Agile Team Performance Management Arlen Bankston and Sanjiv Augustine @abankston @saugustine Realizing the Human Potential of Teams
Feb 09, 2016
Agile Team Performance Management
Arlen Bankston and Sanjiv Augustine @abankston @saugustine
June 14, 2010
Realizing the Human Potential of Teams
Performance Management • Current Issues• Emerging TrendsAn Agile Performance Management System• Goals• Intrinsic Motivation• Extrinsic Motivation• A Holistic ProcessQ&A
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Agenda
Performance ManagementCurrent Issues & Emerging Trends
What’s Wrong with Performance Management Today?
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Current performance management schemes are often ineffective.• Formal evaluations are typically
demotivating:o Focus on weaknesses rather than
strengthso Are done quite infrequently and don’t
provide timely, relevant feedback
• Rooted in “management 1.0” industrial age techniqueso Overemphasize the role of the managero Deemphasize the role of the individual
What’s Wrong with Performance Management Today? (Cont’d)
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Attempts to simplify the process for managers can backfire:• Traditional reviews “bundle”
o Feedbacko Compensation & Merit payo Legal cover
• Attempt standardization across:o Few who are making outstanding
contributionso Great majority who are performing
successfullyo Underperformers
“In practice, annual ratings are a disease, annihilating long-term planning, demobilizing teamwork, nourishing rivalry and politics, leaving people bitter, crushed, bruised, battered, desolate, despondent, unfit for work for weeks after receipt of rating, unable to comprehend why they are inferior…”W. Edwards Deming
Some current and emerging trends:• Work anywhere initiatives have created a
distributed workforce
• Generation Y’ers have different ideas, values and attitudes towards career progression
• Baby boomers are remaining in/reentering the workforce in large numbers
• Sustained outsourcing/offshoring continue to drive team geographical distribution
• New management ideas are gaining traction: Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE) via Dan Pink: autonomy, mastery and purpose
• Agile methods have created empowered, self-managed teams
Workforce Trends
The Quality of Life Movement’s Hallmarks
1. Consumer Detox: conspicuous consumption giving way to more conscious buying;
2. Everyday Activism: citizens routinely expecting more upfront information on their brands and the values of the companies behind them;
3. Buying Out: cynicism, if not hostility, toward marketing in general;
4. Natural, Local, and Ethical: the rapid growth of farmers' markets, natural foods, and fair-trade awareness.
Finding Promise in Sustainability 2.0, Businessweek, September 3, 2009
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An Agile Performance Management System
A Journey with Results
Extrinsic Motivation Your Results.
What have we achieved?
How has the market judged us?
Intrinsic Motivation Your Journey.
What are we passionate about doing?
How and when do we work?
What do we want to build?
Do our rewards match our results?
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Different Strokes…
Extrinsic Motivation
If it succeeds, you get a big bonus.
Teams divvy up the profits democratically.
Your fate rests entirely on your results.
Bottom 10% are fired.
Intrinsic Motivation
Do what you like with 20% of your time.
Decide what products you build as a team, and how you’ll build them.
Work when you like, how you like.
Learn what you like from the best.
Company
Google“Whimsical Idea Factory”
9 “Four Radically Different Cultural Models: Best Buy, Google, GE, Semco,” BNET, http://www.bnet.com/2403-13059_23-237201.html
Semco“Extreme Democracy”
Best Buy“Every Day is Saturday”
General Electric“Ruthless Meritocracy”
An Agile Performance Management System (APMS) should:
• Unbundle feedback, compensation and merit pay, and legal cover
• Involve knowledge workers in determining own measurement criteria
• Ensure holistic involvement from team members, customers, users and managers
• Accommodate differing levels of performance & situational leadership
• Collect feedback frequently and use it to improve both product & process continuously
APMS Goals
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Intrinsic Motivation
• Knowledge workers need responsibility for their own productivity:o Knowledge drives productivityo Continuous innovation, learning and teaching need
to be part of the jobo Knowledge worker productivity is dependent on
quality at least as much as quantityo Optimal quality is the path to high productivity
• Knowledge workers must understand:o What is our business? o Who is our customer? o What does our customer consider valuable?
Autonomy
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People are happy when their job allows them to do the things they excel at.
• Shu: Followingo Learning fundamentalso Concentrating on basic individual
techniques• Ha: Detaching
o Breaking with traditiono Finding new ways and techniques
• Ri: Fluento Complex, integrated knowledge and
techniques
Mastery
ShuHaRi
Adapted from Alistair Cockburn, http://alistair.cockburn.us/Shu+Ha+Ri13
People are in the most happy when they’re in a state of flow.Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Purpose
14 Dan Pink, www.danpink.com
Intrinsic Motivation“I want to master TDD to become a better, more confident developer and earn my peers’ respect.”
Extrinsic Motivation“I want to increase my skills to get a raise and a promotion by meeting my objectives.”
Long
-Ter
m E
ffecti
vene
ss
“The most deeply motivated people… hitch their desires to a cause larger than themselves.”Dan Pink
Aligning Work with Purpose
15 Turn the Job you Have into the Job you Want, Harvard Business Review, June 2010
Work should align and be proportionate with one’s inherent areas of Passion, personal Strengths, and overall Motives.
Roles and job responsibilities are based upon strategic objectives. Boxes sized by time allocation link work to core job Roles.
Extrinsic Motivation
• Fair Base Salary – Core wages should be fair for the market; basic financial security provides personal safety and allows for productive risk-taking.
• Fair Merit Pay – Extraordinary efforts and results should be rewarded in proportion to contribution, risk & returns.
Money Does Matter
While a learning organization will always trump one driven by short-term gains, money still matters.
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Individual
Link Merit Pay to Business Results
IndividualTeam ResultsBase Pay
Team Results
Base Pay
IndividualTeam Results
Base Pay
70%
20%
10%
Scrum Team Member“Help my team to build a successful game as judged by a score of 85 or above on Metacritic.”
Sales Rep“Optimize our sales channel as
measured by a 20% increase in North American sales.”
40%
40%
20%
DevelopmentManager“Build a high performance team as measured by Customer Satisfaction scores of 9 or above.”
50%
30%
20%
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Intrinsic motivation should be complemented with concrete
Extrinsic goals, fair recognition and just rewards.
Example Business Results
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Product Goals Original Current Target Improvement
Minimize Termination Cycle Time
40 hrs. 8 hrs. 4 hrs. 80%
First-Pass Accuracy 60% 95% 100% 58%
Minimize Drop-Out Rate
96% 60% 50% 37.5%
Minimize Application Response Time
5s 3s 1s 40%
A Holistic Process
Roles
Individuals & Teams perform within and evolve the APMS.
Managers set up, maintain and nurture an APMS.
Customers and Users provide requests and critical feedback on results.
Manager
Users
Customer
Individual Output
Team
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Establish Objectives
Requests
Defining Objectives
Manager
Users
Customer
Individual
Rate
Team
Extrinsic ObjectivesIntrinsic Objectives
Team Objectives
Individual Objectives
Subjective Output Measures
Objective Output Measures
Establish Reward Structures
RequestsEstablish Objectives
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Rate
Rate
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Feedback Cycle
Manager
Users
Customer
Individual
Rate
Rate
Rate
Output
Rate
Deliver
Team
Feedback on Extrinsic MeasuresFeedback on Intrinsic Measures
Managerial Rating of Contributions
Team Rating
Self Rating
Customer Ratings of Team Interactions
User & Customer Rating of Output
Feedback can come through many different complementary forms, and at different levels.• Holistic, Iterative Discovery – Whole-team
involvement in both product and process understanding & evolution. Group Product
• Agile Maturity Assessments – Inspection of trends in structure, process and/or output quality within and across teams. Group Process
• Micro feedback – Quick, Twitter-style observations & suggestions given in real-time. Individual Performance
Emerging Trends in Feedback
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Improving Agile Performance through Holistic Performance Management
Common Challenges in Agile Projects CountermeasuresMaintaining individual motivation and passion
Create personal objectives that link intrinsic motivations to external outcomes
Ensuring objective definition and validation of “Value”
Have POs & Teams define “Value,” while Customers & End users validate it
Maintaining whole team energy & accountability
Measure Teams as a unit, and quantify Output quality as an extrinsic measure
Encouraging active process adaptation & continuous improvement
Reward incremental improvement &Innovative tactics by measuring outcomes, while giving feedback on processes
Enhancing Product Owner/Customer focus and participation
Tie rewards for both PO and Team to Team Outputs, encouraging collaboration
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Contact Us for Further Information
Sanjiv [email protected]
Arlen BankstonExecutive [email protected]
On the Web:http://www.lithespeed.comhttp://www.sanjivaugustine.com
Overall Process
Process Step Participants TimingProcess InitiationEstablish reward structure PO, Team and/or Management Start of quarter
Establish extrinsic measures
Product Owner, Team & Management
Start of a Release or initiative
Establish intrinsic measures Individual, Team & Manager Start of quarter (adjusted incrementally)
Ongoing Feedback & Compensation CyclesReview intrinsic measures (updating as necessary)
Individual, Team & Manager Retrospective & real-time
Review extrinsic measures(updating as necessary)
Users & Customers Retrospective & real-time
Distribute rewards Manager Quarterly
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Sample Human Rating Objectives
Team Individual Manager Customer/POCustomer/PO Satisfaction with Team Collaboration
Individual Contribution to Product Delivery
Individual Contribution to Product Delivery
Provided clear vision and direction to Team
Stakeholder satisfaction with deliveries
Individual Contribution to Process Improvement
Individual Contribution to Team Building
Engaged effectively with external users
Consistency of meeting Sprint commitments
Individual Contribution to Organizational Flexibility
Individual Contribution to Enterprise Collaboration
Engaged effectively with internal stakeholders
Demonstrated process improvements
Individual Contribution to Group Learning
Individual Contribution to Group Learning
Provided timely & relevant feedback on product to Team
Effective collaboration among members
Individual Contribution to the Product
Individual Contribution to the Product
Prioritized effectively to optimize value
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Feedback is simple observation of current events, facts and perceptions, offered and discussed without judgment or direct impact to compensation.• What were the major events of the year?• What have been the major accomplishments?• What new skills have you acquired?• What have been your struggles?• What contributed to those situations?• What insights do you have, looking back on the year?• What are you most proud of?• How does this inform us going into next year?• What do you want to do better?• Are there new areas you want to explore?• What skills or capabilities will you develop?• How can we build developing those capabilities into daily work?• How will we tell you’re making progress?
What is Feedback?
Thanks to Esther Derby for these questions: http://www.estherderby.com/weblog/archive/2004_11_01_archive.html29