Partnership & Possibilities

So many teams complain about the “do nothing” retrospective. Team meetings can remain results-free for many reasons (possibly the topic of another post…and anyway, I’m sure Esther Derby must have written about it ).

However, one way to stimulate team members to implement action plans is to follow the energy.

Software teams usually have little difficulty identifying the things they wish were different in their work environments–processes, practices, team interactions, product owner interactions, or impediments that have resisted a simple fix. When a team has created a list of ideas for improvement on a flip chart or whiteboard, I ask them to filter it three ways.

First, I ask them to estimate the story size of the item, in points or T-shirt sizes. That gives everyone on the team a chance to notice how much effort one or more team members will have to give to take the action. And whether they think it’s worth it. (A version of planning poker, described in my last post, helps the team to arrive at the story size estimate.)

Second, team members multi-vote (with dots or some other voting method) on the items they think will have the highest beneficial impact once implemented. We notice the pattern of votes, and write the total votes for each item on the list.

Finally, team members vote one more time. This time each person checks-in on his or her own levels of interest in every specific idea, and votes for up to two ideas that energize them the most. “What do you really want to make happen? Which idea(s) gives you energy?” They can vote twice for the same idea if their energy for that one is particularly high, or vote once each for two ideas.

When a team makes action planning decisions based on how much team capacity an action will require, what likely benefit they’ll get from it, and, most importantly, what they really want to make happen, things get done. Improvements happen.

So, if your team is plagued by “do nothing” retrospectives, go for maximum impact and follow the energy.

Stig Efsen, Trifork Scrum coach, invented a new way to help teams move the continuous improvement ideas from retrospectives into real action. In an “Agile Retrospectives” workshop last January, he showed our workshop group how to use Planning Poker for a list of ideas for actions.

As part of the Generating Insights part of the retrospective, we created a list of proposed ideas for action. When the list was complete, we played a quick round of planning poker for each item. Stig used cards with Fibonacci sequence numbers. In a relatively short period of time, the team had a shared understanding and a set of task point estimates for each action item.

Since then, I’ve used the technique in a number of short retrospectives. Sometimes I’ve used Fibonacci numbers and sometimes I use T-shirt sizes. It depends on what the team is used to or what seems like the best fit.

Once the team decides on the action or experiment they want to try during the next iteration, the point estimates make it easier to write up a card and carry it into the iteration planning meeting. Then the team includes the action as part of the “real work” plan.

About a year ago, I wrote post on FRIM, a new activity for gathering data for the work of retrospectives.

This is an update. Over the past year, I’ve had some new ideas and participants in our “Agile Retrospectives” workshop have provided their creative thoughts.

First New FRIM idea: Now when I use the FRIM activity, I draw the grid differently. The vertical axis has stretched up 5 points from neutral for a set of positive impact ratings. and stretched down 5 points for a set of negative impact ratings. (+5 = wildly beneficial impact, +4 = highly beneficial impact, +3 = moderately beneficial impact, +2 = some beneficial impact, +1 = more beneficial than neutral impact; 0 = neutral impact; -1 = more detrimental than neutral impact, -2 = some detrimental impact, -3 = moderately detrimental impact, -4 = highly detrimental impact & serious impediment, -5 = wildly detrimental impact & major impediment).

The horizontal axis of frequency changes with the length of the work increment. For a two week iteration, the ratings would include: A = rarely, fewer than once per iteration; B = about once per iteration; C = ~ once or twice per week; D = daily; E = many times per day; F = continously.

Second New FRIM idea: When I do FRIM on a single flip chart page, I’ve learned to use the smaller size sticky notes, 3″x3″ or smaller. When I have the luxury of recording it on a white board or a wall papered with butcher paper or multiple flip chart pages in an array, then I like the 4″x4″ sticky notes. Always the Super Stickies, 3M Post-it brand, when I can get them. Otherwise I keep a box of drafting dots for backup stickiness.

Third New FRIM idea: After the events have been posted on the grid, ask the group to stand with you across the room. Look back at the grid and see what patterns the team see from that distance. When that conversation slows down, move up closer to the grid and begin reading and seeking understanding about the individual notes.

I’m sitting at the Portland Bar Camp, listening to my friend Tony Deis from TrackersNW. He’s tell me about how he ran a outdoor camp for high school students using Agile practices. Tony said, “We got to the campgrounds on Sunday after a long drive. It was raining. We had an Umiak to build and a rotation schedule of activities for the campers. Bn Monday, I felt miserable. We were missing the kids and staff expectations for the kind of freedom and accountability we want for our camps.”

Then Tony had an idea. On Tuesday morning, he held a retrospective with the 22 campers and 8 staff members. They looked at how things had gone up until that point. The campers came up with a backlog of action items for the next day. Tony asked the opinions of the action leaders to discover what they needed - # of people, equipment, supplies - for each activity. When the back log was completed, the campers signed up for various activities - which included tasks like staying dry, gathering mussels and other wild food, cooking meals, cleaning up, help with farm chores, slaughtering and butchering a sheep, tanning the sheepskin and making tallow candles, and much more. Oh, and building the whale boat. I can’t type as fast as Tony tells me about this adventure.

From that moment on, each day camp started with signing up for the day’s activities. It continued with three stand-up meetings each day and a retrospective at the the close of day. During the stand-up meetings, campers identified obstacles and impediments, as well as transferring excitement for the activities they’d completed to other campers. At the end of each retrospective, they groomed their backlog for the next day.

By mid-week, the campers took over the stand-up meetings and retrospectives. The first camper-led retrospective was a bit rocky, and as they gained respect for the process, the very next retrospective was, as Tony says, “Smoking Hot!” As were all the rest. And, the campers were noticing how their empowered action at camp might fit for their student meetings at school.

Tony thinks that it was important that they had the same place to meet in each day, an old barn. So the meetings could happen out of the rain.

I wish I could convey Tony’s excitement. TrackersNW has incorporated a number of Agile practices in its own business administration. This is the first time they’ve moved on to using the practices in their programs. I suspect it won’t be the last.

Secrets of Agile Teamwork: Beyond Technical Skills
Dec 11-13, 2007
Register here.

Are you ready to take your Agile team to the next level?

Beyond technical skills, Agile success depends on productive self-organizing teams. How do you develop, grow, and maintain a functioning self-organizing team? It’s not magic, but it doesn’t just happen either. Effective self-organizing teams rely on personal and interpersonal effectiveness. In this hands-on workshop, we’ll discover the secrets to developing the skills you need to succeed and lead on a self-organizing team.

Facilitators Diana Larsen and Esther Derby

Audience Team leaders, team coaches, XP coaches, ScrumMasters and other software professionals leading and working in teams.

Pre-requisites A desire to be best team member or team leader possible.

Benefits Team members will learn to:
• Improve the quality of interactions with customers and others outside the team
• Increase the speed and effectiveness of feedback
• Contribute to an environment for team success

Course Outline
1. Communication and Interactions
2. Navigating Conflict
3. Feedback and practice
4. Shared Leadership
5. Forming Teams
6. Personal and Organizational Change
7. Transition to Work
Registration Workshop registration fee for the three-day workshop is $1200. To ensure the optimal workshop experience for everyone, registration is limited to no more than 3 individuals from the same organization. Register here.

Register Early To encourage the highest quality learning and interaction, attendance in this workshop is limited to 12 participants. When the list of registered participants reaches 12, we will start a short waiting list in case of last minute cancellations. Register here.

Time The workshop begins at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, December 11, 2007, and continues with day and evening sessions through 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 13, 2007.

Location We have reserved the school library and an adjoining classroom at The Kennedy School in Portland, OR, for our workshop sessions.

We have arranged for a block of rooms in the hotel for our workshop participants. Deadline for reserving a guaranteed room at the hotel is November 9, 2007. Please mention FutureWorks Consulting/The Secrets of Agile Teamwork when reserving your room.

The hotel is located 4 miles (about 10 minutes) from Portland International Airport, within easy walking distance (.5 – 1.5 miles) of the Alberta Arts District with numerous shops and restaurants available, and near a pharmacy and supermarket for incidental purchases.

Who doesn’t love Orlando in December? I’m speaking at the brand new SQE Agile Development Practices conference, December 3-6. Who knows maybe we’ll find time to sneak off to go hang out with the Big Mouse too? Sing together, “M-I-C….K-E-Y, Why? Because we like you!…”

Naresh Jain pledged to connect the dots between Agile practitioners around the world. Today he wrote a post about it. He’s taken another step (in addition to convening the SDT conference and conferences around India) by creating a group on LinkedIn. Dear Reader, if you’re an Agile Alliance member who would like to connect with other practitioners, and you have a profile on LinkedIn, you can join the group.

See you at the Amplifying Your Effectiveness conference, Nov. 4-7, in Phoenix, AZ. I’m presenting three sessions there and looking forward to meeting other folks interested in living and working in effective human systems.

A third Agile Open has sprouted! To follow the success of Agile Open Northwest last January, which built on the work of Willem van den Ende, Marc Evers, and Nynke Fokma who gave us Agile Open in Europe, now we have Agile Open California! Attendees will explore the theme of “Sustainable Agility: Thriving in the Mainstream.”

Agile and Open Space Technology, what a match made in heaven! Self-organizing rules! The word spreads….

The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference October 8-10, 2007 in Portland Oregon. (I’ve only been involved for the past five years.) One of the best conferences there is for developers, testers and other folks concerned with the quality of their software. And I’m planning the Monday night ice-breaker social!