“I’m very disappointed with each of you” – An experience from Toronto’s Agile Coach Retreat
When I’m interested in something, I really like to get into it. As a true generalist, this means I tend to like to get into a lot of stuff. And one of the things I like the most is helping & supporting others in being their best. This lets them be the specialist in whatever it is, but I get to tag along for the ride, and often learn about it in the process. Why do I start with this background info? Well, it’s because the one thing I do think I’m pretty darn good at is working with people.
This weekend, I had the opportunity to take part in Toronto’s Agile Coach Conference. The day was at a great space in Milton, and featured some amazing coaches leading the day. In typical agile coach fashion, the facilitators were really adaptable to the needs and interest of the group. And that led us to throwing a couple of topics out in the afternoon to explore Lego Serious Play.
It’s a fantastic and engaging way of helping people explore and articulate things they may have trouble doing through more traditional formats. LSP is for solving the really hard problems. I’ve facilitated sessions with Lego myself, but am not (yet) a certified LSP facilitator. A number of the people at this conference are. They’re amazingly talented people.
A scenario was set at each table. Our scenario was a scrum team with lots of interpersonal problems. There were six of us at the table; one Scrum Master, one Product Owner (me) and four Team Members.
After a number of introductory questions being answered and explained through the Lego, the question became focused on the scenario, and we were asked to build something that represented the problem we were having. Playing the role of the PO, I built something to illustrate that I felt stories were being estimated too large, that requirements were being missed by the team and not coming to me (as the PO) until late in the sprint, and that what was being built by the team was not meeting my customers needs. I was pretty specific, and really got into the role of the PO, calling the Team Members on the team “my resources”, and blaming the team because I thought the stories should be estimated smaller.
Now remember, I said I like to get into things. Really into things.
And I surprised myself with how I started explaining my Lego creation to those at the table.
I said: “My model here represented just how very disappointed I am with each of you.”
I have no idea where that came from. It certainly wasn’t premeditated. There was a fair amount of laughing going on as I said it. As the session went on, I found myself becoming even more uncomfortable with what I had said. No one in the room seemed to take it personally, which was good, since it was just a case study scenario. But it started becoming more and more bothersome to me. I realized part of the reason for my discomfort, as a Coach, is that I have no idea what I’d do in a situation where someone verbalized such a strong attack at others.
One of the great things about LSP is that comments are almost always directed at the lego models, and not at the other people. It’s one of the things that makes LSP a safe environment for solving those hard and complex problems.
So, I shared my discomfort with the group, and asked for some ideas on how to deal with such a strong emotion. Here’s a quick highlight of a couple of ideas and discussion that this sparked:
In a real world situation, it’s unlikely that this would have been the first time for such strong emotion and words to be spoken. As such, LSP might not be the right activity or approach in the first place with such disfunction. In fact, any group activity might not be right for this team. It could very likely be that individual coaching is required first.
After such a strong attack is made in what’s supposed to be a safe setting, it could be a perfect time for a break. And that break is a great opportunity to explore the feelings of the person making those comments in a one-on-one setting, away from others on the team.
If it’s not as directed as my comment was, it certainly requires the facilitator to focus/change/adapt the next question/activity in something that will bring the group together, or really guide the participants back to the focus of comments being directed at the Lego, and not at the people.
One person suggested that an attack like this should be the end of the session. Not a break. A complete and hard stop. I’m not totally convinced of that.
I think that there’s a great deal of work to do, and certainly the conflict that’s come out is really uncomfortable. But I think it could be an amazing opportunity, now that it’s out there, and verbalized with the entire team. After a break. And after a discussion with the person to make it a safe environment again for everyone.
There were lots of other great ideas and comments, but these are the ones that resonated with me.
I’m still not sure exactly what I’d do. I’m not sure I’d be quick enough on my feet to protect others at that table, and have a level enough head to take a break to evaluate the situation with a bit more time. I certainly like to think I would.
It certainly made me feel uncomfortable.
In one of the following builds, the question was to build something that reflected an ideal future state. I made sure my build included the Team standing along side me (as the PO). And I made sure to build a representation of 1 & 2 point stories (instead of the 13 & 21 point stories I’d built in the first build), with the comment that the Team was estimating the stories at the right size because I’d asked for their help in writing better stories. I wanted it to be clear that I was willing to work with the Team as the PO.
In that last build, one of the Team Members had built a car that was either going to drive towards adding value to our customers or driving towards another job, depending on what I built.
It turned out that since the PO had learnt and listed to the Team, we managed to keep the team together.
It was a great conversation… Just one of many great conversations on Saturday.
And it’s because it was a very safe environment with friends and colleagues.
I feel really lucky to be part of such an amazing community with such amazing people.
Change & Progress. But Not Really.
When I was in college, I majored in Audio Visual & Multi-Media Communications. I really enjoyed that stuff.
I still do.
I also had to also take some crappy other courses to get my diploma. So I did. As you might expect, I don’t remember much of any of those courses, or really even what I took. But as I’ve been progressing through my career, one little nugget of wisdom has stayed with me.
I don’t recall what class it was in, but that really doesn’t matter. We were looking at an advertisement from the 1930’s or 1940’s. Possibly the 1950’s, but I recall it being older than that. It featured a new technology… It was a print ad, published in some magazine or newspaper that’s also not important.
The ad was for a new sofa, one that was easier to clean because you could just hose it down with water, and let it dry. This new fabric technology that would save time. No more hours of shampooing the fabric, or scrubbing, or vacuuming. Let me try and describe the ad… Basically, there was an oval background with a young woman standing in front – just off to the side – of a couch. The woman was holding a garden hose, clearly showing how easy it was to clean this couch.
I know this because of how she was standing, smiling, clearly having a good time.
This isn’t the ad I’m referring to, but it’s one that came up with a quick Google search, and hopefully allows you to get the idea. http://elite.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/1957-ad.jpg
We were discussing how this new technology, to make the couch so easy to clean would reduce the amount of time the young woman would have to spend cleaning. She’d be freed up to do all sorts of other leisurely activities, instead of spending her time cleaning. We were talking about how technology enables us to do things that we never thought possible.
What caught me off guard was when the professor pointed out that it was a woman doing the cleaning in the ad… What if it had been a man?
Preposterous, I thought.
After all, this was an ad from a time before most men and women shared household responsibilities. What madness was this kookie professor trying to get at? If this was a modern ad, sure, it could be a man or a women. But from the 1930’s, or 40’s, or 50’s?
And then the discussion turned to new technologies that do make things better, but remain constrained by a belief of some kind. In this ad, it was that only a women would be doing the cleaning. In spite of the technological advances to make this fabric so easy to clean, the possibility of the young woman not being the one who would be doing the cleaning wasn’t even imaginable.
I wonder what we assume, in 2015, that we can’t change either. What do we just accept as the way things are.
What is our “women do the housework” paradigm?
There’s a discussion going on in the Agile software community about #NoEstimates. I’ve found this very interesting to follow and take part in. Before I get too far down this road, let me say that for me, #NoEstimates is all about looking at why we do certain things the way we do, and asking if there’s a better way to do it. I’m certainly not going to claim to have the answers.
There are those who insist that the only way to responsibly deliver a project is with estimating the work up front. Maybe. But I’m not so sure. I’ve seen too many projects which have been estimated up front fail, because the number of things not included in the estimate blows the project up, taking it over budget, and way off schedule. And what’s worse, is that it’s often not the right thing that gets built, simply because the estimate was done a year – or more – ago, and the market has shifted to make whatever it was no longer relevant.
Just like the creators of that ad couldn’t imagine a time when women wouldn’t be the ones cleaning and doing the housework, there are those who can’t imagine a time when we won’t be estimating software projects up front.
My point is simply that a lot of good can come from questioning and exploring things that we take for granted, which are the status quo of today.
At one point, we thought the world was flat. At one point, we assumed that women would always do the housework. At one point, we thought we needed detail estimate of software projects before we started development.
Questioning and exploring alternatives to what we think we know today can lead us to places we can’t yet imagine or dream.
If you want to read more about #NoEstimates, here are two fantastic places you can do exactly that:
On the topic of Trombones…
I got thinking a bit more about playing my trombone. Something I need to do more. I don’t get to play much any more, but I really did enjoy playing for many years. Maybe I’ll find some others to play with.
I played in orchestras. I played in concert bands. I played in military bands. I played in jazz bands. I played in brass quintets. And I played in other various groups with various other instruments. But the group I enjoyed playing the most with is the brass quintet. There are a bunch of reasons for this, and it very much relates to how I like to work today.
You see, in a quintet, there are five voices. It’s a small group, and you get to really know your peers, and have to work really hard at working well with them. It’s not about any of you individually, but about the five of you together. No one is in charge; there’s no leader, per se. We’re all leaders, and we all have accountability to each other, and to our audience, or customer. It’s just the five of us, all working towards a single, shared common goal. We all have to work together, listening to each other, complementing each other, supporting each other, critiquing each other. If we don’t? Well, there’s no one to hide behind. It’s just us. Each playing our part, which come together to produce something amazingly superior to the sum of our five parts.
It also forces five committed people to be their best, and continually work to improve personally, and each other. There’s nowhere to hide in a quintet. Not that I ever hid in any of the other settings, but it’s not the same when you’re one of a number people playing a similar – or even the same – line of a piece. That doesn’t happen in a quintet. There’s no one else playing your line. It’s just you. It becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly if you’re not pulling your weight. And it’s the same with everyone else in the quintet so they’ve got to be equally committed, and equally interested in being the best they can be, finding ways to get better individually, and helping each other make the quintet as a whole even better.
By the way, if you want to see some of the best musicians in the world, a team who practically invented and popularized the brass quintet, have a look at the Canadian Brass.