Our director of development recently tasked the ScrumMaster’s and Product Owner’s to assess their progress on our project. He asked the team to speak to the following questions:

1. Why does your team’s project burndown look the way it does? What are the details behind the metric?
2. What parts of your team’s project are at risk from your perspective? What are you doing about it?
3. Given your current scope and plan, when do you feel you will reach code complete?
4. Do you believe you have unknown scope still to be discovered? Why?
5. Are there any placeholders remaining in your backlog? What is your plan to address that?
6. Where do you have dependencies on other teams? What agreements are in place to address those?
7. How many defects have escaped sprints? What is your plan to address them?

If you have suggestions on other important questions to ask I am eager to hear them.

The trouble with HR proved to be a very interesting read over the holiday season. Check out the following link for more information on the book. ”The trouble with HR“

The title captured my imagination. Unfortunately for HR personnel, they are often considered to be the equivalent of the CIA in many organizations. My experience has been that employees and managers tend to view HR as secretive and intimidating. A trip to HR is typically associated with trouble of some description by many if not most colleagues. What a waste of precious talent! As the authors point out “Nothing – not your product design, your marketing campaign, your technological innovations – is as important to your organizations’s success as your ability to hire and retain the best people.” HR is an under utilized and under valued resource where I work.

Research posted on the the HR leadership council’s website recently suggests that many organizations will struggle to retain key personnel this year. Retain talent Toolkit

There has been a breakdown of trust between employees and their organizations caused by the economic challenges of last year and how they were handled. As managers we need to accelerate our projects yet many of our employee’s no longer have passion for their work. To make matters worse, the key players we need are the most likely to leave. What should we do? 

The authors recommend we engage HR. They advise we involve them as trusted advisors in the business. As managers we rarely do so. Why?

Some reasons that come to mind include:

1. We don’t want to reveal the “skeleton’s in our closet” in our department. No news is often considered good news in terms of HR involvement in our team.
2. We don’t want HR to “take over” and decide how certain situations are resolved. This is infuriating. Consultation turns into dictation. It undermines the management team instead of supporting them.
3. HR involvement  could be interpreted by other departments in our business unit that we are unable to resolve issues ourselves.
4. HR is viewed with deep suspicion by many employees. It must be “bad” if HR is involved.
5. Does HR ‘really” understand our department and the nature of our work well enough to provide constructive advice on complex issues.

While the points above have some merit, each one can also become a self-fulfilling  prophecy. One of my professional New Year’s resolution’s is to engage HR more. As managers we simply have to get better at change management to achieve our goals. Under intense pressure to deliver results we often sign up for unrealistic targets and drive change too quickly with predictable results in terms of project delivery and employee morale. The authors believe that HR should play a much larger role in our organizations. I share their perspective that HR has the potential to be a key change agent in our business. Managers tend to view HR as an impediment to getting results. In fact HR can radically improve our performance by using best practises for hiring and retaining talent.

I plan to seek HR’s input in the following areas in 2010 at a minimum:

1. Help develop customized and tailored individual development plans for my staff.
2. Get input on performance objectives at a team and individual level.
3. Get input on my personal development plan.
4. Involve HR more in change management initiatives.
5. Request feedback on the recent performance appraisals I presented to staff.
6. Seek guidance on developing a talent pipeline.

My bet is that I will interview more candidates and hire more people in 2010 then I have for many years.  It’s sad to see valued employees and colleagues decide to move on to new challenges. What a great opportunity here as well though. There is a lot of very talented people looking for work at the moment. I fully intend to be as prepared as I can be. In a future post I will cover the top 10 hiring mistakes identified in the book.

For now, happy new year & thanks for checking out my blog.

Donal

The euphoria of the first few sprints is wearing out. The realization has set in that Agile is not a silver bullet. It’s not easy. There will be no quick fix. We are new Agile practitioners and it shows. Frustrations are growing. Good!  We are exactly where we should be at this stage of the game and that ladies and gentlemen is in the thick of the “storming”. Where do we go from here?

Leadership

In periods of transition like this we need direction. We need someone familiar with the agile journey, someone who can lead the way with the confidence. Fortunately for Accpac R&D a new director of development with extensive experience in Agile and change management was hired to lead the charge. He appears competent and confident. It’s refreshing to have a leader who believes that trust is earned rather than a function of his position. He is candid about our challenges without being overly critical. It’s hard to walk this fine line but he has done so with distinction thus far.

Ownership

After years of experience in coaching employees though many tough challenges I have learned that I can’t make an employee go somewhere they are not ready to go. The change must come from within. Each employee can make things better. Are they going take personal ownership and make this transition work? There are many things we can do right now to improve our situation. Who is going to have the courage to “fail forward” and try new things? Who will make constructive suggestions to move us along our agile journey? Many employees are trying hard to do the right thing which is very encouraging. ScrumMaster’s are learning to prioritize removing roadblocks as they are identified by team members. Managers must focus on supporting employees through the transition and showing them how they to be successful in our new Agile world.

Difficulty

Agile sounds easy. Business stakeholder’s who don’t want or arguably need to understand the complexity of development find the simplicity of the methodology very alluring (Myself included!). Agile is somewhat like dieting though. Although we understand the basic principles, it is incredibly hard work to earn the rewards we want. Agile is going to require a level of commitment and discipline much greater than most of us probably anticipated. It’s important to accept the fact that real change requires real work. R&D Management and ScrumMaster’s have a critical role to play in evangelizing the long term pay off here.

Time

Many of the team feel we are mired in the process. “Agile takes too long” is a common refrain. “Let’s forget about agile for now to make sure we hit our date!” Many personnel across R&D eager to earn story points, look good, be productive and feel successful don’t see value yet with the greater accountability and focus on team that goes with agile. The “technical debt” can be remedied later. Let’s build software. It’s proving difficult to get buy in for the need to “slow down” to “speed up!” I thought the new director captured this perfectly in a meeting with our team today. He said it is much easier to move from high quality to high speed then from low quality to high speed. We need to earn some small wins to build confidence in the Scrum teams and demonstrate the potential Agile has to help us be a much better R&D organization.

Distractions

A key premise of agile is to minimize the disruptions to the team to allow them to focus on what they do best; build world class software. We have a tendency to underestimate the distractions and scope creep that will inevitably appear throughout the project. For example, EVERYONE knows that we should budget contingency in a project. It never ceases to amaze me how often we bow to pressure and don’t allocate sufficient\any time with predictable consequences in our projects. This problem is exacerbated when the teams struggle to find their rhythm early in the agile transition. The team is tempted to “cut corners” to demonstrate progress rather than focus on the agile principles that will deliver the results we want in the long term. Management is also tempted to assign unexpected work to the people we know can do it quickly which can be very disruptive to a team mid-sprint. What we are starting to do and must continue, is to develop the capabilities of our new agile teams to do the work instead of key contributors which is a change in mindset and unfortunately much slower in the short run. I believe we are seeing big payoffs already with this approach. For example on the agile team that I am a ScrumMaster we now have 3 QA Engineers focused on key functionality compared to 1 previously. We will break down many more silos of knowledge over time this way.

In conclusion, my sense is that we are making more progress than people think. The responsibility to  unleash our employee’s talents is exciting and daunting. That responsibility lies with EVERY member of our R&D team. The next few months promise to interesting, challenging, rewarding and exhausting. We can and will make Agile work.

Thanks,

Donal

I was asked by an agile team member recently what it would take to earn the respect of their new team members.  We had a huddle earlier that day which surfaced important issues which was great. Unfortunately, it also left a bitter taste in many mouths due to critical and negative remarks made from different members.  I had unwittingly kick started the debate with an observation that many team members felt was overly critical about our performance during the sprint to date. My observation was that we were not as effective as a team as we had been in the previous sprint. I think my observation was accurate. How I delivered the message was “off” and unexpected. I should have waited for the sprint retrospective to share feedback of this nature when the team was more emotionally prepared to hear it.

This is not to suggest that all the issues surfaced from that meeting were entirely my fault. It seems to me that we are often ambivalent towards “high maintenance” staff in software development. Perhaps that is unkind. The same was often true in Customer Support. It is as though brilliance is an excuse for bad behaviour. This is less of an issue when key resources work in silos with minimal interaction with others.  It becomes far more important when fledgling team members are learning to work together for the first time an agile environment. Team members want their colleagues to be predictable so they can feel secure in their ability to meet performance expectations in their new roles. Predictability engenders trust. Unpredictable colleague’s unintentionally fuel anxiety and, in some cases, even fear, both of which negatively affect performance and productivity.

Simply put mood and behaviour affects performance. The best place to start in any journey with a team is with yourself. My mood as ScrumMaster is particularly important to the rest of the team.  I generally have a “can and will do” mentality. I take our team’s concerns very seriously. ScrumMaster’s must advocate for their team to the rest of the business. It is important to strike the appropriate balance between optimism and realism. If a target is unrealistic it is important to say so. That said a REALLY good team can achieve GREAT results. I am convinced we have the talent we need to become an outstanding agile team. We have our issues to work through but we will get there.

Here are four simple guidelines I will propose our team consider going forward:

• Be introspective: Look at your behaviour in meetings, when emotion is running high. Do you make positive contributions or impose your own view based on how you feel at the moment? Aim for a consistently measured positive approach.
• Be known in our team as someone who is always on the lookout for what the value that people bring to the team. It engenders good will.
• Be pleasant and cooperative: Team members respect and appreciate someone who is friendly to work with.
• Be empathetic: Put yourself in your colleagues’ situation and view the task at hand from their perspective.  Even if you agree to disagree, your peer will feel their voice was heard and their perspective considered. This is critical for commitment to team decisions in agile.

If you have any other suggestions, guidelines or feedback  I would love to hear them.

Thanks,

Donal

When is the last time you left a presentation inspired or ready to take action? The majority of presentations I am required to attend are mediocre at best. Dare I say that MANY of your colleagues and mine are boring presenters?

Most ambitious professionals recognize that presentation skills could provide a competitive edge for future success. Do you take the time to improve or develop these skills? Are you afraid of public speaking? How could this fear impact your career if you don’t improve?

Please know that I don’t claim to be a great presenter. I had the opportunity to attend a coaching session from Bruna Martinuzzi recently in my MBA program. Bruna is a leading expert in her field. If you have the inclination, time and the money I highly recommend her class.

Most of the following points from her session are intuitive but worth repeating.

1. You simply have to be an expert on your topic to be credible.
2. The most important visual in your presentation is YOU. Dress one level up.
3. Work on your presence. Maintain eye contact with your audience, good posture and pause strategically on important points.
4. Be dynamic. Walk the floor. Vary your tone. Use gestures to maintain or raise energy in the room.
5. Be authentic. Demonstrate why you care about the topic at hand.
6. Pictures say a thousand words. Don’t use JPEG images! (I did until recently, now I know better)
7. Use metaphors to make your message personal to your audience.
8. Consider the 10 20 30 rule.
9. What do you want your audience to do after the presentation? Know your objective. Make sure they do to.
10. Practice, Practice, Practice. Be consistent. Sign up at a local Toast Master club. Volunteer for presentations. Just do it!

I hope this brief post was useful. If you have any comments or questions I would love to hear them.

Thanks,

Donal

I am currently taking a class in Strategic Management of Technology in my MBA program.  A key concept in the class is “competitive advantage”. The basic idea is that there are two key strategies company’s can leverage to sustain competitive advantage and ensure their survival. (1) Cost leadership; compete on price, the lower the better. (2) Differentiation; deliver a unique product or service and try to sustain this advantage over time. The best companies do both and earn the superior rewards that go with that. (Think Amazon.com)

Is this theory relevant to us in our professional lives? Very actually! Most businesses have spent 2009 restructuring their organizations and slashing costs. Competition does not always come from our rivals in the market. (Think outsourcing) You need to determine if your team competes on price or differentiation? Executives must ask does the service provided by your team provide a core capability that enhances the business’s competitive position or should the resources be allocated elsewhere to generate superior returns? It is difficult to be dispassionate about a topic that has such a huge impact on our lives.

As a professional in the software industry I know that our QA team cannot compete on price. If we try, we will be outsourced to locations like India that enjoy cost advantages of at least 50%. We must differentiate the service we provide our employers enough so that off-shoring is not a viable alternative. Many QA engineers I work with are concerned about the threat of outsourcing. Our challenge as a team is to ensure that we provide a higher level of testing at a lower cost than if the operation was outsourced entirely to India. Take all the emotion of it and the issue is that simple from a purely commercial perspective.

We need to be world-class providers of QA to thrive. Total Quality management (Think Toyota) has exploded the myth that there is a trade-off between high quality and low-cost. The testers in Accpac QA have a deep and broad understanding of a reasonably complex mid-market ERP solution and how our customers use the software that is hard to replicate.  The team has a broad mix of talented testers with different styles that “challenge” the system before we deliver the product to market. Our strategy in QA management MUST focus on strengthening this competitive advantage.

How do we do this?

1. Automation is vital.  We need to build out our capabilities to automate as many routine tasks as possible to maximize the time available for our top talent to test the complex areas of the product.
2. “Agile” development accelerates our QA team’s ability to identify and troubleshoot bugs in tandem with developers to deliver higher quality software faster. Industry studies have shown that co-located agile teams typically produce better results. Effectively executing “Agile” raises a barrier to exporting QA jobs overseas.
3. We need to develop our professional skills consistently, work smarter and bring new value to the table to raise the cost of moving jobs overseas. We need to invest in ourselves!
4. We must embrace outsourcing to acquire the vital additional capacity we need to remain competitive against the giants in our market such as SAP & Microsoft. This seems counter-intuitive but I believe this to be true.  We can leverage our top talent to work with the local User Design, Product Analyst, Developer and User assistance teams and delegate the critical but less complex maintenance work to our outsourcing partners. Outsourcing has the important added advantage of reducing our average cost per employee.

In conclusion, the future is uncertain. As leaders we need to tell our staff a compelling story, a story with promise, a story that there is a way out of this current mess we find ourselves in. I truly believe that our Sage Accpac QA team has a bright future. I like the idea that the best way to predict the future is to create it. Are you an agent of change with influence over your destiny or a number on spreadsheet whose employment is at the whim of a senior executive who will never know your name? Quite possibly, you are both! Even so, you remain the master of your destiny. I believe the key to success or survival in these challenging times is to know what your team’s advantage is and employ strategies that the team can believe in to sustain and improve it.