:

Become them. This is nothing new to most of you but the use of personas and customer immersion techniques are useful in discovery. Depending on your product, you may also need to get out of the office to hear what your users are saying. Whatever techniques you use, it’s crucial to have real customers speak to you and for you to listen.

Let them try things out. There are times in discovery when you may develop theories about how a product or feature would meet needs the user or customer. In this case, use small experiments to confirm your theories. Obtaining answers in discovery is cheaper than in delivery.

Stay in discovery. As much as realistically possible, product owners should spend most of their time in discovery. There is a temptation for product owners to get heavily involved with the delivery cycles of the team. While we love to see product owners being interactive with their team, solving day-to-day impediments someone else should be solving detracts from valuable time with our customers. Scrum Masters play a key role here.

Inform leaders. When you learn new things about the customer, let your leaders know. Share your theories on user behavior with them as your discovery should continuously feed into the evolution of the overall organizational vision. We’ll cover this in our last post in the series called Building Partnership.

Note: I know there is debate to whether one should use “user” or “customer” when referring to the people interacting with our products. I fall under this camp.

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