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: rashina@gmail.com

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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