Dream teams - making your dream (team) come true

Dream Teams: Making Your
Dream (Team) Come True
Ron Lichty | Ron Lichty Consulting
Ron@RonLichty.com | www.ronlichty.com

Ron Lichty,
Managing Software People & Teams
SOFTWEST
Ron@RonLichty.com 2
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come True

Coauthor, Study of Product Team Performance
http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html
3(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come TrueRon@RonLichty.com

Addison Wesley: http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come True
4Ron@RonLichty.com

Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*
* 300 in the book / more at http://managingtheunmanageable.net/morerulesofthumb.html

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. --Fred Brooks
•  I don’t care how good a team is today; if they
aren’t better a year from now, they’re not
agile. --Mike Cohn
* 300 in the book / more: http://managingtheunmanageable.net/morerulesofthumb.html
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come True 6Ron@RonLichty.com

Agenda
•  Teams
–  and dream teams
•  Agile Practices
–  and agile values
•  Doing Agile
–  and being agile
•  Fostering Greatness
–  Practice Greatness

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.p

•  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?
Teams

“It isn’t teamwork that is difﬁcult.
“It’s initiating teamwork in a world of
business that is antagonistic toward
teamwork [that is difﬁcult].”
--Christopher Avery,
Teamwork Is an Individual Skill
Teams

Agile

Agile Practices

Agile Practices Deliver Value
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come True 13
By 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
Ron@RonLichty.com

•  Plan Daily
•  Plan Weekly (or biweekly or…)
•  Plan Publicly & Transparently
•  Order Work Based on Customer Value
•  Together deﬁne “Done”
•  Relatively Size Stories
•  Deliver Frequently
•  Share how we’re doing
•  Reﬂect on how to do better(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come True 14Ron@RonLichty.com

•  Standups
–  Standups matter:
–  Effective, Daily Standups
--2015 Study of Product Team Performance

•  Deﬁnitions of Done
–  Deﬁnitions of Done matter:
–  Created within the team
--2016 Study of Product Team Performance

Voting Machines Deliver Value, too
18(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come True
By Seattle Municipal Archives from Seattle, WA (Voting machine, 1971)
[CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Ron@RonLichty.com

•  But voting machines don’t make us a
democracy

•  But voting machines don’t make us a
democracy
•  Democracy emanates from
–  Values
–  Principles

Similarly…
Agile Practices Don’t Make Us Agile
Agile Practices Don’t Deliver Great Teams

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/

individuals

Self-Organizing Teams

•  For a team to self-organize,...
– everyone has to participate
– every team member must step up

•  If our self-organizing team were an
acting troupe, …
What kind of acting do we do?

acting troupe, …
•  If our self-organizing team were a
music group, …
What kind of music do we perform?

acting troupe, …
•  If our self-organizing team were a
music group, …
What kind of music do we perform?
•  Who is the leader?

Best Teams
•  A relationship? between
– Agile Values
•  Shared Leadership
•  Self-Organizing Teams
– Best Team characteristics

Agile Values ßà Best Teams?
individuals

Projects Not Suitable for Agile?

•  Micromanagement

•  Micromanagement disrupts Agile
•  Micromanagement prevents Best Teams
•  Micromanagement prevents Learning
•  Micromanaged teams become order-takers

•  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

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

•  Managers of teams
•  Project managers
•  Program managers
•  Scrum masters
•  Product managers?
•  Product owners?
Shared Leadership… and Managers

•  What do all those managers have in common?

Agile: “Servant Leaders”

•  Traditionally, managers:
–  run things
–  give direction
–  tell people what to do
–  like being the center of attention

“If you’re the ScrumMaster and everyone is
looking at you, you’re doing it wrong.”
--Marilson Campos

the Agile Manager Squeeze
youyouyouyou
herehereherehere
areareareare
OrganizationalOrganizationalOrganizationalOrganizational
ChangesChangesChangesChanges
My JobMy JobMy JobMy Job
TeamTeamTeamTeam
Peer & PartnerPeer & PartnerPeer & PartnerPeer & Partner
LeadershipLeadershipLeadershipLeadership
Welcome to Agile!
--Agile Learning Labs, Laura Powers

The Problem for People Managers:
ScrumTeam.jpg (from Exploring Scrum- the Fundamentals, by Dan Rawsthorne & Doug Shimp)
Ron@RonLichty.com (c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come True 43

The Problem:
Where Is the Manager?
ScrumTeam.jpg (from Exploring Scrum- the Fundamentals, by Dan Rawsthorne & Doug Shimp)Ron@RonLichty.com (c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come True 44

Managers and Agile
•  Fostering an Agile Culture
•  Modeling, Defending, Evangelizing Agile
Values
•  Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence

Managers and Agile
Values
•  Removing Impediments

Managers and Agile
Values
•  Counseling, Coaching and Mentoring
•  Scaling Scrum
•  Hiring and Firing

Managers and Agile
Values

Creating an Agile Culture
•  Theory Y: “enabling”, “empowering”, “developmental",
“continuous improvement” -> Servant Leadership
McGregor's X-Y Theory
49(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come True
Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams , http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net
Ron@RonLichty.com

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

Delegation & Empowerment
•  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.

Trust but verify.


53
Trust but verify.

-RONALD REAGAN
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making Your Dream Team Come TrueRon@RonLichty.com

54
Trust but verify.

-RONALD REAGAN quo-ng VLADIMIR LENIN

–  imperative not to micromanage
–  the essence of delegation
–  setting expected outcomes for teams
55
Trust but verify.


56
Trust but verify.

I inspect what I expect.
- ALAN LEFKOF, Netopia CEO, quo-ng LOU GERSTNER

Creating an Agile Culture
•  Establishing Culture
57
http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net

Managers and Agile
When teams self-organize there's still plenty for
managers to do... a manager’s job is to
engineer the organization so that teams can do
their best work.
--Esther Derby, co-founder, Scrum Alliance

Managers and Agile
•  Removing Distractions and Impediments
Be a damper to the noise. --Joe Kleinschmidt, CTO
John Evans, Winchester, Hants, United Kingdom, www.thetippingpoint.co.uk

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

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

Communication
62
You cannot overcommunicate.

-RON LICHTY

Virtual Teams
•  There is never enough communication
•  Commitment to communicate
•  No substitute for face-to-face meetings
63
The more distance between teammates, the more
you have to formalize communication and make it
explicit.
-TED YOUNG, Development Manager & Agile Coach, Guidewire

How Do We Foster Dream Teams?
•  Foster shared leadership & 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

Ron Lichty Consulting
•  Mentoring, coaching, training, consulting:
–  http://ronlichty.com, Ron@RonLichty.com
•  The book:
Managing the Unmanageable:
Rules, Tools & Insights for Managing Software People & Teams
–  http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----tools, excerpts, more rules of thumb
•  The video training:
LiveLessons: Managing Software People and Teams
–  http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net/video.html
•  The study:
The Study of Product Team Performance
–  http://ronlichty.com/study.html
•  Training:
The Agile Manager
Managing Software People and Teams
Zero to Agile in Three Days

Informit.com/lichty
Save 50% on Video Training
•  Use code VIDEO50
Save 35% on Book
•  Use code SWDEV35
•  Good on print, eBooks, and video
•  eBook ﬁles include PDF, EPUB, and MOBI
Offer only good at informit.com
66

Ron Lichty Consulting
•  Mentoring, coaching, training, consulting:
–  http://ronlichty.com, Ron@RonLichty.com
•  The book:
Managing the Unmanageable:
Rules, Tools & Insights for Managing Software People & Teams
–  http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----tools, excerpts, more rules of thumb
•  The video training:
LiveLessons: Managing Software People and Teams
–  http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net/video.html
•  The study:
The Study of Product Team Performance
–  http://ronlichty.com/study.html
•  Training:
The Agile Manager
Managing Software People and Teams
Zero to Agile in Three Days

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