Tag Archives: Agile Management

Managing self-organizing teams in an Agile Software Development practice is about encouraging and allowing developers to embody values of collaboration, creativity, quality, integrity, and individual initiative in an environment that provides sustainable pace and opportunities for personal development.

Closed Circle

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I just watched “The Heart of the Game“, a documentary about the Roosevelt Roughrider’s girl’s basketball team (my old high school).

At key moments, the coach called a closed circle meeting where the players went off by themselves coming back with resolution or a group decision.

In the first example, the team worked through tension between players resulting in dramatically better play — going from tight games to blowing out opponents.

In the second example, the team rallied around a player at the risk of forfeiting their season.

As reward for their camaraderie and commitment, the coach made sure every player received game time during the close-fought final championship game. What’s more, the starters rallied around his decision. The younger players not only held their own but played above themselves.

There’s a lot of hype about teamwork in business and self-directed teams in agile practice. A lot of managers look to sports as an example. Rarely do we pull it off.

At the end of the day, it’s about actions that value the group as much as the individuals and actions that source from trust to earn trust.

Small, Extraordinary Acts

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I posted how Anpanman by Takashi (嵩) Yanase (柳瀬) is my role model. Turns out John Maeda has similar sentiments.

What a noble aspiration to act under the belief, “That if you had more you could always get by with less.” One I find very hard to live up to.

Anpanman by Eric I.E.

In the workplace, I hate to assume responsibility for decisions I did not make. I’m not talking about anything illegal. I’m talking about the daily harms people inflict on others — particularly those over whom they hold power.

There is an industry around how to confront such situations but let’s admit there are people and events we cannot change.

Having no participation or influence over the decision, I want to stay out of it.

But as a human being of good will I have to acknowledge harm and live with my action or inaction in the face of it.

So what can you do when you have no means within your role or recourse to outside authority?

Consider the person and respond as an individual. Give of your personal time and resources.

I aspire to this and very often fall short. But I am challenged and inspired by an absurd and beautiful Japanese children’s character.

I am also inspired by the actions of others including my wife, Kathie, my former employer, Peter, and my friend and co-worker, Luke. Small, extraordinary acts of good will by good people.

Integration and Its Opposites

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NBC Universal has completed its acquisition of Oxygen Media, my employer for the last eight years.

in·te·gra·tion: “incorporation as equals into society or an organization of individuals of different groups” – Websters Dictionary

Lego by Tim Ellis

During the past month, we participated in an integration process. A good faith effort by NBCU staff to assess where value lies in Oxygen’s practices and people.

Our team is composed of talented individuals. Marketable individuals may integrate or “dis-integrate” for other opportunities.

What is potentially more enduring yet difficult to discern are the values, practices, esprit and reputation that allow this team to attract and develop new talent even as individuals move on.

However, there is a relentless necessity to “incorporating as equals into an organization of individuals of different groups.” It focuses on individuals and organizations not groups. Citizens and cities – not neighborhoods.

In this process, from both the acquirer and the acquired, the team has suffered. We haven’t been rewarded or treated as one but as individuals in service of organizations. To bastardize Benjamin Franklin, as we hang separately we clearly do not hang together.

This fact, in and of itself, is a great loss.

And so as different constituencies gather at NBCU, we await change. Whatever that change is, for me it will involve building something new.

Leadership, Circumstances, Styles of Play

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John Maeda has another post on leadership.

“In movies we often see two scenarios: 1) the leader is surrounded by her soldiers as a wall of protection; or 2) the leader is the one that is the first to rush into battle.”

I have trouble with war metaphors in a time of war but I get that success is built upon both protecting potential and creating it.

This sentiment reminds me of Garry Kasparov’s description of his chess play, attacking, aggressive, “where the player who makes the first mistake loses” versus a maneuvering, defensive style that “accumulates small advantages over time.”

I have played the latter, quiet game, advancing through various roles and towards an agile organization over years.

Still more chess pieces by andrew_mrt1976'sMy game was winning over peers, demonstrating success, removing many obstacles and flowing past others, educating executives as they became receptive to it, and, above all, showing by doing — proving value on our terms by delivering value.

But as Mr. Kasparov points out, circumstances may require us to adopt alternative styles and I am clearly in that situation now.

My company may soon be integrated into a larger one. In that larger organization, I have met conscientious, competent people. If the acquisition goes through, they will work to realize as much benefit as possible while managing risks and minimizing harm.

However, drastic change will need to happen in a short time and there are three very different cultures at play: that of our team, our current employer and our prospective new one.

Time is a factor in another way as well. My team cannot endure setting the clock back on our product and software development practices. Agile development means little unless it is in partnership with an agile business. We don’t want to just build things well. We need to invent, serve users and win in the marketplace. We need it all.

If circumstances call for a more pressing style of play. So be it.

Story Card Hell

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I was recently asked the following question:

“I’ve been dropped into a situation best described as “story card hell.” How do I reduce complexity of the software project planning without losing features?”

The project was to replace an existing system. The behavior was largely known. As a result, the initial planning generated enough cards to feel like, “way too much detail up front.”

My answer:

Don’t lose the work you’ve done but don’t place more value in it than it has.

Step back to think of the application as a phased set of releases. Talk with the team and product owner about a way of delivering the system in meaningful pieces that customers could (and hopefully will) use. Get creative with defining those steps as long as they lead you down a path towards your ultimate goal.

Once you have that road map. Do an exercise with the team to group your existing stories into those releases. There will be a natural tendency to add and change stories. That’s fine but don’t get too distracted by it. The main point is to get a sense of the relative size of the releases and move the bulk of the stories out of your immediate planning concern.

Now focus on the first release. Spend more time on those stories but still not with the scrutiny of an iteration plan. Make/allow the team to live with ambiguity. Set up an agreed upon rule of thumb for how much bigger a “theme” is from a real “story” and let the team know it’s okay to discuss these things at the “theme” level.

Story Cards

Then prioritize your release backlog. Have the team chunk the remaining vague stories/themes into future iterations for that release. This is your release plan. Expect it to change. Again, you’re getting a rough sense of how many iterations in the first release and moving later stories out of your immediate concern.

Now you can focus in detail on the stories for the next one or two iterations without getting drowned in details. Don’t be surprised if future stories become irrelevant or drastically change as you get to the iteration within which they fall. It’s okay.

My answer was based on what we’ve tried to do at Oxygen with coaching on release planning from Hubert Smits.

Here’s the full thread off LinkedIn.