The Hidden Ingredient in Hyper-
Productive TeamsRon Lichty, Ron Lichty Consulting
www.ronlichty.com Ron Lichty: Hidden Ingredient in Hyper-Productive Teams 1
Ron Lichty, Managing Software People & Teams
SOFTWEST
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Coauthor, Study of Product Team Performance
http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html
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Addison Wesley: http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net Ron Lichty: Hidden Ingredient in Hyper-Productive Teams 4
Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*
* 300 in the book / more at http://managingtheunmanageable.net/morerulesofthumb.html
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Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*
• Measure twice, cut once.• Life is simpler when you plow around the
stump.• Brooks’s Law: Adding manpower to a late
software project makes it later.– Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
* 300 in the book / more: http://managingtheunmanageable.net/morerulesofthumb.html
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Agenda
• Teams– and hyper-productive teams
• Agile Practices– and agile values
• Being Agile• Fostering Greatness• Practice Greatness
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Teams
By Pictofigo (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commonsense, This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Free to share and remix/adapt. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pictofigo-Scrum.png
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• Think about…The best team you’ve been on?
The most high performance team?
Brainstorm: What were the…• characteristics• relationships• qualities• ways of being
. . . that made it stand out?
At Your Tables…
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Agile
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Agile Practices Deliver Value
Ron Lichty: Hidden Ingredient in Hyper-Productive Teams 11By Michaelblinkpipe (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAn_Abcam_stand_up_meeting_using_BlinkPipe_video_conferencing..png
Agile Practices Deliver Value
• Planning Daily• Planning Weekly (or biweekly or…)• Planning Publicly• Ordering Work Based on Customer Value• Together defining “Done”• Delivering Frequently• Sharing how we’re doing• Reflecting on how to do better
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Agile Practices Deliver Value
• Standups– Standups matter:– Effective, Daily Standups
--2015 Study of Product Team Performance
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Agile Practices Deliver Value
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Voting Machines Deliver Value, too
15Ron Lichty: Hidden Ingredient in Hyper-Productive TeamsBy Seattle Municipal Archives from Seattle, WA (Voting machine, 1971) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Voting Machines Deliver Value, too
• But voting machines don’t make us a democracy
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Similarly…
Agile Practices Don’t Make Us AgileAgile Practices Don’t Deliver Great Teams
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Agile Values Inspire Great Teams
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Agile Values Inspire Great Teams
• Build projects around motivated individuals
• Trust… to get the job done • Face-to-face conversation • Self-organizing teams• The team reflects, …tunes, …adjusts -- http://agilemanifesto.org/
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Self-Organizing Teams
• If our self-organizing team were an acting troupe, …
What kind of acting do we do?
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Self-Organizing Teams
• If our self-organizing team were an acting troupe, …
What kind of acting do we do?• If our self-organizing team were a
music group, …What kind of music do we
perform?Ron Lichty: Hidden Ingredient in Hyper-Productive Teams 21
Self-Organizing Teams
• If our self-organizing team were an acting troupe, …
What kind of acting do we do?• If our self-organizing team were a music
combo, …What kind of music do we perform?
• Who is the leader?Ron Lichty: Hidden Ingredient in Hyper-Productive Teams 22
Best Teams
• A relationship? between– Shared Leadership (Agile Values)– Best Team characteristics
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Shared Leadership Best Teams?
• Build projects around motivated individuals
• Trust… to get the job done • Face-to-face conversation • Self-organizing teams• The team reflects, …tunes, …adjusts -- http://agilemanifesto.org/
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Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
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Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
• Micromanagement
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Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
• Micromanagement disrupts Agile• Micromanagement prevents Best Teams• Micromanagement prevents Learning• Micromanaged teams become order-takers
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Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
• Micromanagement disrupts Agile• Micromanagement prevents Best Teams• Micromanagement prevents Learning• Micromanaged teams become order-takers
• Agile calls for everyone on the team to step up• Micromanagement causes everyone to step back
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• Managers of teams• Project managers• Program managers• Scrum masters• Product managers?• Product owners?
Shared Leadership… and Managers
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• What do all those managers have in common?
Shared Leadership… and Managers
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• What do all those managers have in common?– we run things– we give direction– we tell people what to do– we like being the center of attention
Shared Leadership… and Managers
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“If you’re the ScrumMaster and everyone is looking at you, you’re doing it wrong.” --Marilson Campos
Shared Leadership… and Managers
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Managers and Agile• “A common misconception is that because
of this reliance on self-organizing teams, there is little or no role for leaders of agile teams. Nothing could be further from the truth.” --Mike Cohn, Succeeding with Agile
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--Agile Learning Labs, Laura Powers
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Agile: “Servant Leaders”
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Managers and Agile• Fostering an Agile Culture• Modeling, Defending, Evangelizing Agile
Values• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence
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Managers and Agile• Fostering an Agile Culture• Modeling, Defending, Evangelizing Agile
Values• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence• Removing Impediments
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Managers and Agile• Fostering an Agile Culture• Modeling, Defending, Evangelizing Agile
Values• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence• Removing Impediments• Counseling, Coaching and Mentoring• Scaling Scrum• Hiring and Firing
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Managers and Agile• Fostering an Agile Culture• Modeling, Defending, Evangelizing Agile
Values• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence• Removing Impediments
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Creating an Agile Culture• Theory Y: “enabling”, “empowering”, “developmental", “continuous
improvement” -> Servant Leadership
McGregor's X-Y Theory40Ron Lichty: Hidden Ingredient in Hyper-Productive Teams
Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams , http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net
Managers and Agile• Creating an Agile Culture
Lean-Agile management is the art of leading people, not managing them... Leading people involves creating the correct environment, focusing them on the right things, and trusting them to do their work...
In Lean-Agile, the manager has two primary responsibilities: • setting the outcomes or goals expected of the team; • assisting the doers in creating a better process and workspace to get their jobs done... --Alan Shalloway, Net Objectives
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Leaders and Agile• Rules of Thumb
Management sets the boundaries of what needs to be done and says to the team, I trust you to figure out how to get it done.
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EmpowermentTrust but verify.
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Empowerment
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Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN
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Empowerment
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Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN quoting VALDIMIR LENIN
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Empowerment
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Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN quoting VALDIMIR LENIN
– imperative not to micromanage– the essence of delegation– setting expected outcomes for teams
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Empowerment
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Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN quoting VALDIMIR LENIN
I inspect what I expect.
- ALAN LEFKOF, Netopia CEO, quoting LOU GERSTNER
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Creating an Agile Culture• Establishing Culture
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http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net
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Managers and Agile• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence
When teams self-organize there's still plenty for managers to do... a managers job is to engineer the organization so that teams can do their best work. --Esther Derby, co-founder, Scrum Alliance
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Managers and Agile• Removing Distractions and Impediments
Be a damper to the noise. --Joe Kleinschmidt, CTOJohn Evans, Winchester, Hants, United Kingdom, www.thetippingpoint.co.uk
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Managers and Agile• Model, Defend, Evangelize Agile Values
“Managers are still needed. Not so much for their planning and controlling ability, but for the important job of interfacing on the team’s behalf with the rest of the organization.” --Diana Larsen, co-author, Agile Retrospectives
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Communicating
• Create a culture of communication– at every level– with everyone
• up, down, within and across
• “We have two ears and one mouth. Use them in this ratio.”— Kimberly Wiefling
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Communication
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You cannot overcommunicate.
-RON LICHTY
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Communication: Virtual Teams• There is never enough communication• Commitment to communicate• No substitute for face-to-face meetings
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The more distance between teammates, the more you have to formalize communication and make it explicit.
-TED YOUNG, Development Manager & Agile Coach, Guidewire
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How Do We Foster Shared Leadership?• Foster an Agile Culture• Model, Defend, Evangelize Agile Values• Trust Our People• Shield Teams from Politics & Distraction• Remove Impediments• Empower Self-Organization & Excellence• Create a Culture of Communication
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How Do We Do Shared Leadership?• Let’s personalize it: At your tables…
– 2 minutes: • envision what shared leadership looks like
– 5 minutes: create a poster• at least half: a single graphic, created by your whole table
– everyone at your table contributes to the graphic– see if you can hand off “leadership” fluidly– everyone leads!
• no more than half: words around your graphic– prepare how you’ll share it with us
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How Do We Do Shared Leadership?
• How did that go?• Share your posters, one table at a time
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Ron Lichty Consulting • Mentoring, coaching, training, consulting:
– http://ronlichty.com, [email protected]• The book:
Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools & Insights for Managing Software People & Teams– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----tools, excerpts, more rules
of thumb
• The study: The Study of Product Team Performance – http://ronlichty.com/study.html
• Training:The Agile ManagerManaging Software People and TeamsZero to Agile in Three Days
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