Many job descriptions focus on skills—usually technical skills. Interpersonal skills may get a passing mention—“strong communication skills,” “collaboration,” or “teamwork.” But when you are filling a team position, you have to think both more...
In response to a tweet on the benefits of stable teams, someone asked whether I’m against changing teams (aka re-teaming) in response to business needs. I am not. I’m against churn. There are plenty of good reasons to re-form teams to meet organizational...
When you try something new, when to you expect to see results? How do you evaluate an experiment decided on in a retro to know whether your hypothesis was correct? This week I read a post that described a situation I see too often.The poster described a retrospective...
I asked a group to complete this sentence: “When I feel empowered, I can__________.” Here’s how they filled in the blank. When I feel empowered, I can… do better thingshave trust get to flowfocusfeel in controleffect changebe excited about...
Like many people, I’m staying home during a pandemic, trying to work, using collaboration tools. I’m having many Zoom meetings. In one such meeting, I was on a panel regarding remote retrospectives. One of the panelists posited that people from earlier...
I visited an organization making an Agile transformation. It looked like the teams were making great progress. But the managers asked, “How can we tell they are working hard?” Team members seemed happy with their cross-functional teams. They solved...
On the first day of widespread work from home brought about by the pandemic, I heard a workplace “expert” talking about the new reality of remote work. “Performance expectations and standards must remain the same as in the office,” he declared. There is so much wrong...
Many people who are accustomed to going to the office are now working from home, including me. That means more remote meetings, working sessions, and social catch ups. What can we do to make the best of remote meetings? I advocate having a lightweight structure for...
Trust may seem mysterious—something that just happens or grows through some unknowable process. The good news is there are concrete actions that tend to build trust (and concrete actions that are almost guaranteed to break down trust). First, let’s agree on a...
In an online forum, someone declared that feedback between peers must be anonymous. He asserted people won’t be honest without anonymity. However, I have found it is possible to be honest and not anonymous. Further, anonymous feedback backfires in number of...
Many problems are easier to solve when you have data. However, there is a difference between having data and using data. Several years ago, I worked wit an organization that was experiencing system outages. After months of outages and no effective action, they...
What does your product do? When it gets dark, I turn on a light. I can work, cook, read—long after sundown. I can see where I’m going, avoid the dog toys on the floor, and not run into furniture. If I need something that’s in the house, I can find it. The simple flip...
Improvement requires three factors: Information. People need information about the context and how their work fits into the big picture. They need information from the work so they can self-correct. Without this information, systematic improvement is impossible. A...
Hiring new people for a team should always be a joint decision that involves team members. After all, who has more at stake than the people who will work with the new person day in and day out? Consider what happened when a well-intentioned manager decided to hire...
Last week, I posted a mind map that shows the benefits of the team effect. But what about the costs of a team that is not doing well? A team that isn’t working well doesn’t have a neutral effect. A struggling team costs the people and the organization in...
A while back, I posted a little mind map about business costs of a struggling team. But what about the benefits of the team effect? What does a business gain when teams thrive?
“Estimating is often helpful. Estimates are often not,” I said in a Tweet. Several people asked, “How can this be?” Let me say more about estimation, in more than 140 characters. Estimating is often helpful. Estimating helps when the process...
Many companies have policies that govern the selection and hiring process for new employees. Not a bad thing. But I’ve noticed that in many of the companies I visit–especially the big ones–the guidelines put far less rigor around hiring people for...
A managers role regarding effective teams starts long before the work actually begins. It starts with team designing and forming the team. The 60-30-10 Principle J. Richard Hackman, studied teams for decades. One of his most significant findings is that 60% of the...
Many of the companies I work with want the benefit of the team effect in software development. The managers in these companies recognize the enormous benefits teams provide to the company–creativity, engagement, learning. They want to support team-based work....
