Category Archive for: ‘Objectives setting and performance management’

Cracking the Code for Standout Performance (part II) 0

As Agile team coaches or organizational coaches, we aim to increase the teams’ performance in an attempt to deliver better results. We improve quality, help the team work more efficiently, and have fun while delivering increased business value. Interestingly, many of the observations presented in Great Business Teams: Cracking the Code for Standout Performance (this is the second part of the book review) are in line with the Agile values and principles. Here are some of the keys points to remember:

THE LEADERS

The leaders have an important role in developing high performance teams. Their actions and behaviors will be closely observed and people will modify their own behaviors based on those of their leaders. Guttman highlights some of the leader imperatives to achieve high performance.

Develop and drive the horizontal vision

An horizontal organization means moving to an organizaton in which everyone operates according to a clearly defined set of decision-making protocols, where people understand what they are accountable for and then own the results.

For an organization to raise its level of performance every team, on every level, must be a great team. That is to say, it must be aligned in five key areas:

business strategy

business deliverables coming from the strategy

roles and responsibilities at individual and business unit or functional levels

protocols, or ground rules, for decision making and conflict resolution (see a recent post on this topic)

business/interpersonal relationships and interdependencies

Create the right mindset

Being candid from “wary, closed with hidden agendas” to “candid, open, relaxed, easy to speak your mind” – from “no tolerance for confrontation, conflicts suppressed” to “tensions surfaced, confronted, and resolved”
Accentuating accountability: putting equal emphasis on cross functional, peer-to-peer accountability, as well as peer-to-leader acountability.

Provide the right skills

Such as influencing, active listening, assertion, giving and receiving feedback, conflict management, decision making and leadership.

Keep the game and guard the rules

Everyone is clear about and committed to the business strategy and the operational goals that flow from it; undertsands his or her roles and responsibilities, and adheres to agreed-upon protocols, or ground rules for decisions making and for interpersonal behavior, especially those relating to conflict management.

Here’s how great teams make decisions:

Identify the decisions that need to be made
Identify decision subteams
Assign accountability
Set objectives and timelines
Select the decision making mode
Identify information sources
Determine the shelf life of the decision

Raise the bar

Keep challenging the status quo, revisit the targets and get the team involved in the process.

Be player centered

Leadership is in large part about power – about how it is exercised, shared, delegated, and used. High performance leaders seek to leverage power, not monopolize – to put it to use to drive up their team’s or organization’s performance. Putting the power in the hands of the teams members provides the right conditions to deliver maximum payoffs.

THE PLAYERS

The road to a great team begins with two nuclear elements of team reality: the leader and the team members. Consequently, team members must show four very obvious characteristics.

Think like a director

Keep their eye on overarching goals and the need to stay on top of their competition.

Put team first, function second

They are team members first and functional representatives second.

Embrace accountability

Slowly move from an individual accountability for their own results toward accountability toward the success of the entire organization.

Become comfortable with discomfort

People need to be or become comfortable with the changes required of them and their leader.

Building an outstanding team requires time and energy and is achievable once people agree to work together and pull in the same direction.

Posted on: 05-23-2011
Posted in: Management and leadership style, Objectives setting and performance management

Cracking the Code for Standout Performance – Applying the approach to Agile Teams 2

I just finished reading Great Business Teams: Cracking the Code for Standout Performance.

In Great Business Teams, renowned business consultant Howard M. Guttman takes you inside some of the world’s most successful corporations—Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Mars Incorporated, and L’Oréal, to name a few—to discover how a powerful new high-performance horizontal model has changed the way leaders lead, team members function, challenges are met, and decisions are made. He also reveals how and why the organizations that have implemented this innovative team structure have become great companies, able to ride the crosscurrents during lean times and truly soar when opportunities arise.

As Agile team coaches or organizational coaches, we aim to increase the teams’ performance in an attempt to deliver better results. We improve quality, help the team work more efficiently, and have fun while delivering increased business value. Interestingly, many of the observations presented in Great Business Teams: Cracking the Code for Standout Performance are in line with the Agile values and principles. Here are some of the keys points to remember:

1. Great Business Teams are Led by High-Performance Leaders who:

Create a “burning platform” for fundamental change;
Are visionaries and architects;
Know they cannot do it alone;
Build authentic relationships;
Model the behaviors they expect from their team;
Redefine the fundamentals of leadership.

Isn’t this what we would expect of the Product Owner in Scrum?

Interestingly, the author positions the process by wish the leader achieves these objectives by asking tough questions such as:

What is the business strategy and how committed are we to achieving it?
What key operational goals flow from the strategy and how do we make sure these goals drive day-to-day decision making?
Are we clear on roles and accountabilities?
What protocols or ground rules will we play by as a team?
Will our business relationships and interdependencies be built on candor and transparency?

Hence, the support of an external coach is useful and can help the leader ask powerful questions.

2. Members of Great Business Teams are Us-Directed Leaders

Members of great business teams think of themselves as accountable not only for their own performance but for that of their colleagues. Similar to the concept of self-organized teams, great business teams typically take accountability to achieve their objectives.

On high-performing teams, accountability goes well beyond the individuals recognition that he or she is part of the problem. It even goes beyond holding peers on a team accountable for performance. “Us” accountability includes holding the team leader accountable as well.

3. Great Business Teams Play by Protocols

Once a leader with the right skills is in place and supported by a self-organized team, the group needs to agree on the rules they will play by. Obviously, the more structured its way of working together, the less likelihood of misunderstanding, conflict or costly delays and bottlenecks the team will encounter.

One important set of protocols related to decision making.

Straight-up rules such as “no triangulations or enlistment of third party”, “resolve it or let it go”, “don’t accuse in absentia”, and “no hand from the grave or second guessing decisions” can eliminate much of the unresolved conflict that paralyzes teams and keeps them from moving to a higher level of performance.

4. Great Business Continually Raise The Performance Bar

No matter how much it achieves, great business teams are never satisfied, they implement self-monitoring, self-evaluation, continuous improvement, and raise the bar. The continuous improvement process helps a highly performing team to keep improving its performance and deliver impressive results.

5. Great Business Teams Have A Supportive Performance Management System

Having the right individuals in the right roles and establishing clear rules of engagement are not sufficient. The performance monitoring systems have to be inline with the expected behaviors.

Team and individual goals have to be crystal clear;
The necessary technical and interpersonal skills have to be provided;
Performance has to be monitored;
And feedback has to be timely an well thought out.

The book wasn’t written for an Agile audience but after reading it, it seems to me that applying the Agile principles would come close to cracking the code for standout performance.

Posted on: 01-31-2011
Posted in: Agile Leadership Model, Agile Management, Collaboration and teamwork, Environment, Leadership, Management and leadership style, Objectives setting and performance management

Congratulations, you have the best player. Does this mean you will win the cup? 3

With the hockey season well on its way and the Canadiens doing well so far, an interesting question popped in my head – is the winning team, the one with the best players? You can guess I am less interested in hockey than I am with business teams when that question appeared.

As a manager or a leader, isn’t our job to find the best players for our project or our organization? If we don’t have the best players, aren’t we doomed to fail?

With that question in mind, I did a not-so-scientific exercice. I looked at the winning teams in the last 5 years and determined if there was a correlation between the best player (in this case, the best offensive player) and the winning team. Much to my surprise, in the last five years, only in 2008-2009 did the best offensive player(s) win the much coveted Stanley Cup when Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby played with the winning team (Pittsburgh Penguins).

Much in line with a post I wrote last year, it makes more sense to focus on creating a highly performant team than to hire on “the best” individual contributors. The same seems to be true in hockey as it is in a business setting. Wouldn’t you agre?

2009-2010	Stanley Cup Winner	Chicago Black Hawks
Player	Team	Pos	GP	G	A	P
1	Henrik Sedin	VAN	C	82	29	83
2	Sidney Crosby	PIT	C	81	51	58
3	Alex Ovechkin	WSH	L	72	50	59
4	Nicklas Backstrom	WSH	C	82	33	68
5	Steven Stamkos	TBL	C	82	51	44
6	Martin St Louis	TBL	R	82	29	65
7	Brad Richards	DAL	C	80	24	67
8	Joe Thornton	SJS	C	79	20	69
9	Patrick Kane	CHI	R	82	30	58

2008-2009	Stanley Cup Winner	Pittsburgh Penguins
Player	Team	Pos	GP	G	A	P
1	Evgeni Malkin	PIT	C	82	35	78
2	Alex Ovechkin	WSH	L	79	56	54
3	Sidney Crosby	PIT	C	77	33	70

2007-2008	Stanley Cup Winner	Detroit Red Wings
Player	Team	Pos	GP	G	A	P
1	Alex Ovechkin	WSH	L	82	65	47
2	Evgeni Malkin	PIT	C	82	47	59
3	Jarome Iginla	CGY	R	82	50	48
4	Pavel Datsyuk	DET	C	82	31	66

2006-2007	Stanley Cup Winner	Anaheim Ducks
Player	Team	Pos	GP	G	A	P
1	Sidney Crosby	PIT	C	79	36	84
2	Joe Thornton	SJS	C	82	22	92
3	Vincent Lecavalier	TBL	C	82	52	56
4	Dany Heatley	OTT	R	82	50	55
5	Martin St Louis	TBL	R	82	43	59
6	Marian Hossa	ATL	R	82	43	57
7	Joe Sakic	COL	C	82	36	64
8	Jaromir Jagr	NYR	R	82	30	66
9	Marc Savard	BOS	C	82	22	74
10	Danny Briere	BUF	R	81	32	63
11	Teemu Selanne	ANA	R	82	48	46

2005-2006	Stanley Cup Winner	Carolina Hurricanes
Player	Team	Pos	GP	G	A	P
1	Joe Thornton	BOS, SJS	C	81	29	96
2	Jaromir Jagr	NYR	R	82	54	69
3	Alex Ovechkin	WSH	L	81	52	54
4	Dany Heatley	OTT	R	82	50	53
5	Daniel Alfredsson	OTT	R	77	43	60
6	Sidney Crosby	PIT	C	81	39	63
7	Eric Staal	CAR	C	82	45	55



Sources:
http://www.nhl.com/ice/app
http://proicehockey.about.com/od/stanleycupbunker/a/stanley_cuplist.htm

Posted on: 11-22-2010
Posted in: Objectives setting and performance management, People Management, Project Team

Non-conventional salary review process 4

As within most organizations, the salary review process is an important one at Pyxis. The process is important for the employee-shareholders so they know there is a process, they understand it and deem it to be fair. It is also important for the organization as a whole to retain the talented employee-shareholders and provide a compensation that compares favorably to the market.

Most traditional organizations would agree that the process is very important but there is a distinction on how the process is handled within Pyxis. At most traditional organizations I worked for (and with), the salary review process is tied to the performance appraisal process and to the budget allocated by Human Resources. At the end of each year, the employee receives a performance rating which determines the percentage of salary increase – people receive an average increase for an average rating and an above-average increase for an above-average performance. The guidelines are clear and applied to everyone the same way. The salary review process takes place between an employee and his/her manager.

We like to do things differently. I have already described that Pyxis is organized in communities.

In a business context, communities are similar to functional departments with some fundamental distinctions. In traditional setting, members of a functional department or of a project team work together to achieve a goal. With some exceptions, team members share nothing but their common goal and a common boss. By comparison, in addition to sharing a common goal members within a community also share common values and culture and they operate within agreed upon self-defined norms. Analytical-Mind.

The employee-shareholders are offered a few options when it comes to their salary review:

They can use the process put in place within their community (in this case, my only responsibility is to ensure fairness across communities).
They can suggest an alternate approach that respects fairness (in this case, my only responsibility is to ensure the fairness of the proposed process).
They can follow the approach recently used by Tremeur Balbous and Jean-François Proulx for their salary review.

The “Tremeur and Jean-François” approach

The employee-shareholder must complete and document a self-evaluation (a 360-degree feedback similar to this one is often used). He must evaluate its contribution to Pyxis for the year ending and propose a new salary for the coming year.
The employee-shareholder must then submit his self-evaluation to at least 3 other employee-shareholders with whom he worked during the year that ended in order to obtain their feedback and determine if the salary requested is appropriate and fair.
If the employee-shareholders consulted do not belong to the same community as that to which the applicant belongs, the requester needs to validate his requested salary with at least 2 members of the community of belonging.
Ideally, the community leader should be involved in the process since he is responsible for the financial framework of his community.
At the end of this process, the applicant holds a meeting with me to discuss his findings and request salary.

Factors having a positive impact on salary determination

Performance in his role;
Contribution to the success of his community;
Contribution to the success of Pyxis as a whole;
Revenues generated directly;
Income generated indirectly;
A marked increase in responsibilities – in the case where an employee justifies a pay increase by the marked increase in his responsibilities, the excess (beyond the base increase) is considered an additional increase. The additional increase will be removed in the event the employee ceases to assume the responsibilities for which he had obtained a further increase.

Does your organization use a non-conventional salary review process?

Posted on: 10-12-2010
Posted in: Agile Leadership Model, Objectives setting and performance management, People Management

Agile in a Command-and-Control Organization : What to do when upper management forces overtime? 2

My colleague François Perron launched a very interesting discussion on our private wiki – “As a coach, what to do when executives and upper management force the project team to do over time in order to meet deadlines?”.

As you can probably guess, this initiated very interesting discussions and an obvious reaction to such an approach.

Everyone agreed that due to the project visibility and the position of the organization within its market, the project launch date was critical. Everyone also understood that the organization had very few options so nobody debated the need to achieve results. The discussion was strictly around which measures to use in an Agile context.

I’ll admit up front that I am biased toward intrinsic motivation (I really loved Drive by Dan Pink) and the fact that it is well suited for an agile environment.

As such, my first impression to the conversation that was going on were:

Does the organization wish that employees spend more hours at the office (attendance) or would they prefer more engagement (commitment)?
If their choice is to increase the hours of attendance, imposing overtime will achieve this goal while giving them a false sense of increased performance. People will show they are working longer hours but the real throughput is unlikely to be much higher. In addition, software development is a brain intensive activity and reducing the amount of rest people get is likely to increase the number of mistakes they make.
On the contrary, if the organization wanted more involvement, the inclusion of team members in determining the best way to achieve the results would probably come to a better decision – even possibly leading the willingness to do over time

It appears to me that by forcing overtime, the executives and senior managers will probably collect their bonus and congratulate each others in the short term only to realize in the longer term that they have simply pushed the problem forward for others to deal with – and possibly request more over time in the long run.

Posted on: 08-22-2010
Posted in: Agile, Collaboration and teamwork, Management and leadership style, Objectives setting and performance management, People Management, Project Team, Work environment and organizational culture