Team up
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Leadership, process, survival and pride @ the Agile era ren Ellenbogen (@orenellenbogen) Team up! Team Lead Role
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Lately, it seems that process became trendier than core leadership skills. Agile, Scrum, Kanban stole the focus. BUT - it is leadership that fuels process adoption rather than process auto-magically fixing disfunction teams.In this talk we'll explore what went wrong in this process adoption race: from hiring or promoting the wrong people, avoid setting clear expectations from our leaders, to dropping lean practices due to lack of deep understanding (forgetting why we started to begin with). The dark side is interesting to explore, but we are here for the bright light - we will bring the FOCUS back to how we want our leadership to look like. We'll try to figure out how we want our leaders to look like in the "Agile era"Agenda:== THE WHY ==- The essence- Goals balance- Surviving in chaos- Team leader definition- Business vision- Throughput .vs. latency- Confidence is not cheap- Risks management- Beautiful code- Beautiful document== THE HOW ==- Visibility over progress- Must, Delegate and External- Ownership as a driver- Define “minimum working unit” early- Define “done” that works for you- Quality is God (or at least Jesus)- Test to last- Bullets knowledge base- Estimate together- Teach to move forward
Transcript of Team up
Leadership, process, survival and pride @ the Agile era
Oren Ellenbogen (@orenellenbogen)
Team up!
Team Lead Role
Who am I ?
Oren Ellenbogen
* Blogger: www.Lnbogen.com
* Engineer @ Commerce Sciences
* ex. Delver (Sears) – Director of Engineering
The Agile/Lean Crusade 2.0
Food for thought
When
PressureBeatsThe crapOut ofLeadership
He’s smart, ridiculously smart
Bob (the CEO):
“What about Chris? He’s amazingly talented! I guess he can handle it…”
Meet the tech leader
New team = our smart dude +2 teammates
magic!
The company adjusts…
“I match my shoes to my pen”“I love reading hex”“I shave per new version of Ubuntu”
“I guess I can tell others what to do”
Maybe we need more than technical skills?
A leader in trouble???
“Let’s use Scrum!” [process kicks in, time passes]
Ozzi (a developer):
“why do we need a daily report? Shouldn’t a weekly status suffice?”
Meet the “passionate” leader
“Let’s do it!” is a great attitude!But people forget reasoning fast
Why should we do it? why now? why ever?
Maybe we need more than passion?
A leader in trouble
???
• Working for 6 years as senior dev• Knows all the secret God classes• All the magical javascript quirks
“I am technical enough and experienced enough to lead a team. I’m doing it for
a long time now, I deserve it!”
Meet the “experienced” leader
• Does he know what leading means?• Does he care enough to make others shine?
Maybe we need more than experience ?
A leader in trouble ???
Can you define what a “great team lead” means?
Do you currently have
enough management tools?
Are you suffering from a
process without leadership?
Are you feeling ready to lead?
Why?(Some background)
Our reality:• Organizations constantly need to change• Pressure constantly adds up• Lean/agile processes makes things even faster!
Pressure has its impact:• We adapt poorly• Picking (sometimes) the wrong people• Neglecting proper guidance, forgetting the why
Organization IQ: f(pressure)
There is 1 reason to become TL
Thoughts are volatile, you’re missing:• Self retrospective• Passing it on• Ideas writing (instead of “good memory”)• …
Lack of putting thoughts on paper
1
Team lead role –
WTF is it then?
If you had to pick 3 qualities of a great team leader, what will they be?
(hint: “a leader” is not a quality)
Define: team leader
Visionary Product vision (can you explain the why?) Architecture vision (incorporated with product
requirements) Team vision (incorporated with architecture)
Cares about people People will follow your heart (honesty)
ROI driven Pick your battles, explain the why, offer tradeoffs
Attempt: team leader
Caring?
It’s the small stuffThat counts most
* Welcome gift to a developer, after writing FB message saying it’s SWEET!
My definition is only my point of view
The real question is do you have your own definition written?
Your attempt: team leader
Your boss: you’re on top of things, actively report.
Your people: things will be handled (technical backlog), you have their back
Your peers: You’re able to deliver & communicate (team player)
Your company: You help the company to deliver faster with higher quality
Yourself: You’re able to make other shine.
It’s about confidence
Ideas/ tools / thoughts
How to make others shine
Different unit of productivity
Then Now
Time to change your state of mind
Key decisions list
Document it!
Guidance:
Why: to be able to reflect later, with yourself & others
Visibility > progress
No glory in running forward in the dark
Guidance :1. Ask for ETA (when?) and their COMMITMENT!2. Thinking end->backwards (how?)3. Early *complete* breakdown (what?)
Why: ETA > Progress (create visible organization)
Gut feeling estimation
Does it get any better?
Why: allow quick re-prioritization (product/business)
Range is good!
Must, Delegate and External
Is it really my responsibility?
Guidance :1. Team leaders should specify:
1. MUST 2. DELEGATE (HOW?!)3. DEAR BOSS, PLEASE DO X, Y, Z
2. Challenge and consider how to do less MUST and more Delegate
Why: reduce personal pressure to take care of the MUST
Ownership as a driver
Increase your execution unit
Guidance:1. Give ownership to drive commitment.2. Set your expectations!3. Ask them to stand behind their commitment (not nice to have)4. Help them be effective (close feedback loop)5. Don’t stand in their way
Why: get to know your bottlenecks
Estimate together
Teach the dark magic of estimation
Guidance:1. Consider practices to estimate faster (Poker Planning)2. Try to reach some consensus and endorse
open conversation about the estimation3. Track estimations (estimated vs. actual) over time and analyze
your team’s gaps
Why: avoid “you said 2 but I’m doing it, It’s a 10”
Test to last
Avoid the (default) graph:
Guidance:1. Create an environment striving for production-quality
code in your testsa) Tests instead of overkill documentationb) Reduce maintenance time when changing behavior
2. Consult and learn how to build maintainable testsa) IoC, tests structure, open-source projects, language tricks
Why: tests == confidence == easier release cycle
Document’s worth = f(“initial value”, time)
• Like a car, it’s around 40% less valuable 15 minutes after you finish writing it.
• Unlike car, people won’t use it every day.
My attempt: a beautiful document is when… Requirements, pains, motivation and
known constraints are well specified. Why: less time to write and most chances, it won’t
change
“Beautiful Document”
Bullets knowledge base
Keep your Documents relevant
Guidance:1. Phrase (Owner)2. Small explanation about each phrase3. Talk with (Owner) for further details4. Practice to learn the details
(pair-programming, leading a feature)
Why: relevant know-how is key to fast release cycle
Unique != beautiful: Unicorn style of code is not really beautiful
My attempt: beautiful code is when… It should be easy to add new features. It should be easy to change existing features. It should be easy for new teammate to become
productive almost immediately.
“Beautiful Code”
Final note
Pay it forwardThink forward, teach today
Guidance:1. Teaching helps us think of what’s important to know2. Delegate so you could move forward (future growth)3. Prepare to grow from day 14. Teach so you could grow internally (opportunity > need)5. Teach to be taught (you’re strong at A, she’s at B)
Why: Job Safety is so 90’s
