Coaching

March 12 2024

Nurturing Agile Growth: How I Help Teams Unlock Their True Potential

AdamM Agile, Coaching, Facilitation, Implimentation 0

I do not want to be in charge of an agile transformation.

What does it mean to be in charge of an agile transformation?

First off, who decided there would be a transformation? Are they bringing you in specifically to push their vision of a transformation? Are you bringing the idea of a transformation to your manager?

Let’s say you get through the initial stage, and now you’re a newly appointed Transformation Manager. Congrats!

You likely need to establish objectives and key results. Validate the desired results with whoever is empowering you to make this change before you move forward. If it doesn’t align with their desire, you’ll repeat this step. Probably a couple of times.

You then have to come up with metrics to track progress to those results. Careful, while you don’t change what you don’t measure, you also can’t measure something without being able to game it.

People need to be hired, staffing the organization for the transformation. In a modern organization HR practices dictate these people then need some type of person in charge of them from a corporate standpoint.

Of course, you are working within an existing organization, so you need to be a champion of the change among those who are already there. This is gets harder with each person who either doesn’t want to change or doesn’t understand the change being required. Remember when we checked in on who wanted this transformation?

No. The more I think of it, I don’t want to be in charge of an Agile Transformation.

There is something I do want though.

I want to help companies discover what’s holding them back.

I want to sit with teams and help them understand that their work can be less stressful.

I want to help connect product users and product creators so they can partner to create the best possible product.

I want to be the gardener as Agile concepts grow into new ways of working in an organization.

When an organization looks back and realizes they are delivering better products more quickly and with less stress, I want to hear “We did this,” not “you did this.”

September 4 2020

The Song That Never Ends

AdamM Agile, Coaching, Meetings, Teams, Tools 0

Oh, we gather for the daily scrum in the morning now.

Oh, we present for the stakeholder group every week now.

Oh, we plan together for the next week after that now.

We reflect and optimize our work now.

Next sprint, same as the last one.

Sure we are agile but what has changed?

If this sounds familiar you are not alone. Every team gets into a funk at one time or another. A seemingly endless pattern of the same meetings over and over is enough to drive any team to the brink of insanity.

Team members take vacations, and it helps. Unfortunately, you can end up with the team in a pattern that no longer delivers the results expected. No matter what “flavor” of agile your organization has settled on (hopefully a custom one based on your particular need and talents but guided by work done before by others) it needs to be shaken up from time to time.

The best place to pattern-interrupt an agile team is the retrospective. In fact, that is part of the purpose of the retrospective. No team improves by sticking to the exact same pattern week after week. Inspecting that pattern nd presenting ideas for change should be the primary focus during a retrospective. It isn’t a time to examine the work product for improvement, that’s what demos and planning meetings are for. It’s a time to inspect the work process and improve that.

Who should be switching it up though? Whether your team is new to agile or high-performing the answer is the same, their agile coach. In the scrum methodology, this is often the scrum master. Without either of those roles, there should be someone who is championing the change from previous project processes to a more agile approach. That person would also be an option. If they’re too bogged down by their various roles, the person who facilitates the retrospective, or an outside facilitator/coach. I am more than happy to help in this regard, contact me for a conversation.

It can be tough to know how to switch up a retrospective, especially for newer teams. One easy idea is framing the conversations as a journey. The team is on a journey, sailing across a lake to deliver their goods. How was the weather? The waves? Did anything on the boat break? Did the destination change? Simply shifting people to look at the project from a different perspective is often a way to get them noticing new things, and opening them up.

More involved variations are also available, there are people selling kits that turn the retrospective into a mini-game. I am a huge fan of gamification and recommend you look to these for some inspiration.

If a team falls into a rut they can lose some of what usually makes agile processes really work. This is something to avoid, and retrospectives are only one way to avoid it. I’d be happy to get together, discover where you are in your agile journey, and help you get further faster. Ask for a free consultation today!

Diverse Multiethnic People with Different Jobs

August 28 2020

Cross-Functional?

AdamM Agile, Agile Fluency, Coaching, Teams 0

There aren’t many people in the Agile space who will tell you a cross-functional team is a bad idea. It’s harder to get them to explain precisely what that means.

Does it mean any given person on the team can do any given task? That every person on the team can do every task? Should we expect subpar work from a team filled with generalists?

In truth, this is not as big of a question mark as it used to be. Agile methods have been around long enough that people are starting to understand how they work regardless of framework, methodology, process, or even accreditation body.

Still, people are being introduced to agile concepts for the first time every day. Some of them are in technology, but many of them may be from other disciplines that are just starting to realize the benefits found in software development can be applied to them as well.

Of course, the question still remains for them, and sometimes ourselves, will we get quality work from a cross-functional team? The short answer is – yes.

As you may expect from the name, a cross-functional team is a team that can handle every function needed to accomplish the work given to them. What isn’t readily apparent is that this goes beyond the capabilities of individual team members to perform tasks. The truly cross-functional team that can accomplish all the work it’s given is also an empowered team. They have the power to remove blockers, make decisions, and work more closely with people outside the team that they need to.

That said, the team can accomplish every task they need. Note, it is the team that can accomplish this – not specific individuals.

One way to think of this is with the concept of a “Generalizing Specialist.” This is not a hard concept to get once you realize what it means. In fact, almost every single programmer is already a generalizing specialist to some degree. Developers have to create code that works. After they write some code, they test it to know if it works. While this is never as exhaustive as testing you get from a dedicated QA team, it is a level of testing nonetheless. As a team works together longer, these connections become stronger. QA specialists may learn how to write limited amounts of code, assisting the developers with troubleshooting. Developers will get better at asking relevant questions assisting product owners in gathering requirements. Product owners will learn about testing as they prepare for demos, assisting QA teams in their work.
Beyond getting work done, these cross-functional teams should also be empowered. If a development team needs a new database server, they should have the ability to get one up and running without going through months of red tape. When a product owner sees the backlog getting short, they need the ability to approach the customer and gather more requirements without having to sit and wait for a team of public relations personnel or lawyers to give them permission.

In case it hasn’t become clear yet, for a team to truly become cross-functional, they need something from the company they work within. They need its trust.

Trust is essential for a team to become cross-functional, high-performing, or just generally excel. This seemingly obvious concept is surprisingly difficult for many companies. On the one hand, the company is spending half million to a million dollars a year for this team to produce software for them. On the other hand, that’s a lot of money to not keep a close eye on.

What many agile frameworks, methodologies, and processes are really trying to do is create an environment conducive to this trust. They almost universally include things like rapid feedback, and close interaction between the business, the developers, and the customer.

If your organization is struggling to establish this trust, let me help. Contact me today for an initial conversation on your needs. We’ll walk away knowing how I can help you and holding the next step of an action plan.

August 20 2020

Getting the Win is Worth the Work

AdamM Agile, Coaching, Teams 0

Much like artists love the satisfaction of presenting a finished work, many people find themselves in IT/IS because they love solving problems. Also, just like art, IT/IS work can be deceivingly difficult.

Even the smallest problems can end up taking a very large amount of time to solve. However, seeing the relief on the client’s face when you deliver a product that solves their problem makes everything worth it.

Every project goes through highs and lows. While experiencing them, the highs always feel fleeting, and the lows drag on for a long time. This is true even when the lows truly are fleeting. Remembering why you’re doing a project can be difficult during these lows. Getting a team through these lows is just one thing an agile coach can help out with.

During retrospectives, we tend to focus on the challenges. Sure, we mention an accomplishment, but generally, we don’t spend a long time acknowledging it before we concentrate on how to overcome lows and prevent more from happening. In some parts of a project cycle, this can result in a negative feedback loop where everyone on the team spends their time in meetings focused on the lows. That results in people not wanting to attend the meetings, contributing less when in the meetings, and being drained by the time they leave them.

The answer isn’t to stop addressing challenges during retrospectives, that’s a big part of what they are there for. The difficulty is in finding balance. When things are generally going well, it’s easy for a team to look at the one or two issues and how to fix them. When the project feels as if it’s falling apart, it gets harder to look at just one or two specific problems. This is the balance a coach can help with.

During tough times the team needs help focusing on only the right problems and replacing the other problems with successes, no matter how small. Trying to solve all the problems at once results in slow progress. Problems get worse and potentially cascade to more. Slow progress and more problems demoralize the team and result in slower progress – a negative feedback loop. Working through these problems one at a time allows the team to focus on them and solve them faster and more effectively. Each solved problem means fewer problems in front of the team at the next retrospective. It also turns into a win.

It’s tough to remember while you’re in the low part of a project, but all projects have them, and they always pass. This is part of doing the work. Even though this is generally a small part of a project, it almost always feels like that largest part. Getting through this is 80% of getting through doing the work. Doing the work delivers the win, and that is always a rewarding moment.

I can help your teamwork through problems and find the other side of a low point in their project. Contact me now to set up a free initial coaching session where we’ll discover your needs and how well we can fit together to address them.