agile soft skills suitecase - iad 2011

A soft-skills suitecase openware

Soft-skills Soft skills are interpersonal skills such as the ability to

communicate well with other people and to work in a team.

(Antonym: hard skills)

Suitecase A suitcase is a box or bag with a handle and a hard frame in

which you carry your clothes when you are travelling.

Agile adj Someone who is agile can move quickly and easily.

What are Agile approaches?

Agile adj mentally quick or acute

If you have an agile mind, you think quickly and intelligently.

[from Latin agilis, from agere to do, act]

Agility means that things will be

done differently

Agility does not mean ...

To no longer do project management

To be a chaotic organization that no longer respects its IT governance

framework

To no longer produce documents

To leave the team to itself

To do things partially

To change every thing overnight

That there will no longer be any problems

It simply means to do things differently!

Agile adoption means Personal change

A focus on delivery of value - early and often

Understanding that people are different

Personal change Agile adoption means personal change

not just for developers, but for other folks across the whole

organization.

And by personal change here, we mean coming to see the

world (and the world of work) from a different perspective.

Focus on delivery of value Agile adoption means a focus on delivery of value - early

and often

By value we mean, things of value to stakeholders;

and by early we mean within a few days or weeks

(sometimes even, hours) of starting a new project.

People are different Agile adoption means understanding that people are

different

seeing people as individuals, and recognizing that a one-

size-fits-all attitude to people has serious drawbacks.

Coaching is not Training While training and coaching both promote learning, they do

so in different ways

Coaching is not Counseling Again, there may be a superficial similarity in that both of

these activities are one-to-one conversations, but their tone

and purpose are very different

Coaching is not Mentoring There are some superficial similarities between coaching and

mentoring, as they are both typically one-to-one

conversations aimed at facilitating professional development,

but there are also significant differences.

Being an Agile Coach is

challenging in many ways

Agile coaching Balance many things as you work with different teams and

stay true to your own values.

Understanding of the social psychological and complexity

aspects of team.

Sense-making models for analyzing teams and situations.

A method for designing non-intrusive interventions for

changing team dynamics.

Learn what’s really needed to get people to work together as

teams.

Self-organization issues Self-organization of human beings is a tricky thing.

Agile coaches are constantly challenged with how to

motivate/persuade/trick their teams into doing things, without

telling them what to do, but there is very little information or

training on this topic.

Allowing a team to self-organize along the lines of “oh well,

they’re all adults, they’ll figure it out” is just as irresponsible

as reverting to the command-and control school of

management.

What skills are important to

build for agile coaches?

Three categories Working with people

Facilitating change

Systems thinking

Working with people Listening

giving feedback

asking questions

building trust and rapport

Facilitating change enlisting support

reaching agreement

spreading success

learning from failure

Systems thinking seeing the bigger picture

identifying levers for change

communicating danger signals

Adapting your

Agile Coaching Style

Old Nands

New to Agile

Team members

Directive

Non Directive

gives

instructions

asks

questions

Coaching style shares experiences + mentor

Coaching Expertise

Agile Expertise

Coach/Consultant

Working with people Agile coach soft-skills categories

Agile Manifesto

Working with people

Individuals and Interactions

Values

Working with people

Attitude

Working with people

Neuro Linguistic Programming

Working with people

Set a goal

Working with people

Communication

Working with people

Leadership

Working with people

Agile Teams

Working with people

Teamwork

Forming

Storming

Norming

Performing

Tuckman's Group Development Model

Forming

Team development model

Teams go through four stages

Forming Team is dependent on

the Leader

Storming



Forming



Forming

Storming Leader mediates and

focuses

Storming Norming



Forming

Storming



Teams can regress when membership changes

Forming

Storming

Norming Leader facilitates

Storming Norming Performing




Forming

Storming

Norming

Leader delegates and

overseas




A mature team may need no leadership

Forming

Storming

Norming

Performing

The Leader’s goal is to

make the team self-

reliant and than move on

Self-sufficient teams produce best results

People are more motivated when they manage themselves.

People are more committed when they make their own

commitments.

Teams and individuals are more productive when they are

not interrupted.

Teams are improving when they solve their problems by

themselves.

Self-sufficient teams produce best results

Productivity is compromised when changes are made to the

team composition.

Face-to-face communication is the most productive way for a

team to work and exchange

Team roles

Working with people

Team Roles The individuals who make up the team need a range of

attributes that are complementary so that, to coin a well know

phrase, ‘its whole is greater than the sum of its parts’.

This is how teams achieve exceptional performance and,

again, sporting analogies abound.

What are Belbin's Team Roles? At Henley Management College whilst researching effective

teamworking some years ago, Dr Meredith Belbin analyzed the

composition of high performance teams and discovered that

there were a number of behavioural attributes that were

crucial.

Shaper

Completer Finisher

Monitor Evaluator

Implementer

Team Worker

Coordinator

Resource Investigator

Specialist

The 7 Habits

Working with people

Independence or Self-Mastery The First Three Habits surround moving from dependence to

independence (i.e. self mastery):

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Interdependence The next three have to do with Interdependence (i.e. working

with others):

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be

Understood

Habit 6: Synergize

Self Renewal The Last habit relates to self-rejuvenation:

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Time management

Working with people

Getting Things Done (GTD) is an organizational method created by productivity

consultant David Allen, described in a book of the same

name.

The Getting Things Done method rests on the principle that a

person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording

them externally.

That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering

everything that needs to be done, and can concentrate on

actually performing those tasks.

First Things First The book by Steven Covey asserts that there are

three generations of time management:

first-generation task lists,

second-generation personal organizers with deadlines and

third-generation values clarification as incorporated in the

Franklin Planner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_organizer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(personal_and_cultural)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Planner

• Trivia

• Some Phone Calls

• Excessive TV/Games

• Interruptions

• Some mails

• Many popular activities

• Preparation

• Planning

• Prevention

• Relationship building

• Crisis

• Pressing Issues

• Deadlines

• Meetings

I II

IV III

Urgent Not Urgent N

ot Im

po

rtan

t

Import

ant

Abundance mentality

The Upward Spiral

Creativity

Working with people

Lateral thinking

Retrospective

Working with people

The prime directive says: Regardless of what we discover, we understand and

truly believe that everyone did the best job they

could, given what they knew at the time, their skills

and abilities, the resources available, and the

situation at hand.

Retrospective Iteration Set the stage

Gather data

Generate Insight

Decide what to do

Close Retrospective

Incorporate experiments & improvements

Build product

Deliver product increments

Structure of a retrospective Set the stage

Gather data

Generate insight

Decide what to do

Close the retrospective

Facilitating change Agile coach soft-skills categories

Manage the fear of change

Facilitating change

Virginia Satir’s Change Model describes the change patterns she saw during therapy with

families

the patterns she describes occur with any group of people

when confronted by change

Stage 1: Late Status Quo The group is at a familiar place.

The performance pattern is consistent.

Stable relationships give members a sense of belonging and

identity.

Members know what to expect, how to react, and how to

behave.

Implicit and explicit rules underlie behavior.

Stage 2: Resistance The group confronts a foreign element that requires a

response.

Often imported by a small minority seeking change, this

element brings the members whose opinions count the most

face to face with a crucial issue.

A foreign element threatens the stability of familiar power

structures.

Stage 3: Chaos The group enters the unknown.

Relationships shatter: Old expectations may no longer be

valid; old reactions may cease to be effective; and old

behaviors may not be possible.

The chaos stage is vital to the transformation process.

Stage 4: Integration The members discover a transforming idea that shows how

the foreign element can benefit them.

The group becomes excited.

New relationships emerge that offer the opportunity for

identity and belonging.

With practice, performance improves rapidly.

The members need reassurance and help finding new

methods for coping with difficulties.

Stage 5: New Status Quo If the change is well conceived and assimilated, the group

and its environment are in better accord and performance

stabilizes at a higher level than in the Late Status Quo.

A healthy group is calm and alert.

All members provide feedback to improve the process.

Satir’s Change Model Stage Description How to Help

1 Late Status Quo Encourage people to seek improvement information and

concepts from outside the group.

2 Resistance Help people to open up, become aware, and overcome the

reaction to deny, avoid or blame.

3 Chaos

Help build a safe environment that enables people to focus

on their feelings, acknowledge their fear, and use their

support systems. Help management avoid any attempt to

short circuit this stage with magical solutions.

4 Integration Offer reassurance and help finding new methods for coping

with difficulties.

5 New Status Quo Help people feel safe so they can practice.

Fight a Blaming Culture

Facilitating change

Don’t escape from problems

Facilitating change

System thinking Agile coach soft-skills categories

Organizational structure

From a Hierarchical Model …

Command & Control

… flow of Command …

… and Control

Organizational structure

… to a Social Network one

Kaizen Kaizen a Japanese term which means “continuous

improvement” by doing little things better and setting and

achieving increasingly higher standards

The exact translation is:

Kai = change

Zen = better

It is a Japanese philosophy that originally comes from

Japanese culture and Japanese practice of management.

“The journey of a thousand miles

begins with a single step"

Rooted in the two thousand-year-old wisdom of the Tao Te Ching

Kaizen Kaizen is the art of making great and lasting change through

small, steady increments.

Kaizen is the tortoise versus the hare.

7 Small Steps How to Think Small Thoughts

Take Small Actions

Solve Small Problems

and more …

How to perform mind sculpture-visualizing virtual change so

that real change comes more naturally.

Small rewards motivate better than big rewards.

Do

Check Act

Plan

Kaizen

Assess

Design Implement

Evaluate

Continuous

Improvement

Succeeding with Kaizen Programs

and Events Avoid common implementation mistakes

Find the right champion and establish an effective steering

committee

Create timelines, select teams and leaders, and define

objectives

Use kaizen events to implement 5S, standard work, Kanban,

and new line designs

Includes a chapter-length case study from a real

manufacturing firm

Agile Leadership Soft-skill suitecase

How will we proceed? We are coaching rather than commanding or controlling.

We create environments promoting collaboration to foster

team work.

It is ideal to reorganize the physical location, but this goal

could be reached gradually.

We involve business people right from the beginning in order

to promote commitment.

We create communities so people can communicate and

improve themselves.

We use tools to disseminate information

Quality

Performance Management

What will change?

What does it mean to managers?

LEADERSHIP

• Definition of the objectives and performance management

• Management and leadership style

ENVIRONMENT

• Work environment and organizational culture

PROJECT TEAM

• Self-sufficiency and accountability

• Collaboration and teamwork

• Communication and knowledge sharing

• Skills and professional development

• Continuous improvement e and organizational learning

• Processes and tools

Managers are also impacted by

the transition from a traditional to

an Agile approach Transfer authority and responsibility to the team so it can do

its work adequately

Avoid interference and micromanagement

Promote collaboration and teamwork

Support learning and not systematically penalize failures

Review best practices in order to adapt them to changing

realities

Make adjustments to the facilities so the environment

facilitates the execution of Agile projects

Adapt the management style to the context of the team

208

Managers will be supported by

organizational coaches As members of the expertise centre, organizational coaches:

Offer training courses to groups of managers (e.g. Agile for

managers)

Participate in steering committees of pilot projects (ETC)

Individually support the managers that are related to pilot projects

in order to go from a traditional management style to a more

Agile one

Provide individual or group coaching in order to address fears,

challenges, and resistances and to provide appropriate support

How managers are being

supported?

Characteristics of a Agile organization

Management Pyramid is inverted

Greater Liberty and Freedom to accomplish the task at hand

Constant Learning, Knowledge Creation and Knowledge

Sharing

A More Enjoyable and Humane Work Environment

A Hyper-productive Cooperative Work Mode

Emergent Planning, Architecture and Requirements

New values that generate a cooperative culture

The Quality of Life

Conclusion A transition from a traditional approach to an Agile one

is not an IT project, it is rather an organizational

change.

An Agile approach highly impacts project teams but it

also impacts managers and their management style.

When this type of transition is successful, it gives a

competitive advantage to the organization.

Supporting managers is critical to the success of this

type of initiative.

Credits Stock photo: 123rf.com

Original photo: Giulia Armani

Music: “Ladies of Ireland” » Mike Oldfield

“Mirror” » Fabio Armani

[email protected]

agile soft skills suitecase - iad 2011

Business