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Posts from the ‘agile management’ Category

Jan 18

3 Comments

You don’t believe workers can self-organize. Think again. Even 8 year-old kids can do it!

The Experiment

Picture made available by daedriusI attempted a small experiment with my kids a few weeks ago – get them to voluntarily help clean the house. If you have children between 7 and 10 year-old, I’m pretty sure having your kids help with cleaning is nothing short of a nerve-wrecking experience. If you don’t have kids, the process typically goes like this:

  • You – “Timmy, can you please pick up the toys in your room.”
  • Timmy – “Why?”
  • You – “Because your room is a mess and I break my face every morning when I come wake you up.”
  • Timmy – “OK, I’ll clean up.”

30 minutes later, you go see Timmy.

  • You, slightly annoyed – “Timmy, what are you doing?”
  • Timmy, looking up – “I’m building a castle, daddy. You want to play with me?”
  • You – “Yes, I’d like to play with you as soon as I’m done cleaning up. Why didn’t you pick up your toys like I asked you too?”
  • Timmy – “OK, I’ll clean up”

30 minutes later, you go see Timmy

  • … (you can guess the rest)

So, back to my experiment. A few weeks ago, while my wife was grocery shopping I decided to use an adapted version of Scrum. I called my son and his twin sister and told them we would do a little activity. To their enjoyment, they were wondering what I had in mind. They sat next to me at the table while I the took 4 x 6 index cards and on each of them, I wrote a task: pick up the toys, put your clothes in your drawers, empty the garbage cans, bring the recycling to the garage, put the Tupperware away in the drawer, vacuum the floor, etc.

  • My son – “Daddy, why are you writing these down?”
  • Me – “We’ll play a little game.”
  • My daughter – “Can I play too?”
  • Me – “Of course. Here’s how it goes. I wrote 8 cards and each card has a little task. I need you to help me clean up the house while mommy is doing grocery.”
  • The twins – “OK, what do we do with the cards?”
  • Me – “You will each select the cards (the tasks) you would like to do. You then decide in which order you want to do them.”
  • My daughter – “Daddy, some tasks are longer than others. What do we do about that?”.
  • Me – “It’s up to you to decide.”
  • The twins – “It doesn’t matter. We’ll decide which ones we pick.”
  • My son – “Do we get a reward for doing the work?”
  • Me – “Mmmm, good question. I know you like to read. How about I give you tokens for each task? Once you get 50 tokens, I’ll buy the book you asked me.”
  • My son – “OK.”
  • My daughter – “Can I buy a beeds set instead of a book?”
  • Me – “Sure.”
  • The twins – “Can you write how many tokens each task gives on the cards?”
  • Me – “Good thinking! Picking up the toys is 3 tokens, bringing the recycling to the garage is 1 token, …”
  • The kids – “OK, but who picks first?”
  • My son – “Let’s do rock – paper – scissor.”
  • My daughter – “Yes, let’s do rock – paper – scissor.”
  • The twins – “ROCK, PAPER, SCISSOR…”

After determining who would start, they quickly picked the cards and started doing the assigned task. At their own pace, they executed on the cards. Then, something cool happened.

  • My son – “Daddy, can we add a card? We need to water the plants.”
  • Me, laughing – “Of course. Who’s going to take this one?”
  • The twins – “Me, me, me!”
  • Me – “I guess we’ll have to write another card so you are even.”
  • My daughter – “Can I dust the bureau? I saw mommy do it the other day and I’d like to do that.”
  • Me, with a big smile – “OK, if you’d like to do that. I’m OK with this.”

Together, they successfully completed all their tasks. All of their tasks! No fighting, no screaming. That was a “proud moment” :) Imagine when my wife got back home after the grocery…

With the Xmas Holidays and the broken routine, I was pleased to see my kids grabbing the cards by themselves this past Saturday and starting to execute on the routine. “Wow, this self-organization thing really works! Even with kids…”, I told myself.

The Take-Away

If you want people to carry out a task, here are a few suggestions:

  • Describe the task;
  • Let the team self-organize;
  • If the team needs help, you may suggest tools or a process – but do not impose them;
  • Get out of the way;
  • If possible, make it fun;
  • That’s it.

Nov 25

3 Comments

Comments from the peanut gallery…

Let me start by affirming I am in favor of democratic structures in “for-profit” organizations. I believe people should have a say in decisions, no doubts about that. In my opinion, the concept of democracy is closely related to the wisdom of crowds where diverse opinions from a larger group of people systematically leads to better decisions and solutions.

Comments from the peanut gallery

Comments from the peanut gallery

Now that’s established, I want to make a distinction between democracy (participating in the selection of the decision) and the discussions leading to decisions – which I will call the debates.

The debate is not a democratic process. Let me use an example to explain why I have an issue with opening debates to crowds.

Following another disappointing loss of our local hockey team, a few colleagues gathered in the cafeteria were loudly debating their opinion on the cause of the team’s poor performance…

  • Paul: “Price [the goal tender] doesn’t deserve to play with the team, he lacks consistency…”
  • Mario: “What do you mean? Price did what he could but he can’t do everything. With Markov’s and Gill’s injury our defensive line is weak and Price is too often left to himself…”
  • Richard: “Did you guys watch the same game I did? We have no offensive line. We gave a lot of talent to bring Cammalleri to Montreal but he is just not the scorer we need and nobody actually has the right skills…”
  • Mary: “No, no. It’s the referee who influenced the game…”

I’ll stop here but that is enough to show my point. How many of these people do you believed played in the NHL? None.

How many of these people took coaching training or even played junior hockey? None.

How many of these opinions are actually useful to make the right decision? None. That’s right!

This is what my wife calls the “comments from the peanut gallery“.

Let me use another brief example to prove my point further.

Assume a skilled people manager joins his highly technical team for a brain storming session. The team is looking to improve performance of their Java application and the tension in the room is high.  The manager – for sake of clarity, doesn’t have a clue about computer programming except maybe for a 3 hours introduction to Microsoft Excel taken 5 years ago – suggests to replace the framework and maybe the sorting method. What are the chances that his suggestion will be accepted? None.

The same situation applies when people with no management experience or training jump into a discussion about people management or organizational strategies. To take part of the discussion there needs to be a few pre-requisites. It is not enough to want to participate in the discussion, to really contribute people need: knowledge of the topic being discussed, experience, and a willingness to move the debate forward.

What is not needed is a personal opinion without facts, knowledge or experience but this is exactly what happens when a debate is open to the general public. When these conditions are met (knowledge, experience, and willingness), people should be welcomed to join the discussion so to take advantage of the wisdom of crowds. When these conditions aren’t met, people should stay on the sideline waiting for the debate to end and propositions to be open for selection.

Just like in the Canadian Parliament, a selected (elected) number of people were selected to represent others in the discussion. Once options are selected, the democratic process can allow people to vote.

Oct 26

Do you wonder why your boss doesn’t show up at your meeting?

This is not an un-usual situation. You call a meeting that you deem important. You invite the right people to have a constructive conversation in the hopes of coming to a decision that will be accepted by most. You planned everything ahead of time in order to maximize your participants’ “Return On Time Invested” (ROTI).

Before the meeting and without further information, your boss tells you that he won’t be attending your meeting. You try to get over the inital disappointment and frustration in order to answer the nagging question that pops in your mind “Why doesn’t my boss show up at my meeting?“.

Assuming for a minute that this is not due to an un-expected situation and that you were told before the start of the meeting – being told during the meeting would add insult to injury by showing a lack of respect.

I can only think of 2 reasons to explain that behavior:

  • The decision for which you are meeting has already been taken or will be taken behind closed-door.
  • The decision is not important for your boss.

Either way, this demonstrates that your boss doesn’t care about the decision stemming from the meeting. Although that is frustrating and wastes people time and energy, it is not dramatic in itself. This becomes a problem because of the lack of communication around your boss’ decision not to attend the meeting.

You may not be pleased if your boss tells you that the decision has already been taken but at least, you wouldn’t feel like an idiot when you realize this fact after you put your time and energy in the meeting.

Now, let’s give this situation a different spin and imagine receiving the following information from your boss before your meeting:

  • My absence to your meeting does not indicate that I do not believe in the value of your meeting;
  • I trust the group and their collective intelligence to make an informed decision;
  • I am confident that the participants will challenge each other and will have good discussions;
  • I want to prevent the debate from revolving around my opinion, which could bias the conversation;
  • I prefer to support individuals with my expertise rather than take decisions for them.

Would you still wonder what your boss’ intentions were? Wouldn’t you feel good? Trusted? Motivated??

If you manage people, don’t let them wonder about your intention. Tell them the reason behind your actions.

Aug 28

2 Comments

Don’t Sell Buzzwords to Business Leaders, Learn How to Describe Real Value

During a break from the exhibit hall, I had the opportunity to  attend the presentation given by Rich Sheridan, CEO of Menlo Innovations called “Don’t Sell Buzzwords to Business Leaders, Learn How to Describe Real Value“.

Although I was disappointed at first because the presentation actually didn’t have anything to do with “Buzzwords” and “Business Leaders”, I quickly changed my impression once Richard started to describe his company’s culture and the way he leads his organization. As I already mentioned, our organization operates very differently from most organizations and in an attempt to adapt the right organizational structure I’m reading as many books, articles and blogs on this topic – including Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace (thanks to Andrew Meyer for the reference).

You can understand my interest once Richard talked about making similar organizational choices as we did: complete transparency, no formal hierarchy, accountability towards your team instead of a boss, well developed recruitment process, equitable compensation, open work environment, etc.

Menlo Innovations has published a book that demonstrates how their way of operating does deliver the real value as expected by their customers. I have ordered the book since it wasn’t available on site and I will certainly provide my assessment of it once I receive it.

Needless to say, the presentation captured the interest of most of the people in the room and many were hoping to have lunch with Richard after the presentation to better understand his unusual work environment. Unfortunately for me, my break was over and I had to get back to the booth.

I will obviously continue my research on this topic.

Jul 8

6 Comments

6 ways to know if you are working for an archaic organization

For years you have been hearing that you work for a leading-world-class organization but somehow that statement doesn’t resonate with you. How can you tell if you are truly working for an innovative and caring organization? Find out if the slogan “Our people are our #1 asset” is meaningless in your organization by looking at the 6 ways to know if you are working for an archaic organization.

1. Do you work for a democracy?

Does your organization believe the authoritarian power of a single ruler is better than collective intelligence?

Many have demonstrated that collective intelligence delivers better results than relying on the knowledge of a few (The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations).

As imperfect as it is, we trust democracy to select the people who will lead our countries, vote laws, decide to go to war (or not), and determine taxation level – among other things. When it comes to business, organizations typically prefer to give complete authority to a single person who will ultimately decide what is good (or not) for the organization.

Why can’t organizations adopt a more decentralized management approach?

2. Is your organization at war with its competitors?

Does your organization think of competitors as enemies and use war related terms and strategies in an attempt to eliminate them?

The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual has a great chapter on the analogy between business and war and the attitude your organization has towards competition is a good indication of how innovative it is.

Has your organization ever thought of cooperating with competition to increase the overall size of the market instead of competing for portions of a smaller market?

3. Does your organization force its employee to follow rigid rules to get things done?

Does your organization believe access to resources should follow a well defined sequential process with gatekeepers along the way?

Remember the days of video cassettes? To access a specific scene in the movie, you would need to forward to it forcing you to painfully have to watch all the content before getting to your end goal. Then came the DVD where you can now jump directly to the scene of your choice without having to follow the defined sequence.

Many organizations are still like old video cassettes and have implemented structure, rules, and processes to control access to resources and decision making authority. They are controlling their operations. By comparison, look at organizations that empower their employees to make the best decisions and allow them to get to their end goal as fast as possible.

Which model do you think will allow the organization to prosper?

4. Are fortresses built within your organization?

Does your organization allow people to build a fortress around them to reduce threats from other employees?

Closed offices and controlling assistants are obvious ways to protect against other people. In some cases, managers are clever and typically hire weak employees so they are not threatened in their role. Others are trained politicians who have learned to look good in front of senior management but are bullying their colleagues and employees.

Shouldn’t organizations ensure that the leaders are confident individuals who are not afraid to take risks and sometimes fail in order to move the organization in the right direction?

5. Is slavery still permitted when it comes to resource management?

Does your organizations assign resources to projects and departments as if they were disposable resources?

In the information age, people are required in order to deliver value-added knowledge. Unfortunately, many organizations still dispatch individuals as if they were lifeless (and emotionless) objects to projects that are doomed from the start. There are some beliefs that with the proper pressures, people can work endless hours to make up for un-realistic deadlines and still deliver quality outputs.

Why not threat individuals as competent and knowledgeable contributors to the success of their assignement instead of believing they should simply execute order to achieve the required goal?

6. Are employees threated as if they were back in grad school?

Does your organizations believe it is fair to receive performance evaluation by a single individual?

Many organizations still rely on the manager to obtain feedback and communicate it to employees. Unfortunately, many people have not been trained to seek proper feedback let alone communicating it. Some organizations have started to implement 360 degrees feedback and as such the content is much more helpful to the individuals.

Why not gather feedback from various sources and have a trained communicator provide the feedback to the employees so they can actually learn and improve based on the information provided?

In conclusion

There are many ways to lead an organization. Not challenging some of the existing practices is the best way for an organization to have the same faith as the dinosaurs…

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