Ed O’Shaughnessy @agileeddie Go forth and self-organise! strategies & tactics for building great teams |

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

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 @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

16,000+ employees USD 535 billion in dividend and interest payments 500+ million customer interactions/transactions processed each year 13.9 million calls handled by our call centres each year 16,000 clients 21 countries ASX 20 65% Many of the world’s leading organisations use our services, including: DOW 30 77% Hang Seng Index 76% European ETF market 60% Canadian Transfer Agent market 66% ~8 billion Market cap of AUD 125 million shareholders and participants

250+ Applications 660+ Technologies 1,100+ Technology Staff 30+ Business Units

#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 #12 At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly 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

But first… 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…

• 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…

• You have 5 minutes • You are Wordsmiths creating new words for demanding Authors • < 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?

• You have 5 minutes • You are Wordsmiths creating new words for demanding Authors • < A surprise! > • Note the third and last-but-two 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?

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 circle Focus on Your Circle of Control http://bioteamsmicroblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/control-versus-influence-versus-concern.html

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 Performance…

• You have 5 minutes • Reflect on how you worked as a team • What were your frustrations? • What worked well? • Put your improvements on the Circles of Control, Influence or Concern • Use the ‘Agreement Scale’ to decide what changes your team wants to make?

Let’s Grow Our Team…

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?

• You have 5 minutes • In your teams explore the questions • Discuss these and note your insights • Share with everyone what you found • What was the biggest surprise for you? • What would be the easiest / hardest for you to use?

Building Healthy Teams

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

https://flic.kr/p/i8nEz http://www.midss.org/content/team-learning-and-psychological-safety-survey

Some Tools to Try

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

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

http://theteamcanvas.com/

How Might You…

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

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Measuring Team Performance

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PROFILE YOUR SYSTEM … THEN OPTIMISE

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

Team Team Performance Value Feedback Customer 1 Thruput & Cycle Time 2 NPS & Defects 3 Morale & WIP

NPS ESCAPED DEFECTS TEAM MORALE WIP (INVENTORY) THROUGHPUT CYCLE TIME Performance Dashboard Customer System Team https://vimeo.com/63687885

Recommended Reading

http://a.co/9cePVl7 http://a.co/8usHLSH http://a.co/64Miph1

Team Motivation Value Feedback Customer 1 Purpose 2 Mastery 3 Autonomy & Relatedness

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/ High-Performing Teams Need Psychological Safety. Here’s How to Create It https://hbr.org/2017/08/high-performing-teams-need-psychological-safety-heres-how-to-create-it 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: Design the Team You Need to Succeed, Christina Wodtke https://productcoalition.com/design-the-team-you-need-to-succeed-aeb98d396fcf Reading the Mind in the Eyes test (Note, needs Java and Flash to run) https://www.questionwritertracker.com/quiz/61/Z4MK3TKB.html Team Learning and Psychological Safety Survey http://www.midss.org/content/team-learning-and-psychological-safety-survey Completing this 30-minute exercise makes teams less anxious and more productive https://qz.com/1046131/writing-a-user-manual-at-work-makes-teams-less-anxious-and-more-productive/ 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/ The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni http://a.co/64Miph1 Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink http://a.co/h2YodwM Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition, Lyssa Adkins http://a.co/bUl15W2

References 3: The People's Scrum: Agile Ideas for Revolutionary Transformation, Tobias Mayer http://a.co/8p6mfRG Control? Influence? Concern? Know the difference or pay the price! Ken Thompson http://bioteamsmicroblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/control-versus-influence-versus-concern.html Devops Downunder, 2013. Jason Yip https://vimeo.com/63687885 Exploring Potential Drivers of Employee Engagement, Enablement, and Empowerment. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences. Vol 6, No 2 S1 (2015). Iman Permana et al http://www.mcser.org/journal/index.php/mjss/article/view/5940/5712 Developmental Sequence in Small Groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63(6). 1965. Bruce Tuckman http://openvce.net/sites/default/files/Tuckman1965DevelopmentalSequence.pdf Icons designed by Freepik http://www.flaticon.com/packs/ Photographs c www.flickr.com

Choice Team Accountability Empowerment Authority to Decide & Act Enablement Direction & Support Accountability Account for Decisions Autonomy Freedom to Choose

http://www.mcser.org/journal/index.php/mjss/article/view/5940/5712 Building Sustainable Employee Excellence