My colleague Dana Pylayeva has created something really interesting in the agile community. One of her research interests is fear in the workplace. Not in some academic fashion, but in how it shows up, that is what are the types and personas of fear in the workplace?

Dana enjoys creating interactive experiences, so she developed a series of cards (a game) that can help a team surface the various fears they may be experiencing. And, once they (the fears) see the light of day, the team can then discuss how they wish to deal with them.

Here’s some additional information on Fear in the Workplace (FITW):

Estimation FEAR Cards

In the November 2019 Kazi stream, Josh and I talked about teams often pushing back on estimating and some of the root causes. It seems like estimation is one of the hardest things for agile teams to get right (be balanced, feel comfortable with, do effortlessly).

The idea of using Dayna's "fear cards" approach is intriguing to me, so I’ve made an attempt at creating a list of fears that might get in the way of our estimation:

  1. Fear of not knowing / ambiguity / the unknown;

  2. Fear that the estimates will be “used against us”;

  3. Fear of not understanding the development effort;

  4. Fear of not understanding the testing effort;

  5. Fear of being wrong - Too low;

  6. Fear of being wrong - Too high;

  7. Fear of missing something important;

  8. Fear of what happens if we don't deliver "on time";

  9. Fear of commitment;

  10. Fear of requirement churn by the Product Owner / Customer;

  11. Fear of getting it wrong in front of the team;

  12. Fear of getting it wrong in front of my manager/leader;

  13. Fear that someone will think it's always easy “this easy”;

  14. Fear that they can't handle the truth;

  15. Fear that the overall team can't deliver;

  16. Fear of generic "failure";

  17. Fear of it being something we haven’t done before;

  18. Fear that we don’t have enough time in a sprint;

  19. Fear that the code base is so CRUFTY that “touching it” is dangerous;

  20. Fear that we’re ALWAYS wrong with our estimates;

  21. Fear of/that…

Just as Dana tries to uncover the organizational fears, I’m wondering if drilling down into the fears we have surrounding estimation might help us to become more comfortable with it. And help to create a culture where estimates are considered to be what they are…

Just…estimates (guesses)!

Wrapping Up

So, what to do?

The next time you suspect folks are struggling with estimation, make up some cards (index, post-it, another form) that represent the above fears and see where things stand within your team. The point being, try to surface the fear(s) that are impeding your ability to estimate in a balanced and healthy way. Then, so what you can do to remove those impediments.

I’d love to see some folks try the experiment and comment back on this post as to your experiences.

Fear not, I can handle the truth. Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

Note:

Liz Ryan is one of my absolute favorite HR’ish folks. She writes about aspects of healthy HR attitudes and stances in an effort to affect change. And I really appreciate her point of view.

She contributed this article to Forbes, Ten Unmistakable Signs of a Fear-based Workplace, which is aligned with this post. I’d recommend you read it.

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