The document summarizes a presentation about increasing team productivity by organizing around products rather than projects. It discusses brief history of approaches to productivity, measuring team performance, building social capital and trust within teams, and using Kanban methods like visualizing work and limiting work-in-progress to improve flow. The presentation describes a case study where a client used Scrum and Kanban principles to transition outsourced developers and an in-house team into a cohesive tribe with increased predictability, trust, and productivity.

1.
BW5
Session
6/5/2013 2:15 PM
"Organizing by Products, Not
Projects: Increasing Your Ability to
Deliver"
Presented by:
Rob Maher
Rob Maher Consulting
Brought to you by:
340 Corporate Way, Suite 300, Orange Park, FL 32073
888‐268‐8770 ∙ 904‐278‐0524 ∙ sqeinfo@sqe.com ∙ www.sqe.com

2. Rob Maher
Rob Maher Consulting
Rob Maher is a Microsoft Visual Studio ALM MVP and Agile Development coach, a Lean
Kanban University accredited kanban trainer, and a founding Professional Scrum Trainer
with Scrum.org. With more than fifteen years of software development experience, Rob has a
history of leading change in large organizations, helping them transition to Scrum and improve
their software development lifecycle using solid ALM practices. A frequent speaker at industry
events worldwide, Rob provides Scrum, kanban and software development training and
consultancy across SE Asia. Rob’s experience includes working as a ScrumMaster, helping
teams implement kanban, coaching teams in Scrum and software development practices, and
helping testers master automated testing techniques.

3. Turbocharge Your
Turbocharge Your
Team’s Productivity
Increase your Ability to Deliver
y
y
Productivity
WWW.FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/ORCMID/3879260297/

4. Brief History of Team Productivity
Brief History of Team Productivity
People
work at the slowest ‘unpunished’ rate
should have $ linked to output to increase productivity
should have frequent breaks and good pay
can be draft animals
can be ‘draft animals’

5. Brief History of Team Productivity
Brief History of Team Productivity
1. Constancy of purpose
y p p
8. Drive out fear
2. Adopt a win‐win philosophy
9. Break down barriers
3. Cease mass inspection
10. Eliminate slogans
4. Don’t award business by price
11. Eliminate quotas
5. Improve constantly
12. Remove barriers of joy
6. Institute training
6 Institute training
13. Education & self‐improvement
13 Education & self improvement
7. Adopt & Institute leadership
14. Everybody works on transition

6. Brief History of Team Productivity
Brief History of Team Productivity

7. Brief History of Team Productivity
Technology is making us dumber..
HTTP://WWW.FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/EMILIEP/346381107
Brief History of Team Productivity
HTTP://WWW.FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/AMIRJINA/2282812623

8. Brief History of Team Productivity
Measuring a Tribe
Individual Value
In
ndividual Se
ecurity
Tribal Security
y
Tribal Value
Ray Immelman

9. Brief History of Team Productivity
A New Theory Of Motivation
Autonomy
y
Time
Technique
Team
Mastery
Goldilocks Tasks
Create the right environment
Purpose
p
Communicate
Emphasize purpose over profit
Purpose words

10. Agile Productivity
HTTP://WWW.FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/ATOMICSHED/161716498/
Agile Productivity
Scrum says “Scrum Teams are self
says Scrum Teams are self‐
organizing”
Kanban says “Encourage acts of leadership
says Encourage acts of leadership
at every level in the organisation”

11. Social Capital
HTTP://WWW.FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/AMAGILL/3367543094
Social Capital
Structural
Relational
Cognitive

12. Advantages
Diminishes opportunism
Diminishes opportunism
Reduces need for monitoring
Reduces transaction costs
Difficult to imitate, true competitive advantage
Can’t be bought or traded unlike other forms of capital
Disadvantages
Group Think
Group Think
Homogeneity
Redundancy in sharing

13. Trust
Cognitive
Affective
Dispersions
HTTP://WWW.FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/SIMON/2254650518/

14. Dispersions
HTTP://WWW.FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/SIMON/2254650518/
Dispersions

15. Social Capital in a virtual team?
Client

16. Environment
Nov 2011
Nov 2011
In house BA & Test
Outsourced Development & Infrastructure
Multi Vendor environment
Low throughput for core system BAU and break fix
Low throughput for core system BAU and break fix
Is there a better way?
Perceptions

17. We want to be agile (Scrum)
Measuring the Tribes
Individual Value
In
ndividual Se
ecurity
Tribal Security
y
Tribal Value
Ray Immelman

18. Using the measurement
Urgency to change
Urgency to change
Involve outsiders
Look for new symbols
Hypothesis
Visualize work & explicit policies will
Visualize work & explicit policies will
accelerate cognitive trust leading to
accelerated affective Trust

19. The Team
3 BAs
3 BAs
4 Developers (vendor)
? Business Testers
2 IT Testers
2 IT T t
The Kanban Method

20. Kanban Method Principles
Start with what you do now
Start with what you do now
Agree to pursue incremental,
evolutionary change
Respect current roles, responsibilities & job titles
Encourage acts of leadership at
all levels in your organization
Kanban Method Practices
Visualize
Limit Work‐in‐Progress
Manage Flow
Make Policies Explicit
Implement Feedback
Implement Feedback
Loops
Improve Collaboratively
Evolve Experimentally
(using models and the scientific
method)

21. Benefits
Predictability
Trust – Social Capital has been created
Increased budget
Both sides value relationship – one tribe
B th id
l
l ti hi
t ib
Tribal belonging
Social Capital & Kanban
Accelerated Cognitive Trust
Accelerated Cognitive Trust
Work focused daily meetings

22. Ways to Increase Social Capital
Invest in it
Invest in it
Use a process that will build cognitive trust
Talk about trust
These are not team building exercises
g
Leadership styles
Staffing Models
Balanced Matrix
Balanced Matrix
Project organizations often place the
project at the centre
What if the team were at the centre?
What if the team were at the centre?

23. Why waste high social capital?
Case Study 2
Large NZ Insurer
Large NZ Insurer
Invested heavily in Scrum
Chasing self‐organizing teams
Moved from Project teams to permanent teams
Created a backlog of projects and assigned them to teams at
Created a backlog of projects and assigned them to teams at
the last moment

24. Pulling it all Together
Bruce Tuckman
Bruce Tuckman
W. Edwards Deming
Dan Pink
SOCIAL CAPITAL
Call to Action
Measure your tribe
Measure your ‘tribe’
Understand your teams’ Social Capital.
Invest in it
Who do you Trust?
Wh d
T t?