Team Archive

Hawthorne Effect Coaching Dilemma

– May 11, 2012Posted in: Agile, Project Management

The Hawthorne Effect is something I wrote about over a year ago. Previously as a Project Management Adviser and now as an Enterprise Agile Coach, I’ve seen it numerous times. To all those currently advising or coaching, do you tend to see clients trying to impress you? The Hawthorne Effect refers to the tendency of some people to modify their behavior, when they know they are being watched, due to the attention they are receiving from researchers, auditors, or coaches.

This effect was first discovered and named by researchers at Harvard University who were studying the relationship between productivity and work environment. Researchers conducted these experiments at the Hawthorne Works plant of Western Electric. The study was originally commissioned to determine if increasing or decreasing the amount of light workers received increased or decreased worker productivity. The researchers found that productivity temporarily increased, regardless if the light was increased or decreases. They then realized the increase in productivity was due to the attention given the workers by the research team and not because of changes to the experimental variable. (Thanks Wikipedia)

This is one reason short term engagements can be challenging. People are on their best behavior, until they get used to you being there. This is also why I don’t believe in annual reviews. How do you, as managers, leaders, coaches, or auditors get past the effect? How do you ensure you get a true representation of individual and team behavior and not suffer from the Hawthorne Effect?

Image Source: Pictofigo

Popularity: 1%

Tags: Advise, Agile, Coach, Enterprise, People, Process, Team

PMI Eating its Own Dogfood

Derek Huether

– May 4, 2012Posted in: Agile, Project Management

Current State of the ACP Community Guide I am happy to report that the PMI-ACP Community Guide project is off and running. Each day, I see new content being added. I wonder if this is how Jimmy Wales felt in the early days of Wikipedia. Our first measure of success is to get the content of each page of The Guide as close to the vision of the ACP Steering Committee as quickly as possible. Our second measure of success is to reach a tipping point, whereby the community (not the support team) is maintaining the guide. Remember, future versions of the ACP exam will be based on this Guide.

Community Guide

To reaffirm, there will not be an AgileBOK. The Community Guide of the PMI-ACP (login required) is an initiative of the PMI Agile Community of Practice to provide ongoing support for the PMI-ACP agile certification.

ACP Support Team

Lead by Joseph Flahiff of Whitewater Projects and myself, the ACP Support Team has kickstarted the Community Guide content creation process. We are empowered and 100% self-organized.

The Backlog

In order to deliver something of value to the community, Joseph and I leveraged the wiki within PMI’s website to create a Product Backlog. We wanted transparency and for everyone to know what we are focused on. Every major area of the ACP exam has a page waiting to be edited. If you had a traditional product backlog, the 10 major areas that comprise the Tools & Techniques of the exam could easily be considered Epics. Each page of our wiki could be compared to a User Story. We’re not estimating our work. We’re just doing it.

Iteration 1

We are currently in Iteration 1, which ends on May 10, 2012. Of our 15 member team, we asked volunteers to commit to work on the first 7 pages of the first content area. At the end of each iteration, we can ask members of the ACP steering committee to review what we have done. It’s important that we stay focused, have short feedback loops, and deliver something of value on a regular basis.

Eating the Dogfood

When you think of PMI, you probably think of project plans, schedules, and stuff like that. As a self-organized and empowered team, we decided what is important, to increase the chances of our success. Though there should be a predictable date of completion, based on the currently defined deliverables and length of the iterations, we’re prepared for things to change. We may have to rework some of the pages. We may have some team turnover. Regardless, we can guarantee we will deliver value on a regular basis. We can guarantee there is collaboration with the community.

Joining the Team

If you are interested in creating or maintaining articles for the Community Guide, join our team! If you want to work independently, we welcome your valuable contributions.

Popularity: 1%

Tags: Backlog, Community Guide, Iteration, PMI, PMI-ACP, Team

Measuring Team Emotion

Derek Huether

– April 14, 2012Posted in: Agile, Project Management

Too many times, companies focus too much attention on metrics like Team Performance and Team Efficiency, while ignoring metrics like Team Emotion or Happiness. This last week, I worked with a company and team which did not make this mistake. At the conclusion of the iteration, they held a retrospective.

As noted on a previous blog post,

a retrospective meeting is held at the end of a scheduled event or time interval. With the aid of a facilitator, a team discusses what went well and what could be improved during the next interval or prior to the next scheduled event. The meeting is time-boxed to help ensure it doesn’t just turn into an out-of-control complaining session. When properly facilitated, you come out of the meeting with an actionable list for improvement candidates.

At the conclusion of the team retrospective, it was time for the final task of the (2-week) iteration. It was time to know how the team felt.

As you can see from this Cacoo drawing, the team was happy during iteration planning and the first week of the two-week iteration. Things didn’t go so well during the second week or the Iteration Review. I was there during that meeting and not surprised they voted as they did. What is telling from this diagram was their feelings of the actual Retrospective meeting. They were very happy.

During the Retrospective, the team discussed how they could make the next iteration (and Review) better. It was a really healthy and productive conversation. There was no blaming. It was all about “how can we as a team do better?”

In closing, find out how your team feels. You may be surprised how team performance and efficiency improve when the team is happier. If you want true process or team improvement (Kaizen), track your feelings as well.

Respecting Team Diversity

Derek Huether

– February 4, 2012Posted in: Agile, Project Management

I talk about team diversity in my training. With a world filled with individuals, we have to learn to respect the differences of others. If you don’t, I think you will live and work in a lot smaller world than me. More importantly, if you don’t respect the differences of others, I’m a lot less open to have anything to do with you. It doesn’t matter if we’re dealing with functional roles on a team (developers vs. QA), race, gender, or religion. Respect the differences of others or keep your narrow minded thoughts to yourself. Actually, that’s not right. Communications is good. Tell everyone what you’re thinking so we know who you are.

I have two examples where lack of respect for diversity was clear to me but not others.

Scenario 1: The Cut Scout Pack Leader

My son is a cub scout. We have raised him to respect everyone, regardless of their many differences, to include gender, color, or religion.

The other night, we received an email from our son’s Cub Scout Pack leader. It probably would not have bothered me so much if not for the fact that the pack has scheduled events on Jewish holidays and then rescheduled events around Christian holidays. Let me be clear that on a den level, the leaders have been very good in speaking to the boys in more general terms. “Be respectful, whatever your faith”. My hat is off to these fellows. I appreciate that they go the extra mile. So here is the email we got from the pack leader:

Hello Pack,

This sunday is scout sunday February 5. Please wear your class A uniform with pride in church that day. If you would like to participate but do not attend church regularly. I offer up New Market Methodist church on north alley just off 874 behind main street in New Market. Their service is at 9:30 and 11:00 am.

A scout is reverent. This is one of the points of the scout law, and the reason for scout sunday.

I read no mention of what a boy should do if he attends a temple, synagogue, or mosque. I guess they are just out of luck. I think it was the last two sentences that put me over the edge. ”A scout is reverent. This is one of the points of the scout law, and the reason for scout Sunday.”

Actually, reverent is defined as feeling or showing deep and solemn respect. Clearly something the pack leader lacks for other religions.

Scenario 2: The CIO

Back in the day, I was the Manager of Software Engineering. My team was amazing and I would do anything for them. One particular item of note was the fact that probably 90% of them were from India. Now, I say I’m German but I wasn’t born in Germany. When I say my teammates were from India, I mean they were here on H1B visas from India. Why is that important? Because, as far as I was concerned, I needed to respect their cultural differences and try to accommodate them in any way I could.

So, who was the person who lacked the respect (or understanding) of their cultural differences? The CIO just could not understand why the team would rather have Diwali off instead of Christmas. He didn’t understand how offensive it was when he said to order lunch for the team and recommended I just order “a couple different kinds of meat sandwiches”.

Do you know someone who lacked respect for diversity? What did you do?

Image Source: Pictofigo

Popularity: 1%

Tags: Diversity, India, Religion, Scouts, Team

Motivate Your Team

Derek Huether

– June 2, 2011Posted in: Agile, Project Management

You should be looking for ways to motivate your team every single day. You could bring them donuts or bagels. You could give out monthly awards or public recognition. You could also give them a pep talk. All it takes is one minute of encouragement to change their day for the better. So, here is your pep talk for today. Take 55 seconds, watch the video, and I challenge you not to have an awesome day. This kids could be the next Tony Robbins!