Ed O’Shaughnessy @agileeddie Go forth and self-organise! strategies & tactics for building great teams | https://confengine.com/last-conference-melbourne-2017/proposal/4080/go-forth-and-self-organise-easier-said-than-done

About me {ed | eddie | edmund} I’m an Agile Coach & Change Agent within the Global Development DevOps team at Computershare I (try to) help people work together more effectively When I’m not being disruptive and typing up Post-It notes, you can find me lurking @agileeddie All views expressed or implied are mine, and do not represent any organisation or anyone else, past, present or in the future of this or any other timeline

https://flic.kr/p/5Hd9pq

#5 Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done #11 The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams Agile Manifesto Principles: http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

“Scrum Teams are self-organizing and cross-functional. Self-organizing teams choose how best to accomplish their work, rather than being directed by others outside the team… The team model in Scrum is designed to optimize flexibility, creativity, and productivity.” “Development Teams have the following characteristics: They are self-organizing. No one (not even the Scrum Master) tells the Development Team how to turn Product Backlog into Increments of potentially releasable functionality” “The Scrum Master serves the Development Team in several ways, including: Coaching the Development Team in self-organization and cross-functionality” “The Development Team self-organizes to undertake the work in the Sprint Backlog, both during Sprint Planning and as needed throughout the Sprint” “By the end of the Sprint Planning, the Development Team should be able to explain to the Product Owner and Scrum Master how it intends to work as a self-organizing team to accomplish the Sprint Goal and create the anticipated Increment” “Every day, the Development Team should understand how it intends to work together as a self-organizing team to accomplish the Sprint Goal and create the anticipated Increment by the end of the Sprint” The Scrum Guide™ http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html

Why Teams?

Team Efficacious Timely Affordable Trusted Value Feedback Customer 1 Great Outcomes 2 Improving Capability 3 Fulfilling Work

An identity and coherence as an actual team Clear boundaries / guiderails A compelling direction that sets the team’s focus Interdependent work to achieve collective outcomes Enabling team structure that facilitates teamwork Membership stability over reasonable period Supportive organisational context & Coaching What Makes a Team a Team?

Let’s Form A Team…

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• Form into teams, take a team name • You are wordsmiths creating new words for demanding authors • You have 2 minutes • Note the first and last letters of each person’s given/first name on your team, e.g. edmund • Create the longest word you can from these letters of your team • Compare results

An identity and coherence as an actual team Clear boundaries / guiderails A compelling direction that sets the team’s focus Interdependent work to achieve collective outcomes Enabling team structure that facilitates teamwork Membership stability over reasonable period Supportive organisational context & Coaching How Did We Do?

Why Self-organising?

“As the nature of software continues to shift towards continuous delivery, we are able to create a new type of conversation with the marketplace – a continuous one. We deploy products, observe, measure, interview, learn, and optimize in hours, not months. Decisions are made quickly. Directions shift overnight” https://hbr.org/2014/11/bring-agile-to-the-whole-organization

An appropriate set of skills and knowledge Collective ownership and accountability Control over work methods, team structure and coordination strategies Feedback about how well the team is performing Monitoring the environment and adapting its working methods accordingly Behavioural boundaries (core norms of conduct) What Enables Teams To Self-organise?

Let’s Experiment With Our Team…

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• You have 2 minutes • < A surprise! > • Note the second and penultimate letters of each person’s given/first name on your team, e.g. edmund • Create the longest word you can from all these letters of your team • < Maybe another surprise! > • Compare results

An appropriate set of skills and knowledge Collective ownership and accountability Control over work methods, team structure and coordination strategies Feedback about how well the team is performing Monitoring the environment and adapting its working methods accordingly Behavioural boundaries (core norms of conduct) How Did We Do?

How Might We Improve?

Inspection Transparency Adaptation

SAFETY RESPECT HONESTY COURAGE TRUST Inspection Transparency Adaptation

Psychological safety is a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up. It describes a team climate characterized by interpersonal trust and mutual respect in which people are comfortable being themselves. Amy Edmondson Psychological safety and learning behaviour in work teams https://flic.kr/p/i8nEz

Building Healthy Teams

Explore and Sustain Self & Team Reflection What Does Success Look Like in X Months? What do you bring to the team? What Makes a Great Team? What do you need to be personally successful? What do you expect from your team? What Would Abject Failure Look Like in X Months? What’s important to you & What pisses you off?

https://www.questionwritertracker.com/quiz/61/Z4MK3TKB.html

http://www.owlfoxdean.com/leadership-canvas

http://theteamcanvas.com/

Endorse Agree with reservations Disagree – cannot support Block “I like it and support it” “I can live with it and support it: I do have some concerns “I wouldn’t stop the group, but I don’t want to be involved” “I veto this proposal” 1 2 3 4 Agreement Scale for Making Decisions https://www.ebgconsulting.com/Pubs/Articles/DecideHowToDecide-Gottesdiener.pdf

Let’s Improve Our Team…

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• You have 5 minutes • Reflect on how you worked as a team • What were your frustrations? • Of all the improvements that could be made which are within your ‘Circle of Control’? • Use the ‘Agreement Scale’ to decide what changes your team wants to make?

How Might You…

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Concern Influence Control Can directly control the situation to obtain desired outcomes No direct control but can influence / persuade others to do what you need to achieve You are concerned about the situation but have no direct or indirect control over it You respond to events Move into your control Focus on Your Circle of Control http://bioteamsmicroblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/control-versus-influence-versus-concern.html

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Measuring Team Performance

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PROFILE YOUR SYSTEM … THEN OPTIMISE

Cycle Time Throughput WIP (Inventory) Escaped Defects (Rework) NPS Team Morale

Recommended Reading

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References 1: Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances. Richard Hackman http://a.co/9cePVl7 What Makes for a Great Team? Richard Hackman http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2004/06/hackman.aspx What Are Self-Organising Teams? Sigi Kaltenecker & Peter Hundermark https://www.infoq.com/articles/what-are-self-organising-teams Psychological safety and learning behaviour in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2). 1999. Amy Edmondson http://web.mit.edu/curhan/www/docs/Articles/15341_Readings/Group_Performance/Edmondson%20Psychological%20safety.pdf Bring Agile to the Whole Organization. Jeff Gothelf https://hbr.org/2014/11/bring-agile-to-the-whole-organization Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy, Amy Edmondson https://amzn.com/078797093X Building a psychologically safe workplace: Amy Edmondson at TEDxHGSE https://youtu.be/LhoLuui9gX8 What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team. The New York Times Magazine, 25 Feb 2016. Charles Duhigg http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html The five keys to a successful Google team, Julia Rozovsky https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/ 3 ways to promote psychological safety in your team, Dr Todd Hall http://drtoddhall.com/3-ways-to-promote-psychological-safety-in-your-team/

References 2: Developmental Sequence in Small Groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63(6). 1965. Bruce Tuckman http://openvce.net/sites/default/files/Tuckman1965DevelopmentalSequence.pdf Reading the Mind in the Eyes test (Note, needs Java and Flash to run) https://www.questionwritertracker.com/quiz/61/Z4MK3TKB.html The Personal Leadership Canvas http://www.owlfoxdean.com/leadership-canvas The Team Canvas http://theteamcanvas.com/ Decide How to Decide, Software Development Magazine, vol. 9, no. 1. Ellen Gottesdiener https://www.ebgconsulting.com/Pubs/Articles/DecideHowToDecide-Gottesdiener.pdf How to build trust? Break it first. Julie Diamond http://juliediamond.net/home-page-blog/2065/ Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition, Lyssa Adkins http://a.co/bUl15W2 The People's Scrum: Agile Ideas for Revolutionary Transformation, Tobias Mayer http://a.co/8p6mfRG http://www.flaticon.com/packs/ Icons designed by Freepik www.flickr.com Photographs c

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