I’ve been involved in agile for ~20 years and I’ve noticed a consistent anti-pattern that never seems to change.
People wait too long to ask for help!
I’ve noticed it in my coaching. By the time I usually get called into a situation where an organization is attempting to implement agile is, dare I say it, things are off the rails. Sure, a part of me thinks that’s a good or normal thing. But that’s the revenue generation part of me.
The principled agile coach part of me always wishes that they had reached out earlier. That it would have saved so much aggravation and frustration, wasted time & effort, and ultimately cost.
But it’s not just as a coach. It also applies to my leadership experience too.
If a project was off-track or a commitment would be missed, I usually found out at the last minute. Far later than when I could have actually helped or done something. I always work hard as a leader to create safety for bad news, to be approachable, and to be grateful for it. Very hard. But it still shocked me how often folks wait too long to share something with me. I often wonder, what did I have to do to create the culture where sharing challenges was rewarded, was the norm, and not feared?
There’s a leadership anti-pattern that’s been around for a long, long time. I noticed it in the 1980s, and I’m sure it preceded that decade by quite a few more decades. If not being a permanent dysfunctional trap in perpetuity for all leaders.
I’ll call it meeting-itis.
The primary symptom is leaders who measure the quality of their day by—
We were discussing the notion of having hard, dare I say it, crucial conversations the other day in our Moose Herd session. Conversations that are challenging. Conversations where you speak truth to power. Conversations that are risky and require courage and fortitude.
One of the things I brought up was the notion of preparing for one of these. And the idea of establishing your 100% truth prior to the meeting. Sitting down, putting everything aside, and establishing what would be the 100% discussion if you were talking to your best friend, close confidant, or trusted advisor? Without any filtering, obfuscation, or any risk of ramifications.
What would that conversation look like? That then becomes the baseline for your conversation. The preferred target if you will.
Now perhaps, you can’t have that level of clarity and honesty. So, start walking back from that baseline.
Establishing what you are comfortable saying. Considering things like—
For years I’ve been asking and coaching Scrum Masters to partner with the managers/leaders of their team members. To sit down with them periodically, weekly perhaps, and over coffee, to discuss their teams. For example—
Sharing stories of success for their reports
Sharing the challenges (delivery, mindset, performance, etc.)
Sharing the team’s vision, goals, impediments, etc.
Discussing alignment with organizational goals
Asking for help or looking for guidance
All with an eye towards giving each manager a window into the dynamics of the team and how their direct reports are “doing”.
But this isn’t a performance report or a status report. It’s a partnership, as the manager and Scrum Master are in a unique collaborative relationship to build the overall maturity and performance of the overall team AND each individual.
And the discussions should be focused on continuous improvement and actions the manager can take to coach each individual. Which is, in fact, their job.
I’ve seen cobbled together Scrum teams for years, but I realized just the other day that I’ve never written about them. So, now I will…
What are they?
They are an anti-pattern and are a team in-name-only. That is, there is no collaboration because everyone works on a unique product, application, service, or platform.
I often see this anti-pattern in Ops organizations where the coverall company is adopting Scrum. The leadership team feels compelled to form teams everywhere—out of individuals with very different skill-sets, roles, and application-level responsibilities.
For example, if it’s an IT administration and support group, probably every member of the group has 1-10 applications or platforms that they are individually supporting. With little to no overlap in skills or area ownership across team members.
I’ve been teaching a Scrum Alliance, Certified Agile Leadership (CAL-I) class since 2017. In that time, I’ve evolved quite a bit in my goals, intentions, and approaches within the class.
Initially, it was all in-person and largely a training event. Sure, I tried to share my experiences and the feedback was great. But I don’t believe folks left with much more than knowledge. And often I’m guessing, 6-months later, much of that knowledge had faded into the chaos of real-world agile execution.
Over time I’ve transitioned from wanting the class to be a learning event to more of a holistic experience. An immersed learning experience that I hoped would have—
More lasting impact on attendees;
Not easily be forgotten;
Causing ongoing reflection, experimentation, and discovery;
Improved ideas for new ways of leading.
Then, when Covid-19 hit and I pivoted the class to virtual delivery, I was even more intent on creating an experience for attendees. As much to retain their level of engagement as for the learning and retention.
So, what have I learned or focused on?
Someone approached me the other day for some coaching advice. It seems that they’re in a Coach / Scrum Master role and have a team that, well, isn’t doing very well.
They’re pushing back on the use of agile approaches—seeming to be going through the motions of Scrum. They’re not delivering much in the way of value. And, to use his words, they’re simply not motivated. Which was his question—
How do I motivate this team?
Certainly, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard this question and it certainly won’t be the last. My first thought though was—you don’t motivate a team; they have to motivate themselves. But, as I answered the question, I thought of the following as a Motivation Continuum for today’s teams—
Many of you know that I often like to begin an article with a musical connection if I can.
The band Queensryche is a fairly well known heavy metal band who had a song Resistance. It’s not my favorite song of theirs, that’s probably Best I Can, but it’s a good one. And it was running through my mind as this topic rose up in my thinking.
But moving on…
I was hosting a Coaching Clinic at the Agile Online Summit this week (late October 2020). In our Monday and Tuesday clinics, about ten people were looking for help in overcoming resistance within their agile contexts. Leadership resistance and team-level resistance were neck-in-neck as being problem areas.
As I was facilitating the coaching sessions, it made me think about resistance. And I remembered an old (mature, but still relevant) article written by Dale Emory on resistance entitled—Resistance as a Resource. It was published in 2001, so about 20 years ago. Dale also used to share on this topic at conferences.
I’d read it several times over the years, but I read through it again. And as I did so, it resonated more with me now than it ever had before.
I often hear of Communities of Practice as it relates to—
Product Ownership;
Scrum Mastery;
UX & Design;
DevOps;
Architecture;
Agile & Lean;
And Coaching
In agile contexts. But I rarely, if ever, hear of a Community of Practice as it relates to agile leadership. I wonder why?
I actually think the notion makes the most sense at the leadership level because there’s so much transformational work for leaders to take on around—
Finding the Vision and WHY behind their agile transformational efforts;
Establishing clarity around roles & responsibilities;
Creating more trust & empowerment across the organization;
Creating a more strategic focus;
Coaching their teams;
Actively culture-shaping in day-to-day behaviors;
Establishing effective metrics;
Learning, growing, and developing as effective agile servant leaders.
Shifting that must happen at the leadership level for an effective and successful agile transformation to unfold. And the best strategy for this is not each individual leader going it alone. The best approach is to form a team of leaders who are going to be receiving training and coaching together. In other words, forming a learning and collaborating cohort who helps each other in their journey. A group of accountability partners, if you will.
Let’s explore one idea around that next.
