Leading with the insight: Nobody in Your Meeting Is on the Same Page

!n August, Robert Rasmussen brought his facilitator training to Minneapolis. What if the reason your meetings keep failing isn't the agenda, the attendees, or the follow-through — but the fact that nobody in the room actually knows what everyone else is thinking? Angela Johnson sits down with Robert Rasmussen, the developer of the LEGO® Serious Play® method, to talk about exactly that. What starts with a simple question and a handful of bricks turns into something that consistently surprises even the people who've been facilitating it for years.

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More with LeSS: Identifying the Product Owner

The first post in this series about descaling Scrum, focused on how to identify the product. If you have successfully identified the product, or used narrowing questions to get to the practical product to start with, the next step is to identify the Product Owner. If you assign an available person as the Product Owner with little to no regard for identifying the Product, there’s a high probability that your Scrum adoption will be less than successful at delivering value.  Need the tips on identifying the product again? Visit: https://www.collaborativeleadershipteam.com/blog/less-series-descaling-scrum

Ok let’s say you have effectively identified the product and it’s large or even enormous! The framework included in this series that “descales” the organization when you have up to 50 people working on a large product is Large Scale Scrum (LeSS). When even more people are involved, the product may be a candidate for LeSS Huge which will be explored in the next post in our series. For more information and case studies, visit:  https://less.works/

What Changes for Product Ownership in LeSS:

The good news?  Nothing does. LeSS is Scrum.  Product Owners still:

• Are customer focused responsible for maximizing whole product value

• Order the Product Backlog to best achieve goals and missions

• Are one person, not a committee

• Make decisions that are respected by the entire organization

The bad news? If these simple rules laid out in the Scrum Guide (https://scrumguides.org/) are not followed, not only will the Scrum adoption fail to produce valuable, working product,  if it’s a large or enormous products mentioned there’s still little chance for success. Indications that these mistakes are being made include Product Owners “in name only” who:

• Spend the majority of their time writing things like user stories

• Have no authority to make product decisions such as scope, scheduled and budget that are respected

• Are order takers saying yes to every request

Know your Development Type

In order to more effectively identify this Product Owner, it’s helpful to know the type of product development we’ll be engaging in:

• Product Development: product will be used by a paying customer in the marketplace. If this is your situation where can you look for the Product Owner? In the Product Management group initiating the work. If there is no Product Management group, then the business unit driving the initiative.

• Internal Product Development: for one or more users within the company. If this is your situation you can look for the Product Owner in the group that will use this product and/or who is closely involved in the work that the product or system will be used to support.

• Project Development: for one external customer where work is “contracted”; this customer includes both the purchasing entity and the users. Does this sound like your situation?  The Product Owner is from the company receiving the work/deliverable/system and much like the previous scenario, is hands-on using the system.

Closing Thoughts on Authority

Giving authority to the Product Owner and respecting their decisions are choices any organization is capable of making. If recommended steps have been followed for identifying the product and type of development, the chances of identifying a Product Owner who cannot be trusted with these choices is unlikely. Product Owners are not administrators reporting the results of someone else’s decisions.  In order for your organization to deliver more value with less wasted time and wasted money resulting from overturned decisions and go-betweens, it is critical for the Product Owner to have authority over the Product.

To learn more from Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) co-creator, Craig Larman, and to earn a Certified LeSS Practitioner credential register here.

Collaborative Leadership Team to offer LKU Certified Kanban Training in Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (PRWEB) MARCH 06, 2019

Kanban is a method of organizing and managing professional services work. It uses Lean concepts such as limiting work in progress to improve results. A Kanban system is means of limiting work-in-progress and signaling when capacity is available to start new work. This is known as a “pull system.”

"CoLeadTeam continues its commitment to helping the amazing organizations of the Twin Cities and the Midwest deal with the barrage of challenges to their survival” said Angela Johnson, Founder and CEO of CoLeadTeam. “Change is the only constant. The organizations that can learn and adapt the fastest, will be the ones that succeed. Working differently takes a combination of Training & Coaching. Organizations have smart, knowledgeable employees that need the time and the training to embrace and overcome the obstacles that this business climate will constantly throw at them."

The series of 3 classes build upon one another from team level work through multiple workstreams allowing an organization to progress as their circumstances dictate. COO and Product Owner, Teri Bylander-Pinke shared, “Kanban provides a lower barrier to entry for some organizations looking to improve their agility but who are unable to make required structural changes that Agile frameworks such as Scrum require. Offering Kanban will enable CoLeadTeam to help a wider variety of organizations.”

Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT), Rand Eaton, adds “The Kanban method is an alternate path to Agility that organizations can use to balance their demand with their capability. Companies begin to see their organizations as workstreams providing value to their customers instead of have products that impact each other.”

To learn more about these programs, please contact us at: info@coleadteam.com

About Collaborative Leadership Team: CoLeadTeam provides the unique combination of Certified Training, Coaching, Customized Training, Assessments, and Ignite AgilityTM plans. Our core values are focused on optimizing Individuals and Teams, improving their ability to deliver valuable, working product. Agile & Scrum is useful for much more than software. We have experience using this for software, hardware, services, manufacturing, house flipping, and strategic decision making. For more information on our service offerings, please visit our website https://www.collaborativeleadershipteam.com.

Contact Collaborative Leadership Team: 
Teri Bylander-Pinke 
Chief Operations Officer 
Collaborative Leadership Team 
Teri@CoLeadTeam.com 
https://www.collaborativeleadershipteam.com/

Coaching "Up" - New ScrumMaster techniques

A common theme we hear among newly minted Certified ScrumMasters (CSMs) is their surprise that “coaching up” in the organization is part of their job. The official Scrum Guide (https://scrumguides.org/) is clear that the Scrum Master is a servant leader not only to the Development Team and Product Owner but also to the Organization.

What follows is usually the CSM gulping, nervously shifting their gaze or sighing.  When we ask them what’s wrong, they say things like “But I don’t know how to talk to a CIO, CEO, VP (fill in the executive blank).” “They won’t listen to me, I’m supposed to be neutral.”

The fact that the Scrum Master is neutral makes them the perfect person to talk to the organization’s leaders about the use of Scrum or Agile as a way to do work. The Scrum Master also escalates impediments to the Scrum Team’s success on their behalf within the organization.

Here are a few tips and reminders that may help:

·       Exhibit Courage: One of the Scrum values is Courage. Scrum Masters may need to summon up the courage to have necessary conversations with leaders. Remember the organization’s leaders are people too and why wouldn’t they want to know about something that is impeding a Scrum Team’s ability to deliver value to the organization’s customers?

·       Don’t Overuse the Scrummy Language: Scrum is far easier done than said. Leaders may or may not be versed in the vocabulary in the framework. Instead of saying something like - “The Development Team’s impediment to meeting their Sprint Goal is the company process” you could start with a question “If our procurement process is holding up the release of New Product X would you want to know about it?” Any leader vested in the organization’s success is sure to answer “Yes”. Follow with “Here are the details of exactly how that process is preventing our people from delivering that value as we speak.”

·       Be Brief in Messaging: A mistake many Scrum Masters make is approaching a leader in the same way they might approach a Development Team Member, a Product Owner or Subject Matter Expert. Depending on the level of leadership, sometimes they need items “bulleted” or rolled up. Come prepared to deliver your message in a few, short statements. If it makes more sense to ask a question as described in the previous tip and adapt accordingly that works also.

Collaborative Leadership Team recently joined forces with Michael Nir on this topic of how to influence when you do not have authority. Michael is a nationally recognized speaker and author who helps people learn how to have these conversations. Listen for Free to tips from Michael on our Ignite AgilityTM podcast.

To check out our upcoming course opportunities, head to our course schedule!

What is a ScrumMaster?

In a recent Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) course, a student new to Scrum was a bit confused by the repeated reference to the ScrumMaster as a “coach”.  “What do you mean coaching or when does this coaching happen?” was the question raised. Caught a bit off guard, or more importantly caught up in my own internal dialog of, “Well, doesn’t everyone who comes to a CSM already know this?” For a moment I was a bit dumbfounded. Then I realized that this is the very question that we need to spend more time answering.

Let’s just start with coaching. What do you think of when you think of coaching? Do you think of a sports team that has a coach? Do you think of losing weight and maybe hiring a personal trainer as a fitness coach? Do you think of accomplishing personal goals through engaging a life coach to help you stay focused? In any of these instances, the person that is in the coaching position does not do the work for the person being coached. The coach’s role is to:

·       Ask all kinds of questions – the obvious question, the dumb question, the hard question, etc

·       Make observations and play back what they are seeing, what they are hearing, what they are observing

·       Make recommendations, suggestions, provide alternative view points

·       Listen

·       Remind the coachee of the very goals that were set out to be accomplished and take stock of reality – is the goal being met or not with the actions the coachee is taking

Scrum is a different way to do work. It may sound simple to change to a new way of doing work, but many find the practice of Scrum difficult to accomplish. The official Scrum Guide is free to all and is available here.

The Scrum Guide is clear that a ScrumMaster does not only coach the team of people doing work or developing the product that will be used by customers, but they also have the responsibility of coaching the Product Owner and the Organization. The Product Owner gives direction about the product, and the greater Organization is comprised of other experts, users, customers and stakeholders about interacting with the Scrum Team.

That may sound like a big job, and it is!  This is why a ScrumMaster is a full-time job and not one that can be done effectively as part time. It’s not administrative at all. It’s about people. It’s about individuals and interactions. It’s about setting goals, accomplishing goals and more importantly, what needs to change if goals are not accomplished.

Think back to sports teams you may be a part of that had a coach. Or any sports teams that you watch. How many are successful without an effective coach? How many Olympic athletes achieve a medal without a coach? This idea is critical to a successful Scrum adoption. The ScrumMaster is the coach to the Development Team, the Product Owner and the Organization regarding making this change and when things get tough, not back-sliding into old habits or unsuccessful approaches that detract from the goal.

If you would like to learn more about Scrum or the ScrumMaster, refer to the free Scrum Guide. You can also join me for a Certified ScrumMaster course hosted by Hollstadt Consulting on Oct 2.

Author: Christian Antonie