self organizing agile teams

roles, practices, factors

Nikos Batsios, Agile Coach/ScM @ IXG, PDU Mobile Core Ericssons HTE Learnathon, 4th & 5th February 2015

based on

a grounded theory on self organized agile teams Dr. Rashina Hoda

a single confirmatory case study on a new agile team, through participant observation for one year and individual interviews - personal study

how agile teams organize themselves in practice?

after the workshop it is expected that you will better understand the various roles, practices and factors affecting self-organization and you might get a few insights how you could enable

self-organization

Jurgen Appelo M3.0

self-organization cannot be a best practice. it is the default practice of any system, including teams.

but what happens, also happening in the right

direction?

Jurgen Appelo M3.0

command and control is a special case, our attempt to steer self-organizing systems towards a direction that stakeholder considered to be valuable

lets self-organize

principles of self organization

minimum critical specification

requisite variety

redundancy of functions

learning to learn

conditions for self organizing capability

autonomy

cross fertilization

self-transcendence

informal, transient, implicit, spontaneous self-organizing roles on agile teams

imagine that a new agile team is formed in your organization!

which spontaneous and informal roles (other than those described by a specific framework) do you think that this

agile team should handle that will help them to self-organize? which responsibilities should take care?

your view as team member, agile coach, manager matters. (5)

provide initial guidance and support

getting team confident

encouraging continued adherence

encouraging self-organizing practices

coordinating customer & stakeholders collaboration

coordinating change requests

managing customer & stakeholders expectations

encouraging self-organizing practices

overcoming the barrier language

using translator tools

securing senior management support

propagating more teams

understanding customer and stakeholders concerns

securing customer involvement

identifying threatening team members

removing members from the team

tips consider Richard Hackmans 60-30-10 principle

60% of team effectiveness is related to team design

30% of team effectiveness is related to team launch

10% of team effectiveness is related to continuous coaching

balancing acts practices that enable self-organization

what challenges this newly agile team might face in their journey to self-organziation? what practices could enable

self-organization? (5)

balancing freedom and responsibility

collective decision making (collective estimation and planning, collective deciding team norms and principles, self-commitment and shared responsibility on team goals)

self-assignment (boards, ownership)

self-monitoring (daily meetings, information radiators)

clear roles responsibilities, boundaries, purpose

balancing cross-functionality and specialization

need for specialization (multiple perspectives)

encouraging cross-functionality (group programming, seek opportunities to work outside of their area of expertise, shared responsibility, rotation)

balancing continuous learning and iteration pressure

self evaluation (retrospectives, reviews)

self-improvement (pair in need, learning spikes)

tips work on the agile mindset (goal is to learn, learn from

failures)

a team assessment could help to identify teams strengths and weaknesses

a team launch to define purpose, norms, agreements and values will help team to set their direction

using OKRs could help to define their measurable goals in alignment with the organization goals

factors influencing self-organization

which do you think are the factors in the environment a team is operating that can influence the success

of a self-organized agile team? (5)

mangement support organizational collaborationculture that embrace feedback,

transparency, openness, trust, synergy, partnership, interaction. such values are deemed important to achieve and sustain responsible autonomy

negotiating contracts

financial sponsorship

team stability, hiring-removing members based on their fit into an agile culture

understand the benefits of being agile for business drivers and trigger required changes

customer & stakeholders collaboration

gathering and clarifying and prioritizing requirements

securing feedback

changing mindset

demos and e-collaboration

tips

understand your culture and tweak it to make it work in an agile environment

train management, customer, stakeholders on agile methods and the benefits of being agile

pilot ensuring their support and involvement

inspiration Hoda, R., Noble, J., Marshall, S.Self-Organizing Roles on Agile Software Development

Teams.IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), Vol. 39, Issue 3, Pages 422-444,2013 (pdf)

Hoda, R.,Noble, J., Marshall, S.Supporting Self-organizing Agile Teams Whats Senior Management Got to Do with It?. In A. Silitti, O. Hazzan, E. Bache, & X. Albaladejo (Eds.),Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming(Vol. 77, pp. 73-87). SPRINGER-VERLAG BERLIN, 2011

Hoda, R.Self-Organizing Agile Teams: A Grounded Theory.PhD Thesis,Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 2011 [PDF]

Agile Undercover: When Customer Dont Collaborate. Agile Professionals Network (APN), Auckland, August 2013 [Slides]

High Performance Team Coaching, Peters & Carr (book)

Objectives and Key Results (refer to Learnathon folder)

thank you