3 Simple Habits of a Highly Effective Team

3
Simple Habits
Of a Highly Effective Team
Andy Harjanto
http://andyharjanto.com

Thousands of Studies
On Team Behaviors, Morale, Motivations
I’m not interested in
repeating any of these

All of these based on
My 20 years of experience working
with a team of..
Big and Small
Local and Global
Fortune 500 & Small Company
As Developer or Program Manager or Architect or Consultant or Testers or Founder
Used daily by 100s millions of users or only 10 users
Used by Enterprise or End Users

Many Studies and Research offer
too many broad recommendations
Let’s be real and specific

Let’s focus on ThreeCritical Behaviors

You just need to remember this word
POT

But not this kind…
It’s a kind that make
your team fly high
in auto pilot mode

P OT
rogress

You heard this so many times
“We are making progress”

But, do really we know exactlywhat progress we made and how and when was achieved?

Human Brains
Let’s make them activeand happy
frequent, smallexciting activities,
accomplishments

Milestone
Hmm…,
It seems
miles and miles
away
3 months?
6 months?
9 months?

When was the last time
you predict milestone date
correctly?

And in the mean time,
the world, technologyare changing

1 week
That’s your
milestone
microstone

That’s short and frequent enough
to remember team’s accomplishments
..and long enough to get a meaningful
task completed

Work Items
..each belongs to one of these buckets
This Week
Not This Week

For a large work item, cut it into pieces
It has no more than a week worth work

Simplify. Don’t prioritize
Just focus on these two buckets
Prioritization
Problem:Low priority items
never get done

30 minutes
a day
That’s all the team needs …

to review new, existing work items, to bucketize,
and to celebrate accomplishments

Keep Focus on the destination, make sure
you don’t go the wrong way

It’s much better
to score many small wins
frequently than
one big one
onlyonce

Still,
The Biggest Factor Affecting ProgressIs
Human
Factor

Progress Expectancy for
Each Individual
Culture-Fit.Talent.Drive
Yet another topic for future discussions

1 week
Let’s repeat
microstone
P forPROGRESS
2 buckets
for work-items
30 minutes
daily meeting

POT
wnership

Having a Sense of Belonging is a Crucial
Factor in Team Morale

Individual Contribution To The Team
plays important role in shapingup sense of belonging

Problems are everywhere…

inspire your team the culture of…

veni,
vidi,
vici

Let’s translates it into a contemporary
interpretation…

I see
the problem
I own
the problem
I solve
the problem

How?
Follow these 4 simple steps

Step
When you see a problem…
1
Write the problem
On a..
hallway whiteboard,Or shared databaseOr shared medium

Discuss the problem
in team’s
30 min
daily meeting
Step
2

Step
3
1Owner
assign
Every work item has one and only one ownerat any given time

And don’t forget
to put work item
in the right bucket
which implicitly
implies when the
resolution is
expected

Owner is now
responsible for
finding solutions
within the expected
timeframe
Step
4
*Owner can work with others

Tell the team
about accomplishments
and celebrate
a little victory

Don’t fall into this trap

Debating countless hours to make
decisions
Many decisions are reversible andhave little impact on the final results

Writing a book/heavy spec
to impress your team
Things are moving so fast, it willbe obsolete by the time you finish
<10 slides are sufficient for explainingproblems, proposing customer experience
and describing solutions

Hang on to your ego?
Team relies on you as owner to deliver
results on time. If you can’t deliver, pass thebaton as early as possible

3vs
Let’s
summarize
(vini,vedi,vici)
Culture
O forOwnership
1 owner
for a given work item
4 steps
solving problems
write, discuss, assign, solve

POT
ransparency

Transparency
a foreign concept
in workplace

Concerns over information leak,
spreading bad news and chaos

Online Users Are
Used To Transparenciesfor Years
Self-Expression
Social-Circles
Broadcast Yourself
Sharing Content
Present Yourself
Sharing Pictures
Your Story

Instant Notifications
Always Connected
Self-Reporting
Breaking News
Help Others
Low cost distribution
The results are undeniable
Immediate Feedback
Knowledge Sharing
Engaging
Quick Answers
Mobility

What’s wrong with this picture…

Low value information consumed
by many with great interest

Yet, high value information is
hard to find in the work place
John just copied and shared
a document to a server
No one notice until
they visit the server

However, constant stream of updates,
like facebook, may not work in business settings well
Why?

Online user can browse, dismiss
low value updates in
social networkingsettings
Heavy streams
of data hardly
matter

In workplace, high value updates require
attention and possibly actions
Predictable, low volume of updates are preferable

Grouping is the natural way for a teamto partition and collaborate
Sales
Engineer
Manufacture
Management
Transparency within a group is not only desirable, but
it also reduces amount of information to process

This is another good reason you should
break organization into a smaller group
12
..don’t get larger than

Activities to Capture
…for all group members to see or be notified
Uploading new documents
People joining group
Completing Work
New Work Items
Updating data
What on your mind updates
Creating Data
Comments

Get Everybody To Engage in Activities
Edit
Comments
Vote
Publish

G
Let’s
summarize
rouping
design for small size
T forTransparency
CapturingActivities
IncreaseParticipation

Now
We’re all
well-connected,
well-informed,
driven toward
one goal
Get Things Done!

So, remember this word
POT
Progress
Transparency
Ownership

Next time, you hear:
“My team sucks”
Tell them:
“Quick, get them addicted to POT”

For more presentation like this, visit,
follow, subscribe to:
Blog: http://www.andyharjanto.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/harjanto
Contact: andy@guppers.com
A service that uses POT as the foundation:
http://www.guppers.com

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3 Simple Habits of a Highly Effective Team

by Andy Harjanto on Sep 06, 2009

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