Tag Archives: happiness

The ‘so that’ of refinement.

05 Wednesday Nov 2014

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Agile is so effective because it has a lot of hidden tools in it that work. Surprisingly, a lot of the scrum masters and even Agile coaches that I have come across don’t talk about these things. Some don’t know about them, some choose not to reveal them, some even think it’s not part of their job to care….

But, I am a strong believer in clarity, as clarity creates meaning, meaning creates purpose and purpose is one of the corner stones of motivation, which ultimately leads to higher efficiency and thus, higher business value.

When people know the WHY, they will follow, they will learn, they will care. ( why do you think the most successful leaders focus on WHY and not HOW )

I am going to talk a little bit on how I do refinement. Not saying it’s the most effective way and you SHOULD be doing it like this, no, you have your team, you have your style, you will learn what works. But, I do want to show you what has been very successful for me and my teams.

REFINEMENT PHASE 1:

– I have 2 refinements, for a 2 week sprint, in the middle of each week. They are 2 hours long at the moment, because our team is not fully aligned yet. They will become less time consuming over time. But you look at your team and at your needs.

Take a look at this MVP drawing I did on the train this morning, this is the visual representation of my refinement ( phase 1 = week 1) – the second refinement is slightly different, but more on that later.

Agile refinement Phase 1

Agile refinement Phase 1

Phase 1:

Input ==> Prioritised backlog of cards

Iteration per card:

  1. Use a visual reminder of what we are trying to get to: estimation in T-shirt size. (WHY? Are the estimations that important? They are important for different reasons, but one of the hidden gems will become clear when you read on, it’s a tool to make sure the team is on the same page and to create more x-functional mindset)
  2. Ask the PO and the team for clarity on 2 subjects: Business requirement and the detail of what they need/want + How the team thinks of tackling this ( on a high level ) – PO should not interfere with the how, but in my team, he does have a voice and we can openly discuss things because it aids in cooperation and x-functional nature of the team, it brakes down tribes and creates a vibe of truly working together to create business value. BUT… in some teams, you CANNOT do it. If you have a PO with the tendency to micromanage, do not give them a voice until you have coached them into being more efficient.
  3. SM: Do we, as a team, have a clear enough understanding of what is involved to do a high level estimation? Yes? OK, 3,2,1 – estimate!!!
  4. If you notice a big diversity of estimation, it means one of 2 things: 1. your team is not estimating as a team (yes, I ask them to estimate as a team, because it has proven much more efficient – promotes x-functional, understanding of each others challenges, they become a more tight business unit and less risk of silo-ing) or 2. There is a level of un-clarity.
  5. SM: Person Small – Why? Person Large – Why? : You ask the extremes to make their cases, the team chips in when they do and the blanks get filled in, the misunderstandings surface and the team reaches a mutual agreement.
  6. Re-estimate.
  7. All on same level – great, we all know what to do on a high level, we have surfaced effort, complexity and our level of understanding to PO and we have done it as a team, ready to go for it and deliver that business value!!! 🙂

So the hidden gems:

  • Estimation as a team creates understanding and respect for each others challenges
  • It’s the basis of x-functional
  • It highlights where there is misunderstanding
  • It highlight areas of improvement in individuals and teams ( is someone constantly estimating too high? Why is that? lack of confidence? more experienced, so they know what is REALLY involved? Tendency to be to perfectionist and not lean enough – depends on case by case of course, sometimes perfection is needed…)
  • It creates a common purpose, the basis of mastery and… they did it all themselves ( autonomy – growth ,…) => basis of motivation ( autonomy, mastery, purpose)

I actually use bright coloured cards with cardboard 3D letters of S, M, L, XL and the physical cards. We have everything in JIRA too, but screens are banned during that meeting… all for a reason.

Why a tangible visual? Cognitive psychology has shown us an insight in how our brain works, the more we understand it, the more we should use that knowledge to find the most effective communication tools. The brain creates meaning through the senses. Visual is one of those senses. Our primary visual cortex picks up basic shapes initially ( circles or squares ) it relais info to the other areas in our brain: Ventral stream, Dorsal stream and limbic system. Respectively for the WHAT (its a card, its a letter), the location of the body in space and the feeling, gut, strong emotional reaction.

I use all of the above to add to the experience, and why not? science it there to use, not just to be interested in. Win-wins for the win 😉

And… it works. You actually see it during refinement, people are more involved, they stand, they sit, the move around, the physically move the cards… it helps embed all the info and associated info in the brain…

We’ve got the tools, we’ve got the knowledge,… use them, explore them, improve them 🙂

Agile, the road to a new society where productivity and happiness soar hand in hand.

19 Friday Sep 2014

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Isn’t it clear? I don’t think it is clear for everyone how much Agile can contribute to the biggest necessity in the future of this society. Let me shed some light on that.

I love analysing stuff, always loved it, even from when I was a little girl. My parents told me a story from when I was about 5 years old. I had gotten hold of their alarm clock and I was taking it apart. When they asked me why, I said I wanted to know how it worked. I haven’t changed much since then, but instead of taking apart alarm clocks, I take apart processes, society and people. I can’t help it… at my core, I am an analyst.

Why do I do it? Curiosity and a desire to understand so that I can help improve. And isn’t that a little bit what Agile does? You look at what is reality, you inspect, and seek how you can continuously improve.

It’s the only way, one of the many purposes of life is growth, we continuously evolve, whether we want to or not, it’s part of our nature. The way we grow, that’s up to us, we are the masters of our destiny, because even though we can’t predict what is going to happen, but we are the master of how we react to it. And our reactions might not always be the most optimal, we can only shape our lives in a more efficient way when we learn to understand and evolve our reactions ( inspect and adapt ).

As a society as a whole, you must have noticed we are facing a severe problem, depression, disease, demotivation, unhappiness. What is life when you are living it in those circumstances? And at the same time, you try to keep your family fed, your relationships alive and a roof over your head. The pressures of work seem to rise and rise. And instead of businesses taking responsibility over their most valuable resource, what often happens is that they try and put a plaster over a gushing wound and send them back into battle. It’s not the right way, this is a typical example of loose-loose.

Agile provides us with an answer to win-win. It’s based on the core principals of decent human beings. You know, you can trust them. It’s like your kids growing up, at a certain time, you need to let them be their own person, responsible for their destiny and trust that they will do the right thing. Same with the people working for you, people care. They care about their work and they want to do a good job (there are always exceptions, but that is what they are, exceptions, not the majority)

The more you give people the freedom to contribute to your product, make it part of what they are passionate about, make it theirs… the more you will see productivity, innovation and creativity soar. And at the same time, happiness will go up.

I think we have only just scratched the surface of what we can do with Agile, I think we can take it much further than just letting teams organise their work, I am a strong believer that we should experiment with having teams determine to the fullest how they work. This means work hours, rewards, holidays,… I know some companies are already experimenting with this… but the way you do it, is, like in a family, in a safe environment where you continuously look back, review, adapt, grow.

If we follow this approach, I am convinced that we will reduce costs, increase happiness for the people at work but also in their immediate family, which will again have a side effect on other companies and people.

Will this be an easy road, no, it won’t be and you need the right people to guide the way, if you want to do this experiment, you will need a brilliant scrum master, a PO and a team who are mature enough. But if you do take this journey, you will most certainly have a huge competitive advantage.

Yours truly,

Brigitte

Experimenting at work, the agile way.

13 Sunday Jul 2014

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As you know, I am fascinated by the impact of positivity on performance, productivity, employee loyalty and health. But now I want to transition from doing personal experiments to doing group experiments.

I have only been at my current job for just over 3 weeks, but I knew even before I joined that this was ‘fertile soil’. There is enormous potential in the people, the mindset and culture of the company, we will thrive continuously and as we go along, we will learn and form new ways of optimising.

Last Friday, I asked if they would be up for doing a little experiment. That one question grew into agreeing to do a company wide presentation on positive psychology, that same day in the afternoon.

As opportunities arise, you grab them, so that is what I did. Having no time to prepare, did make me slightly anxious, as I wasn’t sure on what approach to take, but 10 minutes of clearing my head made me realise I don’t need preparation, I know what, the how we will define together and most important, I knew WHY.

If you are familiar with leadership analysis, you know that ‘why’ is most important question, because people relate to the way, people get motivated by the why, not by the how or what. It’s the passion that speaks.

So I gave one of the most honest and open presentations, just me and a white board. I used mind mapping to create the flow and make sure I extracted everything I wanted to say. I showed them the why from a ‘professional’ point of view, leading to the conclusion that happiness = professional, happiness = a crucial part of economic progress. And then, with the help of a timeline with a drawing of me as a kid (little stick figure in a dress with ponytails) a few jokes and lots of interactivity, I explained why it was so important to me as a person.

Throughout every ones life there are challenges, of different magnitudes. You reach crossroads of decisions where you need to choose between finding solutions and carrying on or giving up. Positivity leads to thriving, leads to potential, leads to happiness, flow and growth. Negativity leads to exhaustion, giving away control, a dead end. My story just illustrated some of those crossroads and how strong I felt about staying in control of my choices in a world of change and unexpected challenges.

That is ultimately what it is about, if you choose positivity, you choose ownership of your destiny, if you choose negativity, you give up.

The outcome was great, after that presentation, people came up to me to express how much they loved it and how they really want to get involved. There is no better feeling than that, seeing that spark, that energy, that force!

So, how will we do it? We are working on the how of the project, but we know the framework. We will use scrum to finish this positivity product. Next week, we will start sprint 0, in which we will define the end goal and start building our product backlog, our definitions of done, team contracts,… so… stay tuned.

Yours truly,
Brigitte

win-win revolution that will see happiness and productivity soar, hand in hand

29 Sunday Jun 2014

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As Scrum masters, sometimes, you forget the depths of the impact we are making, not just for our direct teams and organisations, but for the future, we are shaping right now.

The Agile mindset is based on core values that we will need for the survival of humanity.
Sounds quite hefty doesn’t it? Well, it is, and I think it is important that we take the time to stand still and reflect on it.

I was asked this week, by one of my team members, if I saw a future for agile.
I replied by saying; when you look at what is happening, there is not only a future for agile, agile is going to be the future.

In economics, you can clearly see the trend of big companies finally jumping on the Agile train, as they are starting to realise that they need to shape up, or they will get left behind.
It’s like the titanic, they are big and powerful, but they also know that if an iceberg pops up, they will be too slow to turn and the damage will be done, the whole majestic empire will sink, leaving behind beautiful memories of what once was.

Bottom line, to be successful in business, they need agile, but most companies haven’t yet fully understood how big that impact is.
If they want to truly go Agile, it is fundamentally a cultural and organisational change and that can be hard for a company to come to grips with, so they will have a transition phase towards agile.

If they stick with it, they will soon see the benefits and if they see the bigger picture, they will make those fundamental changes.

The straight-forward economic advantages of delivering business values and gaining the trust of their customers back is only one of side of why agile is the way of the future.
Another one that seems to be overlooked, is the fact that human beings are the resources of a company.
And when you look at predictions about the biggest future disability for those resources, it’s depression.
As a company, you can again go two ways, keep things as they are and choose to force your employees into anti-depressives or you can go agile.

Agile creates a pure win-win. No false predictions, just reality, team work and continuous improvement.
In my personal style, I try to combine as much positive psychology in the way our team works as possible.
It is not for nothing that these last years psychology has explored the field of positivity more and more.
When people talk about bringing happiness to teams, it sometimes feels uneasy, as if you wont be taken seriously if you talk about happiness, it’s not seen as professional.

Just remember, happiness, goes hand in hand with professional, as that is the way forward. It brings more productivity, less disease, more creativity… ingredients companies need to be the best.

So have the courage to talk about happiness, as an agile member, you are on the forefront of this win-win revolution that will see happiness and productivity soar, hand in hand!

Yours truly,

Brigitte

PS: I would like to dedicate this post to Jem, I loved the time we had working together and sharing ideas, inspiring each other and awakening the courage to understand the depths of what we are doing, shaping the future, a win-win world! Thank you!