Team Thermometer in 45 mins

We will give you some of the tools and techniques we use to assess how teams are performing. In this workshop we'll discuss some of the key features of high performing teams and the metrics you can measure to identify how to help boost team performance.

This session is an express introduction to Armakuni's sold out workshop at the Agile Scotland conference March 2020.

Transcript

1. armakuni.com Agile Scotland: Team Thermometers Billie Thompson & Tim Long @ArmakuniHQ & @PurpleBooth
2. What’s the real state of play? 2 Sometimes messages can get mixed as they get reported through a chain of people, and just like a watermelon, it can be green on the outside (management meeting), and red on the inside (the daily standup). In a business it’s a bit more serious than at breakfast. Without clear feedback loops it’s not possible to make effective change. We can help you make the intangible tangible, and measure not only features delivered, but culture and capabilities as well. Have you heard of Watermelon Reporting?
3. Understanding and measuring team health
4. Who we are Billie Thompson Senior Consulting Engineer Billie Thompson specialises in Cloud Native software development, DevOps and Day2Operations. With a background spanning multiple programming languages Billie is a true polyglot developer, comfortable architecting microservice application, building and supporting infrastructure platforms and coaching teams to adopt new technologies and practices. @PurpleBooth 4 Timothy Long Consulting Software Engineer Tim is a technically proficient software engineer with experience working in agile environments. He has a keen interest in trying out new ways of working as a team to improve productivity whilst maintaining sustainable pace. He is passionate about learning and engaging with others to achieve end goals with best practice techniques and the most effective technology.
5. The Armakuni Way Stop relying on anecdotes and start collecting data Technology Assessment What technology problems are holding you back Cultural Assessment Using scientific research learn your teams mindset Organisational Technical Strategy Now we know what the problem is, we help steward your technical asset Capability Uplift Give your teams additional capabilities Organisational Sheep Dip Allow the wider organisation insight Embedding a culture of change Empower your teams with by enabling experiments Baseline Metrics Metrics Prove Outcome
6. What we will take you through Content • AWKSS • Westrum • 4 Key metrics (Accelerate) • Lencioni’s 5 dysfunctions of a team
7. What are you hoping to learn? What do you want out of the session? • Write it on a post it and stick it on the wall
8. AWKSS
9. Awareness Is this thing on my radar? Have I heard of it? Willing Given what I know about it right now, is it something that I am willing to try or use? Or am I disregarding it completely already? Knowledge Am I a novice, or an expert that people could approach for help? Skills Do I have the skills required to do this? Support Do I feel I have a support network to assist me with this? Will my team/organisation be open to me using this? If I required further training, would it be made available?
10. Before Awareness Willing Knowledge Skills Support 1 2 3 4 5
11. After Awareness Willing Knowledge Skills Support 1 2 3 4 5
12. Westrum Typology
13. 13 Westrum Typology • Created by Ron Westrum in 2004 • Categorises organisations in terms of how their culture affects safety and performance • 3 categories in the Westrum model: Pathological, Bureaucratic and Generative • Predicts how an organisation will react in a crisis
14. 14 Westrum Typology Work out how your organisation will cope in a crisis Pathological (power-oriented) Bureaucratic (rule-oriented) Generative (performance-oriented) Low co-operation Modest co-operation High co-operation Messengers shot Messengers neglected Messengers trained Responsibilities shirked Narrow responsibilities Risks are shared Bridging discouraged Bridging tolerated Bridging encouraged Failure leads to scapegoating Failure leads to justice Failure leads to enquiry Novelty crushed Novelty leads to problems Novelty implemented 1) Westrum, Ron. (2005). A Typology of Organisational Cultures. Quality & safety in health care. 13 Suppl 2. ii22-7. 10.1136/qhc.13.suppl_2.ii22.
15. 15 Encapsulation Suppression Public Relations Local Fix Global fix Inquiry Suppression - Harming or stopping the person bringing the anomaly to light; “shooting the messenger” Encapsulation - Isolating the messenger, so that the message is not heard Public relations - Putting the message “in context” to minimise its impact Local fix - Responding to the presenting case, but ignoring the possibility of others elsewhere Global fix - An attempt to respond to the problem wherever it exists. Common in aviation Inquiry - Attempting to get to the “root causes” of the problem 1) Westrum, Ron. (2005). A Typology of Organisational Cultures. Quality & safety in health care. 13 Suppl 2. ii22-7. 10.1136/qhc.13.suppl_2.ii22. Westrum Typology A Prediction of crisis response
16. Facilitator Notes Ask them to rate on a scale of 1 to 7: • Information is actively sought. • Responsibilities are shared. • Cross-functional collaboration is encouraged or rewarded. • Failure causes enquiry. • New ideas are welcomed. • Failures are treated primarily as opportunities to improve the system. Information classification: Internal 16 Using this for a team
17. Facilitator Notes Where 1 to 7 means: 1. Strongly Disagree 2. Disagree 3. Somewhat Disagree 4. Neither Agree nor Disagree 5. Somewhat Agree 6. Agree 7. Strongly Agree Information classification: Internal 17 Using this for a team
18. Facilitator Notes This is primarily useful as a discussion point, and to set expectations of what people can achieve change wise. In order to move the needle on this Ron Westrum says we have to fire the boss. Now that’s not practical (for most of us). Thankfully some research from Nicole Forsgren says we can also become more generative by implementing DevOps practices. Information classification: Internal 18 What can I do with this result
19. Facilitator Notes With this you can predict how the people around this team will interact with your intervention with the team. • Pathological cultures will try to shut you down • Bureaucratic cultures will try to manage you • Generative cultures will embrace you You will see these behaviours in the interactions with people that you see in the team. Information classification: Internal 19 Predicting responses
20. In Real Life: What happens when a build fails?
21. A Pathological Response Who broke the build?! An investigation is done to identify who caused the build to fail. When they have been identified they are instructed to fix it ASAP. An investigation is held to find out if any external teams or customers were affected by the failure. The developer at fault is told to write up how they caused the build to fail. The developer is told to be more careful, and is now required to get his work reviewed by two more senior developers before it can be released.
22. A Bureaucratic Response Who broke the build?! An investigation is done to identify who caused the build to fail. When they have been identified they are instructed to fix it ASAP. A more senior member of the team investigates the build failure to find out its cause, and whether any requirements on the build checklist had failed to have been carried out. The developer who caused the failure is informed of their mistake, and a new rule/requirements is put into place that must be passed before a new build can be triggered.
23. A Generative Response Down tools! The priority is for the team to fix the broken build. All current development work stops until the build is green again. At the end of the current iteration, the team have a blameless post-mortem. They discuss what led to the build becoming broken and what the best plan of action might be to prevent it from breaking again. The team shared lessons learned with other teams and they are built in to other teams’ pipelines and processes.
24. Westrum Worksheet
25. 4 Key metrics (Accelerate)
26. The Book • Based on the State of Devops Report • Based on studies spanning multiple years and thousands of respondents • Key Metrics identified have a causal relation to the performance of teams and the financial performance of companies • Collection and analysis of the data follows a rigorous statistical approach
27. 27 DevOps Metrics Measuring a team’s performance Lead Time for change e.g. 1 day Deployment Frequency E.g. a couple of times a day Mean Time to Recovery e.g. 7 Hours Change Failure Percentage e.g. 20% It is important to be able to measure at all levels of an organisation. These allow us to view individual team performance With this baselined we can begin to experiment!
28. Lencioni
29. Lencioni RESULTS ACCOUNTABILITY COMMITMENT CONFLICT TRUST To take Accountability takes prior Commitment Focus on delivering measurable Results. Collective and individual accountability, and feedback Commitment follows healthy conflict Healthy Conflict implies Candid Debate Building Trust requires Vulnerability Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team
30. 30 Lencioni model The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Work out each team’s unique strengths and areas for improvement. RESULTS COMMITMENT CONFLICT TRUST ACCOUNTABILITY
31. Lencioni Worksheet
32. Exercise!
33. 33 Make the metrics visible
34. Lencioni Online Team Assessment https://www.tablegroup.com/
35. Project Aristotle • Started by Google in 2012 • Study covered hundreds of teams • Lots of Patterns but none of them fit easily • Not what they did but how they felt? • ‘‘equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking.’’ How can you build the perfect team?
36. 36 https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/understanding-team-effectiveness/steps/identify-dynamics-of-effective-teams/
37. AWKSS
38. After Awareness Willing Knowledge Skills Support 1 2 3 4 5
39. Thanks! @ArmakuniHQ @PurpleBooth hello@armakuni.com