Random Agile Thought – The Ideal Team Player

This was shared by my boss, Daniel: according to Patrick Lencioni, the ideal team player has three characteristics:

• Humble (does not think less of self; think of self less)
• Hungry (aggressively pursues goals)
• Smart (emotionally smart, in interactions with others)

I like it! 😁 I have always looked up to people who has these three traits. I have always enjoyed working with them.

A growth mindset requires a humble attitude. You must be open to learning. You acknowledge that you do not know everything and you accept help from others. This does not mean you are not confident with your skills or knowledge; rather, you accept that in a team, you can do more by working with others.

Passion and drive are important motivators for successful individuals. They also bring this with them when they join teams and so this directly influences the success of teams.

It is important to be intelligent and skilled. It is equally important not to be a jerk if you are in a team. Respect, trust, openness, empathy, and kindness all propel a team forward to success. So yes, being emotionally smart is an important characteristic.

I hope this random agile thought helps you and your team be more Agile. 😊

Scripture-based Agile Coaching – Kind Words

As an Agile Coach, my success at work hinges on the relationships I establish with my colleagues. As a Christian, I have found many verses in the book of Proverbs that guide me as I work on growing my work relationships. Here is one of those verses:

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Proverbs 15:1

Over the years, I have made many mistakes in the way I express myself at work. One main reason for these mistakes is, I did not take enough time to think about what I want to say. And so I try to learn and discover better ways of communicating with my workmates. More and more I find myself asking questions on how I can say something better, before speaking out. Here are some of the questions I ask myself:

• How can I say this in a gentler, kinder way?
• Do I have a good understanding of the context?
• How is the person (sometimes, the team) I am talking to feeling right now?
• Have I sorted out my own feelings? Do I have a good handle on my emotions?
• What words can I use to better express myself?
• Can I control my tone and speak in a gentle manner?
• Do I have to say anything at all? What value can I contribute if I speak my mind?
• What is my goal for speaking out? Will it help the person (team)?

One of the key responsibilities of Agile Coaches is giving feedback. And it becomes a real challenge when you discuss something that did not go well. Spending more time on preparing for conversations like this really helps.

My wife recently reflected on this verse as well, when she was dealing with a customer service issue. My boss recently shared an article with me about a study which shows that team collaboration can suffer greatly from one person being insensitive. So I have been thinking about this verse. Keeping this in mind helped me in being a better Agile Coach.

Random Agile Thoughts – Asking Powerful Questions

A key skill that is critical to the success of an Agile Coach is the skill of asking powerful questions. I have written about powerful questions before, in this post. Sometimes the coach can become very good in asking questions that the skill becomes a double-edged sword. Sometimes useful, sometimes dangerous.

One common feedback I get from team members I work with is that I am really good in asking questions that bring out valuable discussions for the team.

The risk here is that the team may become dependent on me asking questions they want to get asked. This could block them from practicing their leadership and critical thinking. They could just wait on me to ask the questions that they want to get asked.

The challenge for the Agile Coach is straddling that thin line between the responsibility to ask the team powerful questions and giving the team space and opportunities to grow by not asking and letting them ask the questions themselves. I think it is every coach’s dream that the team will become so good that it doesn’t need a coach.

I hope this random agile thought helps you to be more Agile. 😊

Scripture-based Agile Coaching – Quick to Listen, Slow to Speak

I am a Christian. I believe in God. I believe God sent Jesus to save us from death for our sins, and give us the gift of eternal life. I believe in the Bible and I study it. I have found that there are a lot of Bible verses that speak to me when I think about my work as an Agile Coach. Here is one of them:

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.

James 1:19 New Living Translation

A great Agile Coach should be a very good listener. Through the years I have found myself listening more and speaking less. I do my best to get a good understanding of situations I encounter by listening intently to what others have to say. I make sure to do this first before I speak. This gives me time to carefully think about what I am going to say.

This has been a quite a struggle for me. I am an expressive person with an extroverted personality. I can also be very impatient. In my earlier days as a Scrum Master, I was too eager to speak my mind. I dominated discussions and did not leave space for my colleagues to contribute. I made mistakes, a lot. I have embarrassed myself a number of times because of poorly thought out speech.

In time, I have learned to restrain myself. I improved my self-control and learned to be comfortable with silence in meetings, conversations or discussions. I valued listening more and more. One of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is “Seek first to understand and then be understood.” I always keep this in mind along with this verse from the Book of James. This helped me in becoming a better Agile Coach.

Random Agile Thoughts – Completing a Goal

In one of the conversations we (me and my fellow Agile Coach) have with my boss, we were given this scenario:

The team was not able to complete a goal it has set. The team worked hard on the target, but in the end failed to meet the criteria required for goal completion.

And we were asked this question: “What will you say to the team?”

My answer is this:

I would say to the team that we have failed to complete the goal we have set for ourselves. We acknowledge the hard work we put into this effort and we appreciate the learnings we have gained. I would encourage the team to think about why we were not able to complete the goal. This reflection will help the team grow and become better.

I think the completion of the goal is more important than the effort put into completing the goal. When you set a goal, you set it because you are after the value you will gain from it. You don’t set a goal just to work on the goal. You don’t set a target just so you can try to hit it. You set a target because you want to hit it.

I am not discounting the effort and the learnings you gain from doing the work to meet a goal. This all very important. I am just saying that you do not lose sight of the bottomline – you have to complete the goal.

I hope this random thought helps you to be more Agile. 😊

Thoughts on Asynchronous Communication

Lately I have been reading about Asynchronous Communication. It is an interesting topic to me because it plays an importantly role in working remotely. What is Asynchronous Communication? Here is a definition I really like:

Asynchronous communication is the art of communicating and moving projects forward without the need for additional stakeholders to be available at the same time your communique is sent.

Embracing Asynchronous Communication by GitLab

Examples of Asynchronous Communication

A number of activities we do regularly, falls into the category of Asynchronous Communication. In addition, advancements in technology have been making them easier to do. We do these activities to avoid long and draining meetings, control our focus, manage timezone differences, and work with more flexibility in how we allocate our working hours.

Collaborating in Documents

Google has made it easy for us to share documents with others. Software like Google Docs, Spreadsheets, and Slides, make it easy for us to help one another in writing documents. These tools allow us to give others, editor or commenter access to documents we share with them. This is one form of Asynchronous Communication.

We do this when we want to get feedback for what we have written. We share the document and grant commenter privileges and our colleagues can read it at their own time and post comments on the document for us. We do not need to come together for a meeting, we just set expectations on when we want to get the feedback.

We do this when we write a document together with our co-workers. We share edit privileges and everyone contributes to the content being written. Again, we do not have to be in a meeting to do this together. Each contributor takes the responsibility of reading what has been written so far, checking the history of the document, editing what they want to change, and adding more content. Each person can do this at their own pace just as long as it falls within the expectations of the group on when they want to finish the document. In other cases, writing may never be “done”, the document evolves over time.

Chatting

Chatting can be a form of Asynchronous Communication. When you send a message with the expectation that it is ok if the recipient does not respond immediately, that is Asynchronous Communication. Sometimes people would also say that they are busy and they will get back to the chat message as soon as they can. This century, chatting has become a natural form of communication for everyone.

An important behavior to develop is managing when we respond to chats. You can manage the way you are notified by your chat tools. Working agreements can be set to have a shared understanding about responding to chats. You can set the appropriate status (like busy) in your profile. It is very important as well to just have only one chat tool used by the company / organization. You don’t want the burden of using and managing multiple tools.

Emails

I think it is unfortunate how email got a bad rep over the years. It doesn’t help that the marketing for collaboration tools commonly say “they should replace email”, “better than email”, “don’t bother with emails”. I consider email to still be an important form of Asynchronous Communication. I think if you manage your inbox properly you can leverage the advantages of using email.

I find emails helpful in collaborating on straightforward tasks or mini-projects. One recent experience I have in using emails for this kind of effort, is when my fellow Agile Coach and I were tasked with finding a good online Kanban tool. Our boss gave us the details of the task and instructions in an email. We did not have questions because it was all clear and the criteria for a “good tool” were well-defined. We were also given candidates to look at. I responded thru email to accept the task and give an estimate of how long it will take me to finish my assessment. My fellow Agile Coach responded in the same way. The next email we sent individually included the results of our assessments. From the results there was clearly a winner among the tools and we have made our pick. We did not meet, we just exchanged emails.

Training Videos

For teaching and sharing knowledge, training videos have become indispensable. The investment in making the videos can easily be paid off by the reusability of the training provided by the videos. It feels good when you have control over how you go through the training sessions. When you feel you need to review a part of the training, you can just rewatch it. Sure you lose the ability to interact with the trainer and other participants but most of the time you don’t need that. Most of the time you just need to digest the knowledge from the videos and apply it in your work. For internal trainings, the trainers could make time for conversations with the participants easily as they work together.

Pros and Cons of Asynchronous Communication

Let’s start with a list of advantages first:

• You can manage when you would allocate the time to digest information and make a response – as long as it is within the agreed expectations of people you work with
• You can avoid unnecessary meetings, freeing you from scheduling challenges and conflicts
• You can avoid disruptions – for you, as well as for your colleagues
• You have a recorded history of changes and exchanges, most tools you would use for Asynchronous Communication provides this feature

And then here are some disadvantages I can think of:

• Things will “fall through the cracks“ if you and your workmates don’t have discipline to follow-through with agreements on Asynchronous Communication
• You might misuse Asynchronous Communication
• Requires managing and organizing of numerous files, online resources, and tools
• You may forget to respond, participate and provide feedback

The disadvantages I listed can be overcome if you and your colleagues have a shared understanding of working agreements, ownership for the success of your group, and a great sense of responsibility.

Closing thoughts

There are many other forms of Asynchronous Communication besides the ones I have discussed here in this post. The ones I wrote about are the forms I commonly use. Perhaps on another post I’ll talk about the other forms I know of.

Asynchronous Communication does not mean to eliminate meetings. It helps us in avoiding unnecessary meetings and saving time and effort. It makes us ask if we really a need a meeting, and consider other forms of communication which may be better suited for the need that we have.

Random Agile Thoughts – Weekly Commitment Meetings

At the start of every week, our team comes together to have what we call, “Monday Commitment Meetings“. We look at our Kanban board and have a discussion on what we think we can get done for the week. From this discussion we come up with a list of cards that we commit to finishing by the end of the week. We have the understanding that the commitment we make is that we will do our best to get these cards done. At the end of the week, we review what we have accomplished.

It’s quite natural for individuals to have hesitations and concerns in making commitments, especially at work, where not being able to fulfill commitments can get you in trouble. Here are two concerns I often hear from team members:

1. There are two many variables and unknowns, how can we confidently commit to getting things done? We don’t want to make commitments if we don’t know what will happen during the week.
2. I don’t like this pressure of having a list to get done, even if I know I’m the only one putting pressure on myself.

The following insights are what I usually share to respond to these concerns:

• The goal for discussing about commitments is to have a target which the team will try to achieve. A unifying goal guiding the team’s activities during the week.
• A basketball team still aims to win every game even though there are many variables at play and many uncertainties.
• It is natural to feel pressure. The pressure is good if it motivates you to do your best.
• It is ok to fail, to make a mistake. In fact, we learn more when we make a mistake.

I hope this random thought helps you to be more Agile. 😊

Continuous Improvement with Iron Man

I love Iron Man in the MCU! His armors are awesome and his character development is superb. He started out as an egotistic and self-centered billionaire/playboy and became a hero who sacrificed his life to save the universe from Thanos. 🤩 As an Agile Coach, Tony Stark’s continuous improvement and evolution deeply resonates with me. You can see that with every new armor version, Iron Man becomes better, based on what he has learned and experienced. If that doesn’t scream kaizen, I don’t know what will!

The world may have seemed to stop during this Covid-19 pandemic with everyone staying at home and streets being empty, but continuous improvement and learning did not. And rightfully so. I think it became even more important, so we can evolve and adapt. In this post, I want to share key learnings I valued during this time of the pandemic.

Focus

Agile and Lean puts emphasis in the value of focusing on the most important thing to work on for the product. Stephen Covey defined the habit of putting first things first as one of the 7 habits of highly effective people. This is one of the values that helped me adjust to the effects of the pandemic. It was easy to feel overwhelmed, and countless of times I had to stop, take a deep breath, and focus. The guiding principle is to do the most important tasks first and accept that you will let go of other activities. You will not be able to do everything you want, but you ensure you are able to do what is important at any given time. When you feel you are veering away from your target, you stop, be still, and then refocus.

Part of being focused is knowing not to take on too many tasks, responsibilities, or activities. It is ok to say “no”, and there are a lot of good, respectful, and kind ways to say it. One key thing is you don’t want to be defensive about it, just be open and say what you have on your plate and what is important to you. Trust that people will understand, especially your family, friends, and even your bosses and colleagues at work. They know you and have trust in you too.

You Work with Humans

Even though Tony Stark comes off as being arrogant and narcissistic, I think he has great compassion for others. He takes care of his teammates, providing them with armor, tools, tech that helps protect them. He provided the team with the Avengers Tower and Avengers facility in Upstate New York. He mentored Spider-Man and deeply cared for him. He had good relationships with his employees – Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts.

One of the Agile values defined in the Agile Manifesto is: “People and interactions over processes and tools.” For me, one application of this value is having compassion for the people you work with. I greatly appreciate the support I got from my boss when I had to adjust my working schedule to help my kids with school-at-home. My peers appreciated the times I caught up with them to see how they were doing and how they were coping with the effects of the pandemic. They were happy to have someone show concern for them. As an Agile Coach, this is one of the services I offer to people I work with. As someone working with an Agile Coach, I think this is one thing you can expect from your coach.

God says in Ephesians 4:32: “Be kind and compassionate to one another…”. This Bible verse speaks to me more and more each day during this pandemic.

Attitude of Gratitude

Modern society doesn’t promote being content with what you have. It is easy to get lost in acquiring new things, getting more and more of what you want. You are blasted with ads of products claiming to be better than the products you currently have. Advancements in technology, always a double-edged sword, can easily make you want to get the latest, the best so far. With the restrictions, lockdowns, and quarantines, the things we thought we could not live without, became less important.

Expressing gratitude for the things I have and appreciating them more are actions that are helping me cope with the challenges of the pandemic. It takes my mind away from things I worry about and focuses it instead on things I should be thankful for. This attitude of gratitude brings much needed positivity. As an Agile Coach, I make it a point to celebrate success and wins with the team. Even a simple “thank you” to show appreciation can go a long way in promoting a positive attitude and strengthening of relationships.

Work in Harmony

When Iron Man first met Thor in the MCU, he learned that Thor’s lightning can power up his armor. In Endgame, we saw how Iron Man used this knowledge when he made the Nano Lightning Refocuser and asked Thor to hit him with lightning so that he can use the energy to blast Thanos. It’s always a treat to see in the movies how the Avengers come together as a team and combine their powers to be stronger.

This past year I have constantly reflected on how respect, trust, and patience are very important for collaboration. Respect your teammates and colleagues: their effort, contributions, insights, skills and experience. Trust them that they will do their best. Be patient when things don’t go as planned or your expectations are not met. The pandemic added numerous challenges and difficulties to the way we work together and in addition had great effects to our lives outside of work. Finding harmony with my colleagues was one critical thing that helped me this past year.

Part of the Journey is the End

I don’t see the end of this pandemic yet, but I do know that it will end and then there will be other challenges in our journey through life. It is my hope that I can learn and adapt like Iron Man. Even in the end, you can see how he prepared his Mark 85 armor to take on enough of the power of the Infinity Stones. That was not part of the plan, but he was ready, he designed his last armor in the MCU with that capability.

I hope these learnings may be of some help to you. Let’s make sure to open ourselves to even more learnings this 2021.

Random Agile Thoughts – Targeting a Goal

I am starting this new series in my blog: Random Agile Thoughts. They will be short posts sharing my insights on something I was thinking about as I reflect on my experience and situations I encounter at work. In sharing this I hope to help people who might be looking for insights about certain topics or practical examples and applications of being Agile.

Recently I have been thinking about setting of goals. For Agile Teams I imagine it to be similar to planning for a road trip.

• You set a target destination
• You don’t have all the information when you start
  • there might be rerouting
  • there might be road blocks not announced
  • accidents
• You plan based on past experiences of going to the target destination
• Many factors come into play: weather, road conditions, traffic conditions, random circumstances. There are many variables.
• Given all this, you still set a target destination – without this you are just wandering around
• You still make an estimate of how long you think the travel time will be
• You adjust based on new information you are getting along the way
• And of course, there is always the possibility that you have to change your destination

Going on road trips feels like you are being Agile while working on a project. I hope this random musing helps you to be more Agile.

The Daily Grind Of A Work From Home Agile Team Coach

I am an Agile Team Coach working from home and this is how my day at work usually goes.  We follow the US Eastern Time and that means that here in the Philippines, I work from 8 pm to 3 am then I fill-up the 8 hours of work at 10 am to 12 noon.

8 – 9

• Check email
• Check BambooHR for HR announcements and see who is on leave for the day (also checks to see who has work anniversaries and birthdays so I can greet them)
• Look at the Kanban boards on our instance of LeanKit, make observation and notes which I bring up during the standup meetings or saved for a retrospective meeting.
• Read blogs about Agile, Software Development, Scrum, Kanban, Testing, and any topics which I think might help me become a better coach or might be useful for the teams I serve. I usually read blogs from Mike Cohn and Dzone.
• On some days I would look at the team metrics we are observing.  These are usually flow metrics: team throughput along with cycle time, cumulative flow diagram, distribution of Kanban card types (new feature, defect, tech debt, etc.)
• On weeks when there is a retrospective meeting, I would spend time preparing for that meeting: reviewing notes, reviewing action items, preparing retro docs we use, compiling metrics we observe.

9 – 10

• Facilitate standup meetings.  I have two standup meetings during this time slot.
• In between meetings I would prepare my cup of coffee for the day, chat with teammates – have virtual watercooler conversations, continue reading some blogs, and watch short YouTube clips.

10 – 12

• This is when most of the team meetings happen.
• During this time I am usually busy facilitating various meetings : Planning / Commitment, Retrospective, Backlog Grooming, Demo, Knowledge Sharing, Brainstorming
• On some days, when there are no team meetings, I would schedule 1-1 meetings with team members during this time. These conversations allow me to provide coaching and mentoring as needed.

12 – 1

• Lunch break!  Technically it is time for a midnight snack because it is 12 am, but I do eat lunch at this time. Can’t work well with an empty stomach!
• I usually watch something on Netflix while eating. And after eating I would watch some more, build a Lego set, play video games.
• On some days I would spend lunch time chatting with people from work. Some days we would have group discussions, on chat or on a call. This takes the place of conversations you usually have with people while eating lunch.

1 – 3

• Prepare for meetings I facilitate. Includes: understanding the goal of the meeting, understanding the context, preparing docs needed, preparing questions to ask, talking with participants to learn more about the context and their expectations and concerns
• Attend webinars. It’s great that the usual webinars I watch are held at 1 pm US EST.  Most of the webinars I attend are organized by the Scrum Alliance.
• Do online training courses.  I take courses offered at Front Row Agile and Pluralsight.
• Read a book about being Agile.  I am currently reading “Real World Agility: A Practical Guide for Agile Practitioners” by Daniel James Gullo.

Other Activities

For my other work hours I do continuous improvement activities such as online trainings, reading articles or blogs, or reading books.  One of the perks of working at home is that it gives you more flexibility in how you manage the use of your time.

Sometimes I get to attend local conferences and trainings.  For these events I would have to adjust to following Philippine time.  It would be like having jet lag without getting on a plane.  Haha!

Once a month I would attend the Agile Philippines monthly meet-up.  It’s a great learning experience and a good break from the daily routine.

It takes a great deal of self-management and discipline to be able to work effectively while at home.  Being Agile adds to the challenge and while it may seem like a futile effort, you can be Agile and your team can be Agile while working remotely.