Watching a Team Mature

The organization has been going through an 'Agile Transformation,' transitioning some teams from Waterfall software delivery to Agile.  Over the past several weeks in the Agile Transformation effort, I've watched one of our tracks mature as an Agile team.  We're not a development team but we're a team practicing Agile nonetheless and one that tries to stay as true to the framework as possible.

Stand-up can be a good barometer for a maturing team.  It's an event that happens EVERY day so there are tons of opportunities to improve and notice the changes.

We start no matter who is in the room.  We actually stand up.  We finish within 15 minutes.  We're diligent about not letting stand-up just be about 3 questions and we work through  issues, especially the sneaky ones that aren't really blockers but have the potential to get us to spin.  We're good about allowing for discussion to work through those issues but disciplined enough to pull ourselves out of the rat holes and back on topic.  We still chat when we first get there and enjoy our time together but we know when it's time to start, it's time to start.

My proudest moments of being on this team are when I see evidence of our practicing Agile.  Self-organize.   We don't look to for our Product Owner or our Scrum Master to start stand-up.  Every day it's someone different saying, "Let's start."  I love that.  It makes my little Agile heart smile every time.

Reflect and adjust.  Having an effective stand-up is something we've learned to do as a result of a retrospective.  Someone on our team brought up that we talk a lot before stand-up.  "It's not necessarily a bad thing; it's because we like each other and we want to catch up but then we don't start on time and stand-up ends up being 30 minutes long."

Okay, we decided, we will start on time.  We can chat but someone needs to get us to start and no one should take offense to being cut off because, well, it's stand-up time.  Everyone okay with that?  Good.

And that's what we do now.

What makes us a maturing team is that we're not *just* having stand-ups and retrospectives.  We're using them for what they are meant to do.  Stand-ups keep us up-to-date, accountable, and help us help each other.  Retrospectives help us improve.  These ceremonies aren't just questions and words on a whiteboard anymore; they have become sources of real and tangible actions.  That is "Being Agile."

During our last retrospective, I questioned whether we should continue to have daily stand-ups for a virtual team because it's become a lot of commitment for me personally.  Our Product Owner said he wanted to continue to have them because as a virtual team, it's too easy to lose discipline.  He said that stand-up keeps us Agile and accountable to each other.  I've been known to be wrong on occasion and, this time especially, I'm glad our Product Owner shut me down.

Being Agile

Doing Agile: Going through the motions
Being Agile: Practicing the values and principles

Going to stand-up and answering three questions doesn’t make you an Agile Practitioner any more than standing in a garage and making “vroom” noises makes you a car.

It Takes Practice: Self-Organization

Practicing the Agile Principle of Self-Organization.

From the Agile Manifesto: “The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.”

How do you foster an environment of self-organization?  Self-organization means that team members hold themselves, and each other, accountable.  This doesn’t mean that processes and decisions just naturally happen.  It takes Courage (an XP value) for someone to speak up, a little training, and some practice.

Flex your self-organizing muscles with something as simple as Stand-up. I’ve found that many teams expect Stand-up to be facilitated and wait for Scrum Masters to start but on mature teams, no one “runs” Stand-up.   Look for ways to have Stand-up without waiting for anyone.  Here’s how:

1. Find agreement with the team that Stand-up with start on-time, every time
2. Find agreement that Stand-up with start regardless of attendance (people or how many)
3. Decide on a place and time for Stand-up, including any conference lines that may be needed
4. Decide on a starting order for Stand-up (e.g., person closest to the door, alphabetically by first name)
5. Decide on a rotation (e.g., clockwise in room then phone attendees)
6. Optional: Find agreement on punishment for being late or absent (e.g., responsible for bringing cookies the next day or to retrospective)
7. Go

Who is responsible for starting?  Everyone.  At first, it may be up to you to stand up and say, “Stand-up time.”  After a week or two when the team is comfortable starting on-time and without everyone, try letting it go for a 2-3 minutes and see if someone else speaks up first.  After a while, the team should be at a place where everyone is comfortable saying, “Let’s go. Stand-up.”

Don’t let logistics get in the way of being self-organizing.  Decide up-front on who will be responsible for booking conference rooms or conference lines.  Try your hardest to not let this be the Scrum Master.  This is a team task and someone on the team should sign up for it.

Watch out for late-comers.  They should not disrupt Stand-up.  Keep going on your agreed-upon rotation and come back to them at the end.  If they miss Stand-up completely and ask, “Are we going to do Stand-up?”  Say, “Already did it.”  They need to be accountable and take responsibility for following-up on what was discussed.  Just don’t be passive-aggressive about it.  If you really needed them at Stand-up, then say so.  “We already did Stand-up and I really needed you there because I needed an update on [x].”  Handle it in the moment but tardiness is a prime and common topic addressed in Retrospectives and Retrospectives are key to a maturing self-organizing team.

Me? Controlling?!?

I don't have a lot of illusions about what I'm like or what my opportunities for improvement are.  I do, however, like to think of myself as pretty self-reflective.  In one of my especially self-reflective periods, I re-took some personality tests just to remind myself of how others might perceive me and what I can do to make it easier for folks to connect with me.

The analyst in me couldn't help but graph the results.  Behold.

When I shared this with a new colleague, he said, "Wow, that Controller data point is quite amazing. I can't say I've ever seen anything like it.  That high of a Controller score with a relatively low Persuader score has got to make you hugely frustrated at times."

Oddly enough, I considered myself an influencer before seeing the data for myself.  I was a bit knocked over by it.  Upon further reflection and thought, I realized that when I feel I'm in a position of authority, whether it's explicit or self-righteousness, my controlling nature takes over.  I just can't help myself!  But there are times when I've been commended on my ability to persuade people.  Was it persuasion?  Or just manipulative control?  Or is it that when I have some sense of humility, my delivery is different and people feel more persuaded than controlled?  I think this means I need to remember to knock myself down a few notches every now and again.  And maybe I don't know everything.  Just maybe.

See?  Self-reflective.