Agile Coaches' Corner

This week on the Agile Coaches’ Corner, Dan Neumann is joined by a new guest, Michael Guiler! Mike is an Agile Consultant at AgileThought. He has been an Agile coach for over 13 years now and has tons of experience helping geographically dispersed organizations (both business and technology) transform to better achieve their goals. His focus is on helping organizations learn and apply the values and principles of the Agile mindset to continuously improve.

In this episode, Dan and Mike will be focusing on the topic of intent-based leadership and the key leadership characteristics that allow for intent-based leadership. Mike shares how an organization can begin to take the first steps towards intent-based leadership, how to avoid common pitfalls, and shares his best practical tips and advice on embracing intent-based leadership throughout the organization.

Key Takeaways

What is intent-based leadership? What problems does it solve?

Helps to get the entire team to chip in and no longer wait for approvals and sign-offs

Takes the pressure off of one single leader and unlocks the potential of every employee

The opposite of directive leadership

Changing the pattern from leader-follower to leader-leader

Those in the leadership level are not telling people what to do/how to do it; they are setting goals and directions

The ‘followers’ are engaging their creativity, mind, and intelligence and leveraging those skills and sharing their solutions with the leadership (this gives the organization a great opportunity to learn and exposes leaders to things they hadn’t thought about before)

Getting started with intent-based leadership/Characteristics of leadership to allow for intent-based leadership:

Before the leader-leader pattern can take place a lot of growth has to take place

Keep in mind that this process won’t happen overnight

Immediately begin to address competence — leadership at all levels can’t thrive if your team doesn’t have the skills or knowledge to prioritize and take action

Establish safety — mistakes will happen; it’s how we react to those mistakes that will enable leadership at all levels to thrive or to fail miserably

Use mistakes as a learning opportunity rather than punishing an individual

Be curious and ask good questions from a place of true curiosity

Challenge your preconceived notions of how things have always been done

Embrace new ideas and thoughts — there’s a real chance you’ll learn something!

Allow time for the team to talk out loud

Respect others opinions and encourage others to have their own point of view

It’s hard and will take a lot of time and investment (but it’s money well-spent — the productivity will explode)

It’s important to set guide rails in the technology world

Focus on the goal/outcome instead of the ‘how’; set clear intentions and let the team figure out how

Adopt the “I intend to” language pattern

Mike’s intent-based leadership tips:

Once the competency is established and you’ve gotten your organization thinking about it, it is important to establish safety (without safety people won’t bring their creative-selves or do anything new)

It is key crucial for the team to know what the goals are

Have an “ish” mindset; decisions and actions being taken won’t match yours and that’s OK!

Overcome urges to command and control

Be tolerant of differences and encourage different points of view

Mike’s recommendation to further learn about intent-based leadership:

Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders, by David L. Marquet

Mentioned in this Episode:

Michael Guiler

Agile Coaches’ Corner Ep. 84: “Getting to ‘Finish’ as a Scrum Team with Andrea Floyd”

Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders, by David L. Marquet

Forbes article regarding psychopathology in CEOs

Michael Guiler’s Book Picks:

The Age of Agile: How Smart Companies Are Transforming the Way Work Gets Done, by Stephen Denning

In this episode, Professional Scrum Trainer Sam Falco addresses the question: “How do you escape the tyranny of the burndown chart?”

This was the question a student asked last week. I knew exactly what he meant. I experienced it myself with my first Scrum Team, and I’ve seen it many time since. Teams try to predict every task they’ll have to do during a Sprint, estimate the hours for each, and make sure that the team’s capacity is fully allocated. As the Sprint progresses, they discover new work. Work that was predicted takes longer than usual. The burndown rises instead of falling, or it plateaus. The burndown chart becomes a burden that destroys morale and effectiveness.

After a few Sprints of this experience, teams either abandon the burndown chart or they start playing games to make the burndown “look right.” In both cases, the team loses out on a valuable tool for helping them achieve the Sprint Goal.

To be clear, the Scrum Guide does not mandate the use of a burndown chart. Here’s what it says about tracking Sprint progress:

“At any point in time in a Sprint, the total work remaining in the Sprint Backlog can be summed. The Development Team tracks this total work remaining at least for every Daily Scrum to project the likelihood of achieving the Sprint Goal. By tracking the remaining work throughout the Sprint, the Development Team can manage its progress.”

Tracking total work remaining provides transparency about the team’s progress toward the Sprint Goal. That transparency allow the team to make informed decisions about how to adjust the scope of its work throughout the Sprint. If the team doesn’t know how much forecasted work remains, the Sprint Goal may be placed in jeopardy.

A sprint burndown chart is one way to fulfill the need to sum up the remaining work and make that data visible. So why does the burndown chart so easily become a burden to the team, rather than a tool?

Often, it’s because of a holdover from the mistaken belief that software development can be managed through predictive processes. Even in organizations that recognize the folly of predictive planning on a macro level, teams fall into the trap of thinking they can and should plan every minute of a team’s capacity.

Software development falls into the realm of complexity. Even within a Sprint, we have to allow for emergent understanding of the work. Requirements, understood well enough for the work to begin, become clearer. New work emerges as a result. Teams that have strived for efficiency in allotting their time find that there’s no room to adjust as new information and understanding becomes available.

The secret to avoiding the tyranny of the burndown chart has nothing to do with the burndown chart itself. The secret is to let go of the belief that we can know everything up front and that efficient time usage is a worthwhile goal. Instead, strive for value delivery, select work that the team understands well enough to start on, and don’t strive for 100% utilization. The only thing certain about software development is that it is filled with uncertainty. In Sprint Planning, you need only look a few days into the future, and allow remaining details to arise as work gets underway.

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In this week’s episode, Dan Neumann is joined by frequent guest of the show, Quincy Jordan — principal transformation consultant and agile competency lead at AgileThought! Together, they are exploring COVID-19 as an agile accelerator.

In the agile space, there has been a long-time myth that face-to-face is synonymous with colocation and that you cannot have effective agile teams if they are not colocated. However, in the past year or so, many companies have been beginning to consider going to a hybrid remote model. But, when COVID-19 hit, their 12-month transition plans quickly became one-week transition plans. And though this has been very difficult for many, this acceleration due to COVID-19 has actually been a good thing in many cases — which is what Dan and Quincy will be talking about today!

They discuss which types of things got accelerated, beliefs about agility that got challenged due to COVID-19, what the ‘new normal’ post-COVID-19 may look like, and how these changes will be made to be sustainable going forward.

Key Takeaways

Beliefs about agility that got challenged due to COVID-19:

Those people in the agile space that were especially adamant that you cannot have effective agile teams that are remote were shown that it was possible

Some people believed that doing training in a distributed way would bring the quality down — however, the quality of training that is being delivered has not gone down since going remote

What COVID-19 has accelerated:

When pressed, many people are able to do very impressive things and accomplish more than they thought possible

It accelerated ingenuity and creativity

It accelerated the decisions to collaborate with one another as teammates and to quickly come together on a situation to figure out the most effective solution

It helped accelerate clarity on what was truly important to accomplish

It has driven companies to really start embracing business agility a lot more

Agility went from a concept that companies only thought about to a concrete concept that they embraced

Organizations have been focusing on value more due to embracing the agile mindset (and COVID-19 has been pushing this to further bounds)

It has helped push organizations to further their alignment on business agility and focus on the problems that need to be solved

COVID-19 has also accelerated businesses beyond those in software (it permeated into all facets)

Challenges regarding COVID-19 and the acceleration it has brought:

How do we maintain alignment between business and IT in this remote world? (How often do we need to meet? What do we need to be aligned on?)

Video conference fatigue

How do we ensure that the right problems are being solved, that the vision is clear, that the business objectives at hand are clear, and that the teams know how to tie their work to meaningful outcomes for the business?

People don’t adapt as fast as technology

What might the new ‘new normal’ look like post-COVID-19?

There most likely will be more remote work and more emphasis on collaborating remotely

There may be a bigger demand for remote tools (such as digital whiteboards) and they will become even more efficient going forward

People will most likely be more intentional about how they are showing up to video conferences with clearer goals in mind

Mentioned in this Episode:

From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams: Collaborate to Deliver, by Johanna Rothman and Mark Kilby

The Decision: Overcoming Today’s BS for Tomorrow’s Success, by Kevin Hart

Want to Learn More or Get in Touch?

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In this episode, Professional Scrum Trainer Sam Falco addresses the question: "How do we avoid Scrum adoption pitfalls?"

Last week, a student asked me what are some common pitfalls that we see when organizations shift to Scrum from a “big design upfront” process like waterfall.

A big one is that they think it’s a silver bullet

Adopting Scrum doesn’t solve problems overnight. It doesn’t solve problems at all! Scrum will surface the problems in your ability to deliver so that you can fix them. Too many organizations falter when Scrum runs up against an organizational impediment and “the way we’ve always done it” wins out. One example of this phenomenon is when there’s an onerous change management system that prevents code from getting into production. Scrum teams complete an increment and it sits there waiting until someone approves it to be moved to production. Sometimes, the wait is so long that multiple increments pile up.

Some organizations will cling to that change management system even though it’s getting in the way. Success comes when they adapt to the new way of working. At one organization I worked with, the solution was to set up an experiment with one team working on a less risky area of code. Once they proved that they could safely put code into production without breaking things, it paved the way for broader changes to their process.

Another pitfall is that the organization doesn’t really adopt Scrum

In many cases, organizations claim to adopt Scrum, but what they really do is apply Scrum terminology to existing roles and processes. I frequently see the term “Product Owner” used—or maybe I should say abused—as a new name for a Project Manager. But those Project Managers carry on pretty much the way they did before. They lack any of the accountabilities or authority of a Scrum Product Owner. They shift from using Gant charts measured in weeks to plotting out a project in Sprints over several months.

And that’s another way this behavior manifests. They’ll use the name of Scrum events without understanding their underlying purpose. A Sprint lacks the focus of creating a usable increment. “Daily Scrum” is a daily status report. “Sprint Review” is a carefully orchestrated smoke-and-mirrors show with limited, if any feedback or collaboration with stakeholders.

Without using all of its roles, events, and artifacts—and the rules that bind them together—you’re not using Scrum. You’re probably perpetuating your existing system. You know, the one that wasn’t working for you before. This is the realm of “Scrum, but.” And “Scrum, but” is not Scrum at all.

They don’t make other necessary changes

Even when an organization adopts Scrum’s mechanics, they sometimes find that Scrum doesn’t provide the benefits they hoped for. Delivery improves a little, but it soon plateaus and it’s a struggle to keep improving. That’s because other changes are necessary to really reap the gains of Scrum.

A common organizational structure is to have teams organized around technical layers or components. For example, a User Interface team, a Data Access Team, a Service gateway team, and so on. Scrum requires that we produce a working increment each Sprint, which means one that’s in usable condition. Teams organized by layers or components face numerous handoffs and challenges integrating their work. There’s a loss of transparency, and they struggle to compete that working increment.

The solution is to form teams that can deliver complete features that cut across all layers. Scrum doesn’t tell you to do that, but it works best if you do.

Scrum also doesn’t tell you to adopt good DevOps practices, or incorporate Kanban techniques, or to refactor your code. They’re all still good ideas.

Scrum is incomplete for a reason and that’s so that you can identify what works best for your organization. You have to go beyond Scrum. I talked about the pitfall of “Scrum, but,” earlier. But “Just Scrum” isn’t enough. You need “Scrum, and.”

Adopting Scrum requires a shift in organizational mindset. Without that, people revert to familiar behavior, even if that behavior wasn’t effective. And adopting Scrum can’t be an endpoint. It’s the beginning of a journey of experimentation and continuous improvement. In the Trainer Talk episode “Why Does Scrum Have So Many Meetings?” a few weeks ago, I mentioned that implementing Scrum requires intentional, thoughtful organizational redesign. That’s true of implementing the basics of the framework, but it’s equally true about the wider ecosystem that Scrum teams work in. And just like I said in that earlier episode, that’s why you need a good experienced Scrum Master—and sometimes more than one—to guide your organization’s Scrum adoption.

Register for our upcoming web meetings by visiting agilethought.com/events

Today on the podcast, Dan Neumann and Christy Erbeck are discussing how to lead in times of crisis and come out of it stronger than ever.

As a leader, it is critically important to take care of yourself during crises to be able to lead others through them, as well. In this episode, Christy shares her tips for leading through crisis, key strategies leaders can begin to implement, and how to cultivate a healthy work environment for everyone involved.

Key Takeaways

Christy’s tips for leaders, leading in a time of crisis:

Use it as a time to reflect on where you are now and where you want to be on the other side of it all

Take time to process your emotions and lead from a place of truth

Lead by example; take care of yourself and work at a sustainable pace while encouraging the rest of the team

Transparency is key — be transparent about where you are, as a team, as an organization, and in relation to the difficult decisions you’ve had to make to survive the crisis (transparency offers the opportunity for growth and building trust within the organization)

Understand your audience in your approach with being transparent; it is important to care for the person receiving the information

Going hand-in-hand with transparency, it is also critical to communicate (and the need for communication exponentially rises, the greater the crisis)

Meaningful, intentional communication and on-going dialogue between the employee and the leader (or the team and the team members) is critically important for minimizing the stories they may be telling themselves when there is a gap in communication or lack of communication

Connect in a meaningful way with your employees vs. walking away or being silent

Authenticity is critically important in leading through a crisis — it’s not about what you know; it’s about what you’re willing to learn

Do not defer taking action until the last possible moment

How to come out of a crisis stronger than ever with your team:

Delegate decision-making and allow other people to make decisions within a framework

Take pragmatic action

Ensure you are still meeting and talking about your longer-term strategy beyond COVID-19

Examine how to position your organization so that when you come out on the other side of COVID-19 you are attractive to the marketplace and your customers

Leverage OKRs

Apply an experimental mindset and conduct experiments (one way you could do this is to utilize Kanban boards)

Implement empirical process control

Cultivate a culture steeped in trust and forgiveness

Continual planning

Reach out to others as a leader so that you’re not making decisions in a vacuum and are leveraging other people’s expertise

Imagine what the leader that you most respect would do; how would they handle this situation? And how can you tap into this person’s expertise?

Make the time to reflect and gain perspective

Be courageous as a leader by being vulnerable

Mentioned in this Episode:

The Dave Ramsey Show

Brené Brown

“A Guide to OKRs,” KOAN

Agile Coaches’ Corner Ep. 5: “Exploring an Experimental Mindset with Adam Ulery”

“What is a Kanban Board?”

Small Business Administration (SBA)

SCORE — Service Corps of Retired Executives

Gartner

The Conference Board

Harvard Business Review

“Microsoft Analyzed Data on its Newly Remote Workforce,” Harvard Business Review

“Managing When the Future is Unclear,” Harvard Business Review

“Leadership in Times of Crisis,” American Psychological Association