Agile and New Ideas for the Enterprise

In a previous post, I commented on what to do after successful implementation of agile to an IT team. What I found from others was that the next step is to move towards the agile enterprise, and I pointed to looking at the P & L and what drives ROI. A complement to this "what" is "how", and a great book on how to introduce this agile growth, and other new ideas, is Fearless Change by Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising. It is a book of very practical and comprehensive patterns to use to get support and buy-in, and it is the sum of collected experiences from many professionals.

Despite my best efforts, I often see problems and opportunities through my lens and not through the lens of those I work with. The book references work by E.M. Rogers which breaks down people into groups of Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards. While I and others in IT, web 2.0, or project management might be Innovators or Early Adopters, two thirds of the world around us are Early Majority or Late Majority. These groups need to see others successful with an idea first, or are naturally cautious or skeptical (they could have the theme Deliberative). Moving a new idea such as Agile Enterprise, with all the visibility and accountability, is a paradigm shift, foreign and likely scary for some of the very people that will not only benefit most from it, but also whom you vitally need their support. From my initial reading of Fearless Change, I believe this book will be a significant help in getting you there. Also, understanding the strengths of these stakeholders will help you speak their language and motivate them.

Book Review - Agile Software Development w Scrum

ASDS is a very good book, but only for the few who want to be Scrum experts. The material is thorough, and not necessarily easy to get through, in part because the Schwaber and Beedle walk through every part of Scrum in detail, as well as cover situations that likely don't apply to most, and they even go through philosophical views that some may care little about.

To be sure, there are gems in the book, and I learned a few important points, but I have been to ScrumMaster certification training, read two other agile books, and been mentored by a CSM/PMP. I feel the book only moved me from 80% comfort level with Scrum to 85%.

If you are a consultant managing projects, or you want to teach, coach or train in this area, read the book. If you a internal project manager,product manager, or IT manager, I recommend you get Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager's Guide and read the section on Scrum. It's simpler, cleaner, and the rest of the book gives good background to agile and options you may want to consider.

If you are a team or development lead, or the senior developer, get Agile Project Management with Scrum. It's an even easier read, focused solely on Scrum and gives lots of enjoyable stories of real situations the author went through, good and bad.

After Scrum, the Agile Enterprise

The other day, Joseph Little (blog here) posted to the Scrum Development board on Yahoo! asking for input on what to include in an advanced course that he and Jeff Sutherland were leading (Agile 201). One item I raised was "What do you do when your agile project efforts are going well? What's the next step to capitalize on successful to move agile into the enterprise?"

Well, I came across a great post on exactly that - Agile Leaders - The Next Hurdle from Steve Garnett. Simply put, the next step is Lean Thinking & Financial Understanding

"It's alright being bloody great at Agile, and knowing how to deliver software and create self-organizing teams, but always remember that the engine for change, the real way to effect change, is control of the P&L."

Agile2008 Conference Submission

Agile2008 released the conference track recently here.One presentation that won't be there is my submission. Though it had some positive feedback, it didn't make the cut.

As the presentation was unique among the others I reviewed, I thought I would post it for others. I submitted it under the Leadership and Teams track. Despite the let down that I wasn't selected, I had a career highlight in getting very positive feedback from Jim Highsmith. :-)


Agile Strengths-Based Teams - How to Coach and Lead According to Strengths

This workshop will review the different approaches and levels I’ve used with a strengths-based approach on my Scrum teams. We will discuss my experiences at the individual level, listing team members’ specific strengths (with descriptions) and how I created new team roles tailored to allow each member to play to their strengths, involving the team in the way they work, and fostering improved communication and interdependency. Also, group discussion could cover hypothetical roles and situations, or run through a simplified strengths assessment for attendess and then walk through how they could make adjustments to leverage those strengths more on their team and with stakeholders and customers.

How Does Strengths Relate to Agile?
Jim Highsmith writes, “Agile Software Development Ecosystems are designed to capitalize on each individual’s and each team’s unique strengths.” and also that “developing each individual’s capabilities” is a key contribution to project success. In the spirit of agile, working with others according to their strengths is part of valuing individuals and interactions over processes and tools. And adding the strengths paradigm to agile project management addresses several key points from the Agile Project Leaders Network Wiki of Knowledge, such as:

• Individual Leadership Style - Involving the team in determining the way they work
• Handling Team Dynamics - Encouraging individuals to self select tasks
• How to generate an open environment where people feel safe to express themselves.

Aren’t We Already Doing This?
Agile leaders should use a strengths-based approach as a tool, but don’t often do. Most people don’t know how to identify their strengths at a granularity that is practical and helpful. Those that do most likely don’t know how to make changes in how they work that enables them to capitalize on those strengths.

Strengths Is Not a Silver Bullet, But an Agile Accelerator Tool
In terms of in terms of productivity, profitability and employee retention, managers using a strengths approach had a 86% greater success rate than other managers. Strengths-based teams performed 44% better. But the most powerful benefit of the strengths movement is when agile leaders use it.

NOTE: Depending on group consensus, have a separate short session or workshop where the group takes Gallup's StrengthsFinder assessment. The results could be discussed, and attendees could then come to this workshop knowing their strenths profile.

Process/Mechanics
Facilitated a discussion on my experiences of introducing a strengths-based approach within a Scrum team at the individual level, listing team members’ specific strengths (with descriptions) and creation of new team roles tailored to allow each member to play to their strengths.

I. Samples of My Agile Strengths Implementation Experience

1. Team Member A has Strengths of ‘Focus’, ‘Deliberative’ and ‘Competitive’
2. Team Member B Goes From Impractical Complainer to Responsible, Driving Junior ScrumMaster
3. Team Finally Understands Team Member C, Because of Her Strengths

II. Review how to leverage strengths for better performance from ourselves and our teams. We would discuss:

1. Strengths themes vs. granular strengths
2. How to grow your strengths week by week
3. Ways to leverage the power of the agile + strengths combination
4. What if there is lots of overlap or gaps?

Finally, discuss how my efforts and experience coaching and influencing the organization in both agile and strengths, and the parallels of improved communication and collaboration.

Leadership is Simple, But Not Easy

As posted on the Mavericks at Work blog, leadership is simple but not easy. Same with agile. In the end, all you can continually do without being fueled by results is to be the change you want to be.

What makes Southwest Airlines successful has been studied, written about and public knowledge for years, as mentioned in the Mavericks blog here and here. But companies still don't (or can't) do what Southwest does.

The success of agile has been studied, written about and public knowledge for years, but companies, and even teams, still don't (or culturally can't) do it. The barriers I've seen are mainly letting go of control and trusting others.

Agile Worldview Quotes - Scattering Seeds

I just read in Mike Beedle and Ken Schwaber's Agile Software Development with Scrum that "Scrum represents a competing worldview when compared to the many other styles of software development or business organization." I've never heard the term "worldview" associated with anything in software development, but I fully agree.

Agile isn't just about how a team of developers builds something, it's reaches into the business - how the team works with the other departments, how the business must have a single voice and must prioritize requests.

Something I've found useful is to include in all of my email random quotes I've saved which reflect this worldview. The program I use is Qliner Quotes, and its free.

Here is a sample of some of the quotes:

I'm going to make mistakes, but I've got to be able to look myself in the mirror and say to myself that I believed in that decision and mistakes are okay. And once I make those mistakes I can adapt and change. - Frank Addante interview on Venture Voice

Companies with the most values based critiques of their industries often turn out to be the savviest and most aggressive competitors. - Taylor and LaBarre, Mavericks at Work

Saying smart things and giving smart answers are important. Learning to listen to others and to ask smart questions is more important.  - Bob Sutton, Professor of Management Science at Stanford University

Core values are not something people "buy in" to. Executives often ask me, "How do we get people to share our core values?" You don't. Instead, the task is to find people who are already predisposed to sharing your core values. You must attract and then retain these people and let those who aren't predisposed to sharing your core values go elsewhere. - Jim Collins, Good to Great

Courage in Scrum isn't a visible, tangible thing. It is not some kind or romantic heroism. Instead, it is having the guts, the determination, to do the best you can. It's the stubbornness not to give up, but to figure out how to meet commitments. This type of courage is gritty, not glorious. - Mike Beedle, Agile Software Development with Scrum

Harmony itself is good, I suppose, if it comes as a result of working through issues constantly and cycling through conflict. But if it comes only as a result of people holding back their opinions and honest concerns, then it's a bad thing.  - Patrick Lencioni, Five Dysfunctions of a Team

When I'm building a team, I look for people who love to win. If I can't find those, I look for people who hate to lose. I want people around me who have passion. - Mark Beeson

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. - General George S. Patton

Excellent firms don't believe in excellence, only in constant improvement and constant change. - Tom Peters

A manager must be able to do four activities extremely well: select a person, set expectations, motivate the person, develop the person. The manager role is the catalyst role. - Marcus Buckingham and Curt W. Coffman, First Break All the Rules

In the world according to great managers, the employee is the star.  The manager is the agent.  And, as in the world of performing arts, the agent expects a great deal from his stars. - Marcus Buckingham and Curt W. Coffman, First Break All the Rules

Are you going to take the risk to be different? Because no one is drawn to ordinary or average. And if you're willing to be different, be warned. Leaders are always controversial. Followers fit in. - T.D. Jakes

To succeed, a project relies on information from very different people: on one side are customers; on the other side is the technical team. If either side dominates these communications, the project loses. - Mike Cohn

A key role servant leaders often play is facilitating necessary changes. As a result, it's imperative that these leaders recognize there are four levels of change that vary in degrees of difficulty and time: knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and organizational change. The last one is the most difficult, because now you're attempting to influence the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of multiple people. - Ken Blanchard

"The record for successful software projects is dismal indeed, but there's a new kid on the block: agile programming. Agile principles include flexibility, teamwork, trust, and reflection. But sadly, these environments are few and far between." - CIO.com

Changes in Online Advertising

I was training a new project team member on how the advertising works on my company's website, all as part of a project to migrate the site to a new content management system. He wasn't aware of the business behind the banner ads that our users see when the visit our site.

Just this year, Google bought DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. Microsoft bought aQuantive for $6 billion. AOL buys Quigo for $340 million. Why such big purchases? In part because internet advertising is expected to top $27 billion this year, and there are a lot of people and companies who would like to make advertising money from all the advertisers. But picture the stock market and other financial markets. I might want to invest some savings I have, but I wouldn't do it myself. The most cost-efficient (and time-efficient) is to work with a broker who will make the transaction. Ad networks act the same as the broker - taking the money to be invested by the advertiser and spending where it will have returns most likely to make the advertiser happy.

In my broker analogy, I might want my money to go into options, or environmentally friendly companies only. The broker would then be limited to some markets (Chicago Board of Options Exchange) or need to know companies in several markets that represent a given sector. In the same way, some ad networks only provide a certain format of advertising (video on VideoEgg, or text links through Google's AdSense), while some ad networks specialize on demographic (Hispanic sites and visitors through HispanoClick).

In my experience with DoubleClick's DART for Publishers, we focus on where we want ads to be displayed on our site. You can add ad networks (which provides the ads themselves) through DART, as well as schedule and manage the ad campaigns.

To implement online ads, we first define how many ads will be on a given page, and what dimensions the ads will be. We give each of these ad slots an ID, and then place the same number of code\tags, each with its own ID, into our webpage (see the nice overview on Google's Ad Manager here). Now when we load our webpage, the tags call out to the ad server, which returns an ad. The ad server also tracks which ads where server where and when, and which were clicked.

Part of the business opportunity is that these ad networks take a cut of the money coming from the source (advertiser) to the destination (publisher site where ad displayed). Part of the business problem is that publisher want the best paying ads, but aren't in control of which ads come trough and their pay rate. Ideally, publishers would cut out the middle man, but managing and serving ads is challenging, while calling all the advertisers and lining up the deals is time consuming.

If we want to try and manage the ad serving with a tool, there are free ad management solutions (Google's Ad Manager for one). There are also now meta ad servers that sit between the publisher and the ad network. These applications work with many ad networks, while gathering statistics on ad performance and even making recommendations (see The Rubicon Project for an example).

Comparing Mingle and ScrumWorks Agile Scrum Project Management Software

Thanks to a recommendation, I'm now using Mingle. I've found it easier to use than ScrumWorks and Excel for managing the product backlog, sprints, user stories, and tasks. My favorite feature is the ability to group stories and tasks by sprint, each card color coded to reflect status, and you can drag the cards into other sprints.

One draw back is that it's hard to beat the visibility and energy of Post-It cards on the wall in status swimlanes, but you also can't export the Post-Its into an Excel sheet to send to management for a quick status report.

Each project management tool I've tried has it's drawbacks.

1. The Excel worksheet with stories, tasks and burndown was labor intensive to set-up or change very much, and often confused newcomers to the team.
2. ScrumWorks is not intuitive, and couldn't show burndown on partially complete stories and tasks.
3. The Post-Its can't be mass-updated, reported on, nor accessed remotely.
4. Mingle doesn't have a burn-down (that I found, although rel 1.1 is said to have one), and performance is pretty bad.

Right now, the customer likes to see the project overview, and Mingle provides that at-a-glance better than the others, so I'll be sticking with Mingle for now.

Office Developer Conference - ODC 2008

Some notes from the Microsoft Office Developer Conference (ODC 2008) in San Jose -

I was most impressed with InfoPath 2007. It allows for simple creation of forms for data entry or lookup without code, while allowing access to workflow and .net object model for coding if required. I also read how designers and developers are using it for prototyping user experience (UX) on new sites, applications and features. This sounds good, given that you can build a page in a couple minutes that accesses and displays real data.

InfoPath and SharePoint, and any custom programming, can use Windows Workflow to automate emails, task or list creation, and follow-up actions. The assignee of an IT Ticket can have a task created and assigned to them, as well as sent follow-up emails including escalation until the ticket is completed. Also, you can publish InfoPath forms to SharePoint to be accessed as webpages. No need for InfoPath on every desktop.

Visual Studio 2008 is geared to leverage SharePoint for .Net developers, both with access to workflow, workflow templates, tools to simplify building and deploying new features. SharePoint Service Pack 1.1 just came out, and it’s loaded – almost a Service Pack 2.0 release.

A new XML standard allows sharing data across the Office applications, and allows customization of the ribbon in those apps. Microsoft recommends keeping office workers in the applications they are familiar with, rather than go to other, separate apps to do parts of their job. Examples include the AdSage add-in, and the Xobni Outlook plug-in (http://www.xobni.com/learnmore/). Lot's of talk of the user experience as "contextual" or "immersed". For example, if most the the information a user (typically an information worker) is doing is in, they shouldn't have to leave Outlook to use another application to get related information or do a related task, such check the status of a task specified in an email or send a fax of a document attached to an email.

SharePoint has been used to build applications for a New Hire Process, a Project Management app for cross-functional (matrix) organization, a network sppt and monitoring solution, and Sales Generator. These rough apps were each built overnight by teams of three .Net developers trained for only one day in SharePoint.

CRM Live, at $60 per user, might be a good option for sales force automation (SFA) needs of most small to medium sized businesses. See http://crm.dynamics.com/ for more information.

Gartner recently announced MS BI Platform is now in the "magic quadrant" of being an industry leader. It is matching up well against big players like IBM/Cognos and Oracle. Microsoft's strong recommendation is to use Excel and Excel Services as the end-users BI tool. Report Services can be difficult to implement due to multiple security layers. For the first BI project, put all software and data on one machine and go for the smallest data domain possible.

Speakers recommended a number of tools, templates and helper applications on CodePlex. CodePlex was likened to SourceForge for Microsoft apps. See http://www.codeplex.com/Project/ProjectDirectory.aspx?ProjectSearchText=moss for an example of user contributions for WSS and MOSS SharePoint development. Most teams should first review what's out there before building any new applications.

What companies can do with these new tools and functionality depends on their company's priorities. Key performance indicators (KPIs) and actions items could be:
1. Increase revenue - Leverage the AdSage\AdCenter Excel Plugin for keyword and campaign analysis. See http://advertising.microsoft.com/advertising/addin-demos .
2. Control spend - Automate and simplify expense reports
3. Gain customers - Flow customer feedback to site and Customer Service into key performance indicators and analytics
4. Retain existing customers - Automate reports on customer email, comments or other Customer Service data capture of feedback
5. Increase productivity for Sales, Operations, SEO, Editorial, Customer Service and IT
6. Streamline 3rd party interaction and interfaces
7. Automate and simplify business reporting with scorecards and key performance indicators
8. Allow drill-down and trend analysis of business data

The 2007/2008 toolset allows a greater ability to deliver on all of these items.

Resources from Code Camp Presentations

Below are links from my presentations this winter at Code Camp.

The outline for the presentation Improve Your Management and Leadership is located here.

The books referenced in the presentation are:

• Marcus Buckingham's First, Break All the Rules,
• Now, Discover Your Strengths, and
• The One Thing You Need to Know.
• Jim Collin's Good to Great,
• Ken Blanchard's One Minute Manager and
• Andy Standley's Making Vision Stick.

I also referenced Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

All of these authors have spoken at The Leadership Summit and their presentations may be available through that store.

I also briefly mentioned a book on metrics. My blog post on that is here, and the book is Five Core Metrics: The Intelligence Behind Successful Software Management.

The outline for Sunday's presentation Combine Agile with Your Strengths is located here and the slideshow is shared over the web on SlideShare here. The books mentioned include First Break All the Rules and Now Discover Your Strengths, linked above, as well as StrengthsFinder 2.0 and Go, Put Your Strengths To Work (on Google Books, so you can read parts of it).

I previously wrote a fairly thorough summary (certainly not an elevator speech) of the business value of using a strengths-based approach here.

Don't Know What You Got ('Til It's Gone)

I've recently had the opportunity to see what's lost when a team goes from Scrum to...something hard to define - general milestones and high level requests to get things done. I'll list the pain points.

What's Lost:

1. Visibility. The primary stakeholder doesn't really know where the project is. That's why he's having to ask several people throughout the day what their status is. But what good is asking them how it's going? It's very difficult to be objective, and their attempts are relative. "It's going well." Compared to...where you were yesterday? The non-existent schedule? The estimates before all the late changes came in, or after? Missing the deadline by a mile, and now thankfully looks only by weeks? Scrum records status and progress daily and more importantly the use of burn down charts track the trend!
2. Clarity. Are the people asked normally optimistic or pessimistic? Good estimators or bad? Ones who include code dept, deployment time, or just unit test and throw it over the wall? Our Scrum estimates were hammered out by group conscience (via planning poker) and we defined and standardized "done" via a "done is" checklist.
3. Teamwork. The team is now divided and fighting against themselves due to individual developers getting pulled by different business owners for different projects. Developers either don't help each other, or if they do, are chided for not exclusively working on some other "priority" project. The real problem isn't the developers. Scrum provides a framework to help the business in defining THE priorities in sequence, as well as defining who the one product owner is whom can dictate where the resources (developer hours) should go.
4. Motivation. All these issues combine to undermine motivation (a classic mistake, per Steve McConnell). Working towards a difficult deadline, without milestone deliveries to celebrate and foster hope, without real teamwork and interdependency, and without laser-like focus on the goal, motivation dries up. And then work becomes a grind, negatively breeds and a downward spiral of self-fulfilling prediction of an unreachable goal takes root and grows. Left alone, the business reaps nothing but failure for their investment, and the hours and days and weeks of people's lives are wasted on a harvest of the bitter fruit of failure.

What Is SharePoint?

Microsoft provides a set of functionality called Windows SharePoint Services, now on version 3.0, within Windows Server 2003 that is free to use. This free group of services provides document collaboration, information-sharing, list creation, Web page creation and related services. It is very useful for workgroups, departments and other small groups of users to work together on a set of documents, share information and otherwise collaborate.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is the new version of SharePoint Portal Server (combinging Microsoft Content Management Server) and provides additional functionality for business intelligence, business process integration, enterprise search, enterprise content management, and personalization.

The most common uses of SharePoint that I've seen are:

1. Creating team sites where only certain project team or department members can login, see, edit and add information and documents
2. Creating lists of information that can be easily customized by adding new columns, value lists and multiple filters
3. Setting alerts on information or document areas so that all team site users receive an email notice of information added or notified.
4. Using issue lists that email the assignee of the issue of any change with a before and after summary of the change, as well as keeping a history of comments on the issue.
5. Using document libraries (lists) that allow version histories of the documents, including checking in and out, creation of folders for organizing groups of files, and an Explorer-type view that supports drag-and-drop.

The types of business uses I've seen include:

1. Tracking employee hours, including using a lookup of tasks to choose from so that information is always correct.
2. Data entry of metric data that drives other graphical reports
3. Letting teams have their own designated and central area for their documents and other information
4. Creating a business process of several required steps
5. Using the discussion functional to capture a conversation thread of multiple users on a document posted to the team site.
6. Using a modified issue list to categorize, prioritize, track, assign and drive issues on a project, as well as quickly export the list to Excel and send to additional outside users.

There are Microsoft partners that run SharePoint Services as a hosted service, lowering the barriers of complexity and effort for small and medium business to try out the functionality and see if there a good return for the money.

Agile Project Estimation w Scrum Planning Poker

I learned this week that planning poker is a big return for the small investment. I could not find planning poker cards in stock anywhere in the world, until Mike Cohn just made them available again (http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/products/cards).

Besides all the great benefits outlined in Mike's great book on Agile Planning and Estimation, I found that the team interaction was good. There were great alternative views and just an overall good feeling of everybody's opinion counting.

The Leadership Summit - Session 1 - A Vision to Die For

The Leadership Summit
Notes from Session 1 - A Vision to Die For, Bill Hybels

Vision must be owned. Ownership is the most powerful weapon in casting and maintaining vision for your organization. It's the painting of the picture that brings passion out of people. It ties into purpose – a sense of destiny beyond to 9 to 5.

Hybels referenced the book of John – Being an owner vs. just a hired hand.

"I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd puts the sheep before himself, sacrifices himself if necessary. A hired man is not a real shepherd. The sheep mean nothing to him. He sees a wolf come and runs for it, leaving the sheep to be ravaged and scattered by the wolf. He's only in it for the money. The sheep don't matter to him." - John 10:11-13

Hybels challenged us to ask ourselves, "At my current workplace, am I the owner of the vision, or the hired hand?" Do I pray for it, protect it, volunteer for it. Owners of the vision will sacrifice deeply. They will be high capacity workers.

Hybels then referenced a group that was an owner of a vision. On March 7, 1965, a group of civil rights marches left Selma, Alabama for Birmingham. They made it as far as the Edmund Pettis Bridge. There they faced state troopers and county sheriffs armed with billy clubs tear gas and bullwhips. The lawmen attacked the peaceful protesters and drove them back to Selma. This event became known as Bloody Sunday. Owners of a vision will be willing to die for the cause.

Out vision is so important. It should be bold, faithful, honorable, and clear. But vision needs to be owned by the people in our organization.

How do we do this? For some Type-A leaders who live on blazing a trail and calling back to everyone to follow their lead, it's a four letter word: P-R-O-C-E-S-S. Without process, we defeat every one left out (which is everyone but the leader).

There are three steps in the process for vision ownership:
1. Vision Formation
There is the top-down approach (bad), or the team approach (good). The top down approach is so often taken because it is quick, but doesn't take, doesn't hold.

The recommendation on the team approach was to have an offsite, with the focus being the question "What should our organization look like in five years?" It may feel slow or inefficient, and to some quick-acting leaders like "swimming in peanut butter." But this builds community, value and more likelihood of ownership. The team members may not always have their way, but they at least need to know their ideas have been considered.

2. Vision Refinement
Make a first draft of the vision. This crystallizes it, even in draft form. Take this draft to the groups at the next level out, trying to get different types of groups, feedback. Ask what's clear, what's confusing, what excites you, what scares you. The goal is to come away with a crystal clear, compelling vision.

3. Vision Declaration

Introduce the vision in front of leaders first, asking if it is clear and compelling. The declaration is not a solo effort, but a team activity.

Great leaders know that more time in the vision casting process increases ownership. Vision leaks, but don't berate the workers for this. Use any tactics to keep refilling the vision. And remember to celebrate progress.

Meeting Rules for Daily Stand-Up / Daily Scrum

For the team:

1. Arrive on time or early.
   
2. Be ready to say what you did yesterday and what you plan to do today.
   
3. Keep your report specific, precise and short in order to help the meeting end within 15 minutes.
   
4. Listen to other team member's status in case it might relate to your tasks or impact you.
   
5. Don't interrupt people when they are talking.
   
6. Don't agree to decisions or action you don't understand. Ask questions and insist on answers when you need clarification.
   
7. Note the tasks or action items you volunteer for.
   
8. If you raise an issue or question that can't be resolved in a minute, ask to discuss with the parties involved after the meeting.
   
9. For those calling in, be sure to start your report with "This is [your name]."
   

   
    

   For ScrumMasters:
   

10. Be sure to have (or have access to) your relevant information (the sprint or product backlogs, the software being developed, or the project, requirements or design documents and code)
    
11. Be sure to have (or have access to) the phone numbers of any team members who you are conferencing in.
    
12. Be sure to have scheduled the recurring meeting and invited all appropriate people
    
13. Be sure that the invitation includes the relevant information, such as meeting location, project site URL, and conference number.
    
14. Be sure the invitation subject line is specific (for those involved in multiple projects).
    
15. It is your job to keep the meeting focused and starting and ending on-time.
    
16. It is your job to know why and how scrum works. Look for teachable moments in the daily scrum.

Why Scrum Works

Just finished the book Project Management with Scrum, and it is excellent.

Here a great overview quote from the forward:

"Gary Convis notes that Toyota's sustainable success comes from an 'inter-locking set of three underlying elements: the philosophical underpinnings, the managerial culture an the technical tools. The philosophical underpinnings include a joint [worker] , customer first focus, an emphasis on people first, a commitment to continuous improvement...The managerial culture...is rooted in several factors, including developing and sustaining a sense of trust, a commitment to involving those affected by first, teamwork, equal and fair treatment for all, an finally, fact-based decision making and long-term thinking.'


Scrum works for all the same reasons. Its philosophical underpinnings focus on empowering the development team and satisfying customers. Its managerial culture is rooted in helping others achieve their goals. Its technical tools are focused on making fact-based decisions through a learning process. When all of the factors are in place, it's hard for Scrum not to succeed. - Mary Poppendieck"


From Agile Project Management with Scrum (Microsoft Professional).

Summary of Marcus Buckingham's Strengths Movement and its Value to Business

A few months back, I wrote a summary of the strengths movement – personal strengths, or employee strengths if you're a manager, according to the work done by Gallup and Marcus Buckingham (previously misspelled Markus Buckingham on my blog).

I've since found myself forwarding this email numerous times to others to give them a quick overview or primer with a focus on the value to the company. This post is the same content and formatting for easier reference.

Overview- Why and How

"Our people are our greatest asset." Correction - your people's talents are your greatest asset, or more precisely "Aligning our people's talents to their tasks so that they play to their strengths the majority of each day is our greatest asset."

The premise of strengths-based teams is that the most effective method for motivating people is to build on their strengths rather than correcting their weaknesses. People don't change that much, and the effort to remediate their weaknesses is much effort for minimal return. Researchers at the Gallup Organization have analyzed results of interviews of over 1.7 million employees from 101 companies and representing 63 countries. Less than 20 percent of employees stated that they were using their strengths every day. And there is no relation to type of work, skilled or unskilled, industry or even within company. In fact, more disparity existed within companies than outside, showing that there is no such thing as "great companies," only great teams within those companies.

One must purchase a book (noted later in this post) in order to get access to the test which reveals their strengths. Once they learn their profile, a manager can begin a process of how to capitalize upon each person's unique traits, aligning them with the goals of their team and the company, resulting in better performance and employee satisfaction.

Summary of Strengths Books by Buckingham and Gallup

For background, here's a summary of the related books. In "First, Break All the Rules," strengths are mentioned as one of the levers that great managers can use to get the most out of their employees. In fact, it trumps all the other tools a manager can use. Then, in "Now, Discover Your Strengths," aimed at management and business, the authors focused on solely on strengths (because it is the greatest single lever to increase team performance), listed all 34 strength types, and gave cases studies and examples. The book includes a code to take the strengths profile test. The new "StrengthFinder 2.0" book is geared more for the individual, and contains a slightly newer version of the test with a bit more guidance on the next steps of how to apply your strengths. Finally, in the new "Go Put Your Strengths to Work," Buckingham explains (and gives great, practical tools) on how to take personal responsibility in turning knowledge into action, because just knowing your strengths alone doesn't change a person into someone who leverages their strengths the majority of the day.

Supporting Facts

Here's an edited down snippet from a Gallup white paper on the results of their strengths study:

Definitions of performance vary, but typically include indices such as productivity (revenue in business), profitability, employee retention, customer loyalty, and safety. Substantial predictive validities have been established between structured interview measures of manager "talents" and future manager performance (Schmidt & Rader, 1999). In a recent study of more than 2,000 managers in the Gallup database, Gallup researchers studied the responses of managers to open- ended questions related to management of individual talents versus weaknesses. In comparison to poor-performing managers, top-performing managers (based on composite performance) were more likely to indicate that they spend time with high producers, match talents to tasks, and emphasize individual strengths versus seniority in making personnel decisions. Success was 86 percent greater for managers with a "strengths versus non- strengths " approach (Gallup Organization, 2002). Managers with a strengths-based approach nearly double their likelihood of success.

The ROI of Employee Engagement

The employees who say they "have the opportunity to do what they do best every day" have substantially higher performance. In a study of 308,798 employees in 51 companies, teams scoring above the median on this statement have 44 percent higher probability of success on customer loyalty and employee retention, and 38 percent higher probability of success on productivity measures (Harter & Schmidt, 2002). "Success" is defined as exceeding the median performance within one's own company, across work units. Managers who create environments in which employees have a chance to use their talents have more productive work units with less employee turnover.

The ROI of Strengths Development

Gallup researchers has performed studies of talent identification, feedback, and strengths development activities with a "study group" and a "control group" who were administered the "StrengthsFinder" assessment and given feedback, both individually and in group sessions, with follow-up. Post-intervention measurements of employee engagement in productivity were conducted six months later. Results indicated that the study group productivity grew by 50 percent more than the control group did.

Taken from http://media.gallup.com/DOCUMENTS/whitePaper--InvestingInStrengths.pdf

Other links:

Gallup's StrengthFinder Center: http://gmj.gallup.com/book_center/strengthsfinder/default.aspx

Marcus Buckingham's site: http://www.marcusbuckingham.com/

Do We Need to Manage People?

Going through Good to Great again, and was struck by Jim Collin's statement that the best companies hire self-disciplined people who don't need to be managed, and the leadership manages the system, not the people.

One of Scrum's principles is that the teams are self-managing. But I can see now that that principle depends on having the right people on the team – disciplined people. Just because I'm running scrum doesn't mean that someone on the team who wasn't previously self-managing or disciplined suddenly becomes disciplined. The opportunity is there for them, and hopefully peers around them to model after, but the brutal facts might be that there are team members who will never become self-managing, self-disciplined. Perhaps the team manages these people off their team, but if the team and process doesn't gel immediately (average of several sprints before typically gelled and consistent), then it is likely the ScrumMaster may be the first to deal with whether a person is right for the team.

David Maister on Passion, People and Principles

David Maister is so straight on with his post on Passion, People and Principles (posted here).

Over and again on projects and teams and in companies, I see these truths and consequences lived out. Throw in embracing a paradigm of servant leadership and an understanding of strengths, management and leadership, and I believe every person who wants to be successful, can be. But from what I've seen, many people aren't willing to give up what they want, even for better long term, or if it hurts the company, themselves or others. Like the monkey who can't get his hand out of the jar because he won't let go of the banana inside, these people get what they want but trap themselves in the end.

Agile, Operations and Strategy

From a management point of view, you want to know that you are getting the top return on investment for all of your IT efforts. Scrum makes this clear, visible and in the control of the product owner, who is often funding the effort.

But what about all of the other time and effort by IT personnel whom are not on agile projects, those who are most often "putting out fires" or working on short-notice market-driven system changes? Without a lightweight method to track these efforts, funding could be misspent and neither CIO's nor CEO's would know. Worse than money wasted on effort not making a difference, it is money that could have been spent on something that would have improved the company and\or IT.

This IT request tracking should give visibility to requests, timeframes, the requestor, estimated effort and status. It should be visible to all IT and company management and proactively alert key stakeholders, and also provide summary reports of effort so that management can regularly easily see a high-level view of all effort and knows how money is being spent.