self organizing agile teams

roles, practices, factors

Nikos Batsios, Agile Coach/ScM @ IXG, PDU Mobile Core Ericsson’s 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”

let’s 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’)

<mentor>

• provide initial guidance and support

• getting team confident

• encouraging continued adherence

• encouraging self-organizing practices

<co-ordinator>

• coordinating customer & stakeholders collaboration

• coordinating change requests

• managing customer & stakeholders expectations

• encouraging self-organizing practices

<translator>

• overcoming the barrier language

• using translator tools

<champion>

• securing senior management support

• propagating more teams

<promoter>

• understanding customer and stakeholders concerns

• securing customer involvement

<terminator>

• identifying threatening team members

• removing members from the team

tips• consider Richard Hackman’s 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 team’s 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 “collaboration”culture 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 What’s 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 Don’t 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