TO create a team that delivers value now and in the future
AS A group of individuals
WE NEED to create an agreed way of working.

Immediately after the Profile Card Exercise, we create the team’s manifesto.

The Definition of Team (Duration: 15 – 25 minutes)

We begin by asking the group: “What does ‘Team’ mean to you?” We use the Clustering Exercise to ensure we collect everybody’s ideas.

The Clustering Exercise

1. Brainstorm ideas: Pose a question to the crowd. Ask everyone to write down their answers in silence, describing each idea or thought in no more than a few words on individual Post-its. Set aside 3- 5 minutes for this.
2. Share ideas: Ask each member to go through their entire stack by reading out a Post-it then posting it up one at a time. Ensure everyone can see the information being posted up.
3. Cluster ideas: Ask everyone to group the Post-its by theme. The clustering must be done in silence so that individuals cannot verbally influence one another’s way of grouping.
4. Identify themes: Select a cluster then read out the individual Post-its one by one. Ask the group to give the cluster a theme. Write down the theme on a Post-it and place it at the centre of the cluster. Repeat this step with each process.
5. Vote for themes: Count up the total number of themes then divide it by 3. The product is the number of votes given to each member. Ask each member to vote for their preferred themes. If someone feels particularly strongly for a theme, they can allocate all their votes to a single theme.
6. Spot the top themes: Count up the total number of votes per theme. Note down the number of votes on the associated theme Post-it.
7. Select the top themes: Write out the question you posed to the group as a heading on an A0 piece of paper. Identify and agree with the group up to top 5 themes to form the group’s collective answers to the question. Write down the themes as a numbered list below the question heading.

Once we’ve defined the team values, we take a break. After the break, we move on to the second exercise to build up our team manifesto.

The Definition of Quality (Duration: 15 – 20 minutes)

Quality is an integral part of everything we do. We’ll have many conversations with the team throughout the project about Quality, so it’s important to define upfront what Quality means to us.

Next, we ask the team “What does Quality means to you?” using the Clustering Exercise. Again, we begin by finding out what Quality means to each individual and then come to a common understanding of what it means to the team.

Why define Quality?

• To come to a common understanding of Quality.
• To find out how important Quality is for the team.
• To tap into the team’s sense of professional pride.
• It helps team members to stick up for what they believe in, because they’re supported by the team.
• It’s self-enforcing. Since the team came up with it, individuals are more likely to behave responsibly and encourage others to do the same.

Why is the Clustering exercise useful?

• It allows introvert thinkers to share their thoughts and ideas without being dominated or distracted by the extrovert thinkers in the group.
• It shows the coach how individual members behave in a group.
• It develops a sense of solidarity as a group works together to come up with a collective answer.

Now we have the information for creating two posters that make up the Team Manifesto. Here’s what we do next.

(During circuit training at a gym near you)

Brad the Instructor: Come on team! You’re letting yourselves down!
P.: ARRRRGGGHHH!
Brad: Had too many pies? Get moving!
P.: ARRRRGGGHHH!
Brad: It’s mind over matter. Your body can go on forever. It’s your mind that’s stopping you. You can do it!

Seeing the Future from the Past

Have you ever done the *BLEEP* test? If you can’t remember, then you’ve never done it. It’s not something you easily forget. The *BLEEP* test consists of a man with a monotone voice who counts up, level after level, as you repeatedly scramble, scuttle then eventually crawl from one end of the training room to the other.

Each leg is marked by the perpetual knell of the dreaded *BLEEP* that grows increasingly urgent with each round. They call it the *BLEEP* test because it comes complete with asterisks to enclose your choice of expletives as you struggle from one level to the next.

Body Futures

Brad reckons we can all see into the future. ‘Put it this way,’ he says, ‘you pay for the body you have now in 10 years’ time. Do you want to celebrate the future or regret the past?’

The clever among us will be adept at telling stories to ourselves to side-step the issue of personal fitness. ‘It’s too dark and cold out’ or ‘My favourite soap is on in 5 minutes’ or, more impressive still, ‘I have to put everyone else first before I think about myself’.

The Beauty of Baby Steps

The fact is, there’s no need for high-tech devices to measure the state of our health. All we need is a full-length mirror and the courage to take a good look at ourselves. Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to do. What’s the smallest possible action you can take to future-proof your health today?

The more I learn, the more I know.
The more I know, the more I forget,
The less I know.

Life’s a series of consequences, sequels, repeats and recorded playbacks. And so we’ve plenty of opportunities, both to forget and to re-learn. The lessons we learnt as children not only still hold true, but are often the most useful. That’s why it’s important we help each other remember. Together.

Back to Basics

Robert Fulghum isn’t a man who minces his words. In his book titled ‘All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten’, he identifies what he calls The Kindergarten Credo:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don’t hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
• Say sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
• Wonder.

These are what he refers to as the working rules of human enterprise. They are why we send children to school. To be civilised.

‘To be fair, we must share’

For those use to adopting a more directive approach in management, the toughest challenge that comes with transitioning to Agile is sharing. Sharing information, sharing pain, sharing joy and, most important of all, sharing glory. Those who define themselves 100% by what they do often find it almost impossible to relinquish the control and power they’re used to in order to become part of an Agile team.

Given an environment where everyone can be courageous, strangers can come together to form self-organising teams. Often, this happens much quicker than you think. The catch? As a manager and team member, you must adopt a collaborative style yourself. Your first step begins with suspending judgement.

If you believe that the only thing you can be certain of in life is that people will always let you down, the only person you can be sure to disappoint is yourself.

What would life be like if you no longer believed in everything you think?

‘When you go into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.’

– Robert Fulghum

Let’s face it. Agile is no picnic. The problem with Agile is that it suffers from the same perception problem as Common Sense. Just because we call something Common Sense doesn’t make it Common Practice. Likewise, the Agile (XP) Values, Principles and Practices may sound simple, however, they’re anything but easy when it comes to applying them, both for the individual and for the team.

One of the most important lessons learnt I’m constantly reminded of is the effect of introducing Agile into an organisation, small, medium or large.

Agile demands we learn and improve. Many people approach learning about Agile as they would quadratic equations. Agile isn’t something you learn from a short presentation or a two day course. I think Agile takes a lifetime to master. Most important of all, saying we’re keen to learn isn’t enough. We have to be committted to changing ourselves for the better.

Words I wish I wrote

Learning to become agile is one of the greatest challenge any team or individual faces. That’s because it brings out the best in people and the worst in people. You don’t have to do it alone. You certainly shouldn’t tolerate bad behaviour. A little courage and a lot of solidarity goes a long way.

Question and Answer

(At a conference in Paris back in 2008)

G.: You understand that Agile is about people and change.
P.: Go on.
G.: There’s a film called ‘Clean‘ in which a character played by Nick Nolte says, “People change. When they don’t have a choice, they do change.” What do you think of that?

In my experience, there are two reasons why people change. One, because they want to. Two, because they have to. Think about the two kinds of reasons as an equation of sorts. Let’s imagine the Individual as the subject of change and Change as a force operating on the subject.

Type One Change: Because I want to

When you want to change, and I mean really want to change, you are committed to making it happen. That commitment is characterised by determination and perseverance.

You know there’ll be blood, sweat and tears, but it’ll be worth it. You are 100% aware of the benefits the change brings and then some. You actively look for ways to inject an element of fun into everything you do. You do this because you know having fun makes you want to do something more and doing something more makes you better and better at what you do which, in turn, accelerates the change process, taking you closer to your goal sooner.

And whenever the going gets tough, you don’t give up. Instead, you summon up the vision of what life would be like after the change and you double up your effort. You run at a steady pace. You feel empowered to determine your destiny. Change feels good.

Type Two Change: Because I have to

You are uncertain about the change happening around you. You’ve probably glimpsed your Wall and are dragging your feet. You wake up in the morning feeling glum about your work and life in general. And you’ve every right to feel the way you do. You find yourself always playing catchup and all you can think about is what happens when you get left behind. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Type Two Change is always the more stressful of the two precisely because it feeds on negative thinking.

Change your tune to make change happen

Here’s what I do when I find myself stuck in the Type Two Change frame of mind:

• Hang out with folks who are into Type One Change: Quiz them about your concerns. Don’t worry about dampening their spirits, they’re committed to change and will appreciate your thoughts on how the change is going. Find out what keeps them going.
• Listen with an open mind: Quieten down the little voice in your head that begins every sentence with “Yes but, No but”. Challenge everything you think. Take notes so that you can replay conversations and meetings. Take time to reflect and absorb your conversations and experiences.
• Work at a sustainable pace: Going through the toughest change for me is like training for a half-marathon, it’s likely to be something entirely different for you. Find the hardest thing you can imagine doing and use that for comparison whenever the going gets tough to help put things into perspective. Remember to keep moving as well as take regular breaks. The best time to take a break is just before you need it. Avoid running on empty.

Committing to Change

It’s always better to lead yourself from the front rather than from behind. No one can make you change. Only you can change yourself. Once you think: ‘I do!’ you do.

2008: A Personal Retrospective

Things I’m most grateful for:

1. My first Agile deathmarch with a casualty of 1. Me. Lesson Learnt: Always agree on Acceptance Criteria before doing anything.
2. Learning from a diverse bunch of people: my fellow Exxies (folks from Exoftware), my client teams and especially Agilistas such as TJ, Pascal Van Cauwenberghe, Vera Peeters, Duncan Pierce, David Peterson and Simon Baker. Lesson Re-learnt: You’re only as good as the people you work with.
3. Doing 3/3: coaching, consulting and training. Lesson Learnt: Each type of activity acts as a check and balance to the other two. It’s a great way of getting a fresh perspective as well as maintaining objectivity on what you do, how you do it and, most importantly, why you do it.
4. Meeting more Social Science Heroes: Seeing Malcolm Gladwell present at the London Business Forum, hearing James Surowiecki present as keynote speaker at Agile 2008, seeing Jerry Weinberg demonstrate his consulting toolkit at AYE. Lesson Learnt: Seeing the speakers in action is one way of verifying the authenticity of what they espouse. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
5. Scoring 5/5: The chance to present The Bottleneck Game with Pascal at the same conference as Eli Goldratt and Neil Armstrong in Paris. Lesson Learnt: The biggest things that come true often start with the smallest wish.
6. Hearing Isabel Allende talk about magic realism in person as though it were real. Lesson learnt: Turning what you love into your job won’t make it a chore if you genuinely love what you do.
7. All of you for reading because it keeps me writing. A special ‘Thank You’ to Pascal, David and TJ for their candid feedback. Lesson Learnt: Things that have value must meet a need.

2009: My Wishes

• I wish to learn more in 2009 than I did 2008.
• I wish to meet Seth Godin, Tom De Marco and Dale Chihuly. I also wish to meet Eli Goldratt again.
• I wish to present the Snow White and Seven Dwarves Agile Fairytale in French in Paris.
• I wish to create a third Agile Fairytale.
• I wish to try out Agile Fairytales beyond the IT industry.
• I wish to learn more about Lean and use it more explicitly as part of my Agile Coach Toolkit.
• I wish to collaborate with Agilistas such as Pascal and Vera to create A-W-E-S-O-M-E Agile games that help us all become a bit more agile every day.
• I wish to create more Agile teams that endure long after the coach is gone.
• I wish to receive requests from you, the Reader, on questions you want answers to and the reasons why you need an answer. Think Selfish Programming: The Radio Request Blog.
• I wish you a Happy 2009 – may it bring you all that you deserve!

Congratulations! THE BIG DAY you’ve been training for for the past 364 days will soon by upon us. It’s time to cash in on the benefit of the thousands of Agility exercises you’ve been putting into practice at work. Let’s hope all the agile flexing of both brain and brawn pays off. 

Ho! Ho! Ho! Contenders ready?

If you think Christmas Day is a day off, you’re wrong. The 25th of December is the single day of the year when most of us will be trying our hardest to be true to who we are and what we believe in. If that’s not hard work, I don’t know what is. Welcome to Ultimate Agile (also known as Christmas Day with all the family). Are you ready for Ultimate Agile?

Why not have black swan instead of turkey this year?

The problem with Christmas with the family is this: If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll only get what you’ve always got. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. The Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future comes in the form of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan, who offers us a chance to understand how we can change our fate.

‘History is opaque,’ writes Taleb, ‘You see what comes out, not the script that produces the events, the generator of history.’ Taleb identifies three ailments of the human mind whenever it comes in contact with history. He calls them the Triplet of Opacity.

The Triplet of Opacity

The Illusion of Understanding, where everyone thinks they know everything there is to know about everything when in fact they don’t

The Retrospective Distortion, how we use hindsight to explain strange and mysterious things to make-believe that we are in control

The Overvaluation of Factual Information and the Handicap of Authoritative and Learned People, how we listen to and believe in those who appear to be experts but fail to give practical answers that work beyond textbooks

Wise is she who knows she does not know

In my experience, destructive human behaviour arises out of what Taleb calls ‘agressive ignorance’, or a fear of looking stupid that is greater than the fear of being wrong. For example, being asked something to which you don’t know the right answer is the event. Agressive ignorance is the emotional response. The script invisible to the naked eye reads:

1. I know deep down that if I’m wrong, I may have to change.
2. Change requires effort which I’m not sure I can be bothered to invest.
3. The effort might go wasted if I fail.
4. If I fail to change, that makes me a failure.

So what’s the antidote?

Whenever I’m in a spot of bother, I remind myself of the Agile Values: Communication, Simplicity, Feedback, Courage and Respect. When I feel comfortable living and breathing the first five in a given situation (Think: ‘Baby Steps’ or ‘Incremental development’), I throw in an extra two: Trust and Transparency.

For instance, before a discussion becomes a deafening shouting match, I ask myself: ‘How can I be a better communicator?’ to which my brain resourcefully volunteers a myriad of options such as ‘Listen more! Talk less. The two of you have reached an impasse, ask for help or clarification.’

The only thing most people seek at family gatherings is understanding. It’s the same at work. Why not treat your work self at home to a Christmas helping of black swan?

Merry Christmas one and all!

The first and most important thing I share with any team I work with are the Agile Values, also known the XP Values from Kent Beck and Cynthia Andres.

The Five Agile Values

1. Communication is a two way thing. It’s about talking and listening.

2. Simplicity is about simple solutions that do what’s required, no more, no less. Simplicity is synonymous with elegance.

3. Feedback has three axes: Giving feedback, receiving feedback and taking action as a result of the feedback.

4. Courage is about taking calculated risks. It’s about facing and voicing the brutal facts. It’s also about creating an environment where people can be courageous.

5. Respect is an appreciation that everyone can add value. It’s also about valuing diversity.

Agile Values++

During our peer coaching, Pascal and I identified two more vital values to add to the set:

6. Trust is about giving people a chance to do the right thing and to do things right.

7. Transparency means sharing information as much as possible to help create more Real Options for all parties involved.

What the Agile Values mean in practice

Newcomers to Agile often ask me: ‘How do you know if someone is really agile?‘ To which I reply, ‘They follow the Agile Values even at times of great stress.’ Those who compromise on the Values can never be truly agile, especially if they get stuck in Denial.

In my experience, Respect is the toughest and most important value because it forms the foundation for the rest. You have to respect others and yourself to really make the other values count.

The Telltale Heart

I regularly meet Agilistas who appear to respect others and themselves, yet they are incapable of accepting feedback and taking action. According to Marshall Goldsmith, the only correct response to any feedback is: ‘Thank You’. What do you say when someone gives you feedback?

As an Agile Coach, the greatest challenge for me on any Agile Enablement gig is The Wall. And I don’t mean the Project Wall (aka Kanban Board), the one with the iteration backlog on display for all to see, where stories and tasks take their turn journeying across the columns of TODO and In Progress before finally reaching DONE.

The Wall I speak of is a metaphorical one. Everyone has one. One person’s Wall may well be different from someone else’s. I can only share with you what mine looks and feels like. The most important thing is to be able to recognise yours when you come up against it. Recognising the Wall is one small, yet significant step towards winning the struggle against yourself.

I know I’ve reached the Wall when:

• I’ve stopped listening.
• I refuse to ask for feedback.
• I refuse to ask for help.
• I’ve stopped learning.
• I think I’m right and everyone else is wrong.

The Wall at its most extreme means:

• I’ve run out of answers.
• I feel helpless.
• I feel like running away and leaving it all behind.
• I’ve lost hope.
• I question everything I represent: from my areas of expertise and skills to my years of experience.

In summary, The Wall is when self doubt gnaws at your bones trying to get to the marrow. It’s when you refuse to face the brutal facts about yourself and start making up stories in the hope of magicking away The Wall through make-believe.

Agile and The Wall

Agile Enablement is tough because Agile demands continuous improvement. Continuous Improvement means being on the constant lookout for problems and facing the brutal truths when we find them so that we can deal with them through process and/or people improvement. It’s only natural that Continuous Improvement at an organisational level results in growing pains on a grand scale.

Rules about The Wall

1. You have to confront The Wall.
2. You have to develop an understanding of how The Wall has come to be in order to identify ways of getting over it.
3. You have to climb over The Wall. You cannot just skirt or workaround it.

Dealing with The Wall as an Individual

Here’s what I do when I find myself or a team member facing The Wall:

1. Take a break.
2. Find a quiet place to sit and think.
3. Find out how others are feeling about the situation in a 1-2-1.
4. Ask for feedback.
5. Perform a version of a temperature reading.
6. Put checks in place and assess progress.
7. Rinse and repeat.

Dealing with The Wall as a Team

1. Take a break.
2. Hold an impromptu team retrospective.
3. Mine for key issues.
4. Brainstorm possible causes for key issues.
5. Brainstorm possible solutions for key issues.
6. Commit to trying out 1 – 3 possible solutions as a team.
7. Put checks in place and assess progress.
8. Rinse and repeat.

Beware of Wallflowers

Be on the look out for perpetual laggards who choose to hang around The Wall. No one forces them to stay there, as they kick stones at the foot of the Wall, like aged teenagers smoking their cigarettes by the bike shed trying to look cool long after the bike shed is gone. Offer help by way of a 1-2-1 conversation to identify options that may help them go over The Wall.

The Secret to Scaling The Wall

• Always apply the Agile Values: Communication, Simplicity, Feedback, Courage and Respect
• Apply two additional Agile Values: Trust and Transparency
• Practice Real Options thinking
• Take responsibility for yourself
• Find meaning in your work
• Find ways you can add value
• Strive to improve continuously
• Strive to enjoy what you do – the amount of fun you have is in direct correlation with the chances of you being able to scale The Wall

There’s one more thing about The Wall you should know: there will be many incarnations of The Wall you’ll have to face. The trick is to focus of scaling the one that’s blocking your way right now. Another one will inevitably spring up elsewhere on your journey and that’s good news because we need The Wall to keep our brains agile and our bodies nimble. The Wall also keeps us honest about how agile we really are.

New Kids on the Block

My first ever commercial IT project was to tweak an existing application that sent out financial news by email. I remember really enjoying the challenge. I learned how to set up my local dev environment. I learned about the release process using foil packs of tea as release tokens (creativity was what made the Dot.com days special). Most important of all, I learned how to write code better by looking at bad code.

As time passed, I was exposed to terms such as ‘maintenance’ (more sinisterly known as BAU – Business As Usual) vs ‘greenfield’. I was surrounded by developers who complained that BAU was gruntwork, that they wished they could do greenfield work instead.

‘Avoid maintenance work at all costs’

Many of those developers were given greenfield work, only to create an even larger legacy of bad code. I found that I appreciated a balance of maintenance and greenfield work because, together, they reminded me of the cost of over-engineered or badly designed solutions that I would have to help support.

The Longest Journey

Still, the conundrum of endless maintenance bugged me. Then one day it dawned upon me: Everything in life is BAU, be it buying milk, having breakfast on a Monday morning or attending yet-another-pointless meeting warped by political posturing. And, of course, keeping fit.

Welcome to your most important maintenance contract. It’s for life. Make it fun. Fill it with learning. Make it meaningful.