Archive for the ‘Team’ Category

• 8 Great PDU on May 13th @ 7th Annual PMI San Diego Conference!

  Date: 2010.04.09 | Category: Agile, PMI, SIMSOC, Team, Training | Response: 1

  Are you looking to have some fun and do something hands-on & different during the conference? Want to learn about teamwork and motivation? Then sign-up for my one-day seminar – Leaping to Success with High Performing Teams – at the 7th Annual PMI San Diego Conference.

  Building high-performing teams is the result of a complex interplay of six essential skills: leadership, team building, motivation, communication, decision making and negotiation. In this one-day interactive seminar, you will learn how to develop, nurture and sustain high-performing teams by improving your skills in these area while participating in a fast-moving, rich simulation designed to mirror real-life challenges and situations. This thought-provoking, fun game has powerful insights on team dynamics and interpersonal interactions for any manager or senior leader in your organization.

  If you are interested please read this review of the simulation and be sure to sign-up when you register for the 7th Annual PMI San Diego Conference. Hope to see you there!

  Sign-up for the 7th Annual PMI San Diego Conference today.

• Are Microteams Valuable?

  Date: 2010.03.23 | Category: Agile, Scrum, Team, Transitions | Response: 0

  I recently encountered what I call a Scrum microteam – just two Team members, a Product Owner and a ScrumMaster.  Out-of-the-book Scrum provides guidance that Teams should be 6±2 people, not including the ScrumMaster and Product Owner.  I have been intrigued by such a small Team (glad they are filling all the roles) and these are my thoughts why Scrum suggests 4 to 8 people after understanding the forces which created this Team.

  • Overhead – Scrum impose a fair amount of overhead on Teams – planning meetings, reviews, retrospectives and daily stand-ups.  I like all the pieces of Scrum and consider them essential.  Yet, I am not convinced it is worth the effort for just two people.  Could a good project manager be sufficient?
  • Work-In-Progress of one – This might seem like a benefit, but I believe it actually increases the risk the business will get nothing of value at the end of the Sprint.  When you have microteams, you can only effectively work one story at a time.  Any delay, change in scope or discovery of emergent tasks, puts the Sprint Goal at risk.  Further subdividing the story into smaller (technical) pieces just atomizes the work, not the risk.
  • Missing cross-functional skill set – with a team of 2 to 3 people, you typically have only one functional area represented, usually programmers.  Since Scrum is framework for cross-functional teams, why use the process if you are not meeting one of the preconditions?
  • Handoffs within the Sprint – suppose you are lucky enough in your microteam to avoid all programmers – your Team has a software developer and a graphic designer – now you have the problem that their skill sets do not overlap.  When skill sets do not overlap, that creates handoffs, handoffs are a form of waste and the whole point of cross-functional teams is to eliminate handoffs.
  • Narrow Definition of Done -  when the Team is so small, they must reach out to the rest of the organization in order to get anything really done.  This is a problem on any team, but when the Team is so small, the Definition of Done only includes things within the skill set of the individual members.  The amount of undone work is significant on a microteam. Entire Sprints can be dedicated to making sure this work is done and not delivering additional value to the organization.
  • Limited impact – if your microteam is a pilot effort of Scrum for a larger organization, then the impact of Scrum will be quite limited.  Small teams work on small problems that are not that important to the organization.  There will be strong inertia to adapt Scrum rather than fix the underlying obstacles and dysfunctions – why change your organization to make life better for just two people working on a pilot?

• Best Links of the Week – Feb 9th 2010

  Date: 2010.02.09 | Category: Agile, Communication, Planning, PMI, Scrum, ScrumMaster, Team, Test-Driven Development, Transitions | Response: 0

  Excellent links for everyone to share.

  1. Pollyanna Pixton on Agile Leadership – a 30-minute video talking about the factors corporate leaders can influence which support Agile teams.
  2. How I Learned to Program Manage an Agile Team After 6 Years of Waterfall – Sara Ford describes in brutal candor her experience becoming an Agile PM while working on CodePlex at Microsoft.
  3. Explaining Agile – Mike Cottmeyer neatly summarizes his understanding of Agile.
  4. How to Compare Elephant Herds - Dave Nicolette finally (?) explains why comparing teams through velocity is meaningless.
  5. What Does a ScrumMaster Do? – for those of  you who are curious and wanted to know.
  6. Replacing the Iron Triangle of Project Management? – short discussion on reevaluating a well-accepted PM paradigm.
  7. Adopting Agile Development – the Role of the CIO – how senior leaders in your organization can help promote Agile adoption.
  8. Moving Beyond Scrum – a look at some reasons why one might want to take the next step.
  9. Tragic Mistakes When Adopting Test-Driven Development (TDD) - Scott Ambler discussing some pitfalls & obstacles companies encounter when they begin the process of using TDD.
  10. Comparison of Open Agile with Scrum – introduction of a domain-independent framework for delivering value while using Agile principles via a compare-and-contrast with Scrum

• Best Links of the Week – Jan 12th 2010

  Date: 2010.01.12 | Category: Agile, Collaboration, Links of the Week, Open Workspace, Scrum, ScrumMaster, Simple Design, Team, Test-Driven Development | Response: 0

  Here are some links to the best of the blogs since the beginning of the year.

  1. The Role of Leaders on a Self-Organizing Team - Mike Cohn talks about the important role management continues to play on Scrum teams.
  2. Agile Scales, Waterfall Doesn’t – or so claims Vasco Duarte during this 48-minute video from the Agile Eastern Europe 2009 Conference.
  3. Scrum, But – in this 10-minute video Scrum co-founder, Ken Schwaber, explains the negative impact on your business of “We use Scrum, but…”
  4. Management 3.0: The Era of Complexity - Jurgen Appelo describes the new role of social networks as management dives into the 21st century.
  5. Faster, Better, Cheaper! TDD wins in a simple experiment – a side-by-side comparison of two software developers working on the same project – one using Test-Driven Development (TDD), the other not; the developer who used TDD increased his productivity by 50%!
  6. Agile Game Interview: Simplicity is Hard - Clinton Keith interviews Chris Ulm, CEO of Appy Entertainment, about why Agile is an essential factor in their successful launch of high quality, iPhone games.
  7. Embedded Collaboration - Dave Rooney kicks off this post with a classic quote from “The Princess Bride” to explain the real meaning of collaboration.
  8. Agile Office Space – the Motley Fool shows off their cool Agile workspace and describes the principles they used to create this space.
  9. Wives of Rockstar San Diego Employees Have Collected Themselves – apparently some people are fed-up with yet another death march in the gaming industry and interesting from commentary from Clinton Keith that Scrum is not the solution, but provides visibility and a reality check to wishful thinking.

• Best Links of the Week – New Year Edition

  Date: 2010.01.05 | Category: Agile, Links of the Week, Scrum, Team, Testing, Tools, Transitions | Response: 0

  New Year links, a little late, but ready for your review.

  1. Defense Procurement Goes Agile – a summary from the Agile Process Leadership Network’s (APLN) October 2009  meeting describing how the DoD is moving away from waterfall to an iterative, incremental processes.
  2. Mixing it up with Agile & PMI – Orange County PM, Donna Reed, makes the claim that to be a successful Agile PM one needs to “move away from ACTIVITY-BASED project management toward VALUE-BASED project management.”
  3. Starting Scrum: What Would be the Logical Position of a Classic PM – SM or PO? – a Google groups discussion posed by a member with some excellent commentary.
  4. Synchronize Rather than Overlap Sprints - Mike Cohn explains why aligning Sprint end dates within one or two days of each other is a much better way to coordinate multiple Scrum teams.
  5. Agile Antipattern: Changing the Definition of Done – Bob Hartman discusses how the pressure to meet deadlines is simply “deficit spending” on your project with a bill that will get paid off sooner than you think.
  6. Welfare CSM Day 3: Experimental Mobiles & Rainforest Birds – interesting experience report about a different type of Certified ScrumMaster trainer; be sure to read the comments for additional insights and reflections by the other participants.
  7. UI Test Automation Tools are Snake Oil – an opinionated piece from Michael Feathers on the value of that expensive UI test tool gathering dust in your organization.

• Best Links of the Week – Christmas 2009

  Date: 2009.12.25 | Category: Agile, Coaching, Links of the Week, Product Owner, Scrum, ScrumMaster, Team | Response: 0

  A bag full of Christmas links.

  1. Grooming the Product Backlog – Laura Brandenburg talks about the role of requirements management through the Scrum Product Backlog.
  2. Make the Product Backlog DEEP – more on good practices for maintaining the Product Backlog from Mike Cohn.
  3. Why is Agile so Hard to Sell? – describes some of the issues growing Agile in the enterprise.
  4. Is Scrum for Lazy Project Teams? – looks at the misconception that Scrum does not challenge teams to work their hardest.
  5. When the Scrummaster Becomes the Impediment – different perspectives on how to solve the problem when the Scrummaster becomes a bottleneck.
  6. A Day in the Life of a Scrum Team – a short 6-minute YouTube video of a Scrum Team in their native environment.
  7. Agile Business Analysts – what is the role of the business analyst on an Agile team?
  8. Building trust – five concrete things you can do to build trust on your teams.
  9. Something in Agile Needs Fixing – Rob Bowley summarizes the Open Space discussion on the topic of “Agile isn’t solving our customers problems because they aren’t here.”

• Best Links of the Week – Dec 18th 2009

  Date: 2009.12.18 | Category: Agile, Coaching, Communication, Links of the Week, Product Owner, Scrum, ScrumMaster, Team | Response: 0

  Here are links to the best of the blogs for the week of Dec 18th 2009.

  1. A ScrumMaster’s Checklist – a comprehensive checklist from Michael James offering four areas a ScrumMaster should pay attention when coaching: the Team, the Product Owner, the organization and the technical practices.
  2. Agile Leadership: Methodology Ain’t Enough – the Hacker Chick brings us a blog article about the management beliefs and behaviors which support the growth of Agile teams.
  3. When Should QA be Engaged in an Iteration? – Hiren Doshi PMP discusses the role of QA on a Scrum team and tackles the myth that QA folks “have nothing to do until the end of a Sprint”.
  4. Five Reasons to Hire a Coach for Agile Teams – Ester Derby talks about five pitfalls of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Agile coaching.
  5. Scrum Doesn’t Do Anything – explanation of how Scrum only comes to life when people are added to the framework and the importance of the following the rules by Tobias Mayer.
  6. Practical Agility: On Estimation – Dave Rooney describes the Agile estimation lessons he learned while undergoing a recent move.
  7. Overcoming Technical Challenges for Adopting Agile Methods in the Enterprise – Vijay Narayanan over at InfoQ discusses the importance of having an development environment which supports your Agile process.
  8. Flipping Out – short description of how Flickr uses Continuous Integration and a Single Code Base to add features to their application without branching.

  There was a lot of great stuff to read this week, unfortunately I can only go with eight or so entries.  Cya next week!!

• Best Links of the Week – Dec 11th 2009

  Date: 2009.12.11 | Category: Agile, Daily Scrum, Extreme Programming, Links of the Week, PMI, Scrum, Team | Response: 0

  Here are links to the best of the blogs for the week of Dec 11th 2009.

  1. Agile Project Management (Part 1 of 2) – short article from Agile Journal looking to bridge common Agile vocabulary with PMI practices and concepts.
  2. “Ideal” Team Size and Ratios - Johanna Rothman explains the the optimum size for Agile teams.
  3. The Benefits of Feature Teams – more on teams, this time from Mike Cohn, and why traditional component teams are risky.
  4. The Daily 15 Minutes of Fun – description on how some Scrum teams have extended their Daily Scrum beyond 15 minutes.
  5. Where has XP Gone…and can We Have it Back? – Open Space report from XP Days London asking what happened to one of the more popular Agile processes from early 2000′s.
  6. The People’s Scrum – Tobias Mayer looks at how Scrum is really a framework for change, not a process or methodology.
  7. Why Hasn’t Vista Sold – not directly related to Agile, but discusses how poor software quality has trained our consumers not to purchase upgrades.

  Hope there is some good reading here.  Cya next week!

• Developing High-Performing\Agile Teams Review

  Date: 2009.11.16 | Category: Agile, Collaboration, Communication, Team | Response: 0

  Last week, I completed the my Agile Team Training class.  I had a really good turnout (~20) and it was a lot of fun!  While reading the class reviews, a common refrains from the participants were they were surprised at how engaged they were in the simulation and how committed they were to the outcomes.  One participant even wrote these kind words:

  “I was skeptical that it [SIMSOC] would provide any valuable lessons.  I was pleasantly surprised to observe behavior developed that mirrored my professional experience closely enough to be instructive.  I joined in more fully than I anticipated.”

  For those of you that might be curious on what we actually did for the day, here are some photos from the event.

  

  In my experience, having the right venue goes a long way to setting up a good learning experience so I was pleased to have this large space for the class.  This is the great space we had for the event, right on Mission Bay with plenty of natural light, windows looking outside and good food to eat.

   

   

   

  During the simulation participants are divided into different regions.  For this game we had three regions: Green, Yellow and Red.  In this photo, the Red Region trying to understand the SIMSOC rules and figure out a game strategy.  The members of this region quickly coalesced around a common goal, but had some initial difficulties convincing others.  Unfortunately, their riot in the first session was unreported by the head of the mass media (MASMED) and did not have the intended effect of getting the rest of society to pay attention to their concerns.

  While SIMSOC looks like people are just sitting around in chairs all day, the game is much more dynamic than the photos depict.  This a member from the Yellow Region visiting the Green Region to discuss game strategy. Somewhere around the third session, there was freedom of movement and people began meeting face-to-face to discuss issues and share ideas.  Very soon after that, the Red Region proposed a compelling national program to organize the society around and the game came to close during the sixth session.

  Here are some the things the participants learned about teamwork during the class:

  “Maintain the big picture to maximize individual contributions.”

  “We were all seeking cohesiveness and cooperation.”

  “Common goals across teams had an enormous impact of behaviors.”

  “Finding common goals is really needed.”

  “Not reaching out and trusting teams would have made that [reaching our common goal] impossible.”

  “I was pleasantly surprised how cooperative we became with each other.”

  “People do not start out in trust.”

  “Working with different teams [can be challenging] because they have different local goals.”

  “How very important trust is to building high-performing teams.”

  “Define the common goal makes you more efficient and motivates the team.”

  “Trust others on the team, they have best interest in mind.”

  It would say it was a very satisfying, compelling and educational day for everyone. I look forward to the next time I host this game.

• Developing High-Performing Teams on Nov 12th

  Date: 2009.10.18 | Category: Agile, Communication, Team, Training | Response: 0

  Does this sound like your team?

  • Boring stand-up meetings that never end.
  • You need ten people in the room to make a decision.
  • Planning meetings are just about handing out work assignments.
  • Everyone has a different reason for why the current release is important.
  • Difficulty expressing your ideas at the whiteboard or in front of the computer.
  • An upset stomach just thinking about having to work with the “difficult” person.
  • Just writing the code people tell you to write and not contributing to the design.
  • Rather be at an all-hands meeting than a code review.
  • Blind to what other teams in your company are doing.
  • Having nothing to say at retrospectives.

  If your team feels listless and like more of the same but with all these new “Agile” labels attached, then perhaps you could use a refresher of some essential interpersonal skills to improve your daily interactions with your peers and management.

  In this one-day course, we will reawaken the parts of your brain which govern communication, observation, collaboration, conflict resolution, teamwork, decision making, facilitation, critical thinking and listening.  Through the use of simulations, we will strengthen these skills, give you a chance to try out a few new ones and prepare you to become a contributing member of a collaborative, self-organizing team.  Oh, did I mention it is going to be a lot of fun?

  Sign up today!

  Your day will start off with some basic introductory exercises and explanations and then we begin the first session of the simulation, named SIMSOC.  SIMSOC (pronounced sim-sock) can be thought of as a live-action version of “The Sims” combined with the cutthroat drama of “Survivor”.  The goal of each session is to remain “alive” and further your personal goals.  Some patterns of behavior will be more successful than others and it is up to you to discover the right strategy so you remain alive by the close of the day.  At the conclusion, you will be able to identify the forces at work in the simulation, how they are relevant to the workplace, the key interpersonal skills needed for a collaborative, self-organizing team and what you can do to make your Team better.

  Your facilitator will be Carlton Nettleton, President of Look Forward Consulting (www.lookforwardconsulting.com) .  Carlton has been coaching individuals and teams on how to implement Agile principles and practices and is passionate about helping your business and team succeed. He has nearly ten years of experience working with software products and services in both a technical and business capacity from small start-ups to FDA regulated medical products.

  Sign up today!