Nurturing Self-Organizing Teams
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Transcript of Nurturing Self-Organizing Teams
Nurturing Self-Organizing Teams
Dr Rashina HodaLeader, SEPTA Research
The University of AucklandNew Zealand
Who Is Rashina Hoda
Researcher, Lecturer, Consultant, Author, and Wannabe-Supermom
twitter: @agileRashinawebsite: www.rashina.comemail: [email protected]
On the Topic…
Hot off the PressIEEE Software article “Power to the People”, March 2013
Not so long agoXP2011, “Supporting Self-organizing Agile Teams”,
Madrid, 2011
Ah, and that tooPhD Thesis, “Self-Organizing Agile Software
Development Teams: A Grounded Theory”, 2011
Power to the People
What’s Going On?Inability of managers to adapt their style to the new age
Desire of people to take matter in their own hands
Fundamentally,A widening gap between the two.People no longer live – or want to live – under command and control.
New age ‘management’ styleAdaptive, supportive, and collaborative leadership
Empowerment and Self-organization are here to stay
THE SELF-ORGANIZING CONNECTIONAgile Teams and …
SELF-ORGANIZING TEAMSBrand new from ages ago
Humble beginningsStudy of English coal miners, 1950s
Self-Managing groups: 10-15 cross-trained people, autonomous, learning systems, assuming responsibilities of former supervisors
Complex adaptationsComplex Adaptive Systems,1990s
Characteristics of Self-Organizing Teams: informal structure, strong sense of shared purpose, decide own affairs
The Research• Industry-based, original PhD research, 2006-2011• 58 Agile Practitioners from 23 Organizations• New Zealand, India, North America• Rounded perspective
• Agile practices: Scrum + XP• Team size: 4 to 15 members• Project duration: 1 to 48 months• Organizational sizes: 10 to 300,000 employees
• Semi-structured interviews and observations• Iterative rounds of data collection and analysis• Finding common concepts, patterns in data
• Becoming self-organizing the biggest concern
Participants
New Zealand44%
India39%
North
America
17%
GeographicDistribution
30%
30%
26%
9%
4%Org. Sizes
XS (<50)S (<500)M (<5000)L (<50,000)XL (>100,000)
Participants
31%
36%
14%
5%
5%5%
3%
Organizational TitlesDeveloperAgile CoachSenior ManagementCustomerTesterBAOthers
Implications for Software Engineering
The Theory of Self-Organizing Agile Teams *
“explains how Agile teams take on informal, implicit, transient, and spontaneous roles and perform balanced practices while facing critical environmental factors.”
Main Findings
• Self-Organizing Roles• Self-Organizing Practices• Critical Factors influencing self-organizing teams
– Senior Management Support– Customer Involvement
*Rashina Hoda, Self-Organizing Agile Teams: A Grounded Theory, PhD Thesis, 2011
WHAT’S SENIOR MANAGEMENT GOT TO DO WITH IT?
No, but really…
Management Influence on SO Teams
Organizational Culture
“Resource” Management
Contracts
Customer Involvement
ManagementSelf-OrganizingTeams
Organizational Culture
“a standard set of basic suppositions invented, discovered or developed by the group when learning to
face problems of external adaptation and internal integration*”
OR
“The way we do things around here.”
What organization cultural traits are desired?*Schein, E. H. Organizational Culture and Leadership, 1st edition ed.
Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Franciso, 1985.
Building a Culture of Trust
Informal Structure
Openness
Free flow ofcommunication
Environmentof Trust
Calling all CTOs : Chief-Trusting-Officer
Building a Culture of Trust
“don't expect that you're going to be in any other traditional hierarchical company...no matter if its 4 years or three years [of experience], they [team] can walk up to [CEO's name] and say `this what you did, is [rubbish]' (laughs) and [CEO] will say `Oh, okay fine, let's discuss what happened'. So people have that freedom to voice their opinion very clearly. At the same time people will [give] feedback to you.”
- Senior Manager, India
“Resource” Management
What are the benefits of a dedicated team?
Why split people across projects?
Human-Resource [HR] : an oxymoron
People Dedicated to Projects
“What I think affected our project...[the developer] was working on another project, he didn't have enough time…space to chat with anybody, to discuss ideas…to work with anybody…that really impacted a lot of the work he did in the last few months ... When you're working in a team like this [Agile team] and you've got to work quite closely, the individuals in the team matter.”
- Product Owner, New Zealand
Contracts Fixed contracts do not help embrace change
Who sets fixed contracts?
Who needs to absorb change?
Agile Contracts
Encouraging flexible contracts
Offering optionsbuy per iteration, swap features, exit
Adding a buffer to absorb change
Encouraging Participation
Software teams usually find it “demotivating to be given ridiculous deadlines” by managers who
“don’t actually have a clue about the technical challenges associated with them” (Developer, NZ)
Invite teams to provide estimates…when negotiating contracts.
Customer Involvement
Who sells Agile to customers?
Do customers realize their role?
Who suffers the consequences?
On-board, off-guard
Customer Involvement“The client reads [Scrum books] and what they see is client can make changes all the time and they think wow that sounds great! … They don't understand the counter-balancing discipline [customer involvement] ... Customer involvement is poor."
- Scrum Trainer, India
“Two of the [internal customers] responded lots and were very...complaining, and at the end of the project their business units loved it and the business unit that didn't give much feedback - when it went to a user - started complaining. And it's like well, if we didn't get any critique it's not really our fault!”
- Developer, New Zealand
Customer Involvement
Selling the Full Story“In the sales room, even the way we
work is Agile. We have two groups, one for marketing, one for sales. We have stages for each teams - we use kind of
post-its and put them up. So even our sales is Agile.”
- Sales Manager, India
Offer Product Owner Training
IN THE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING WORLD
Back to conflicts…
The New Global Village
• Unprecedented access to information
• Unprecedented access to influence
• Anyone. Anywhere. Anytime.
The Same Old Office
Time for an IT Revolution?WOAH!
Lessons for Bosses
Employ the hands-free, watchful-eyes management approach
Teams are resourcesSell customers Agile
Expect Trust your teams to perform their best.Teams are resources humans. Treat them so.Sell customers Agile the full story.
Expect your teams to perform their best.
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