Warships & Flow?

Jac Hughes
Sep 2, 2018 · 7 min read

The transcript from my Agile Cymru 2018 talk.

One talk that has turned into three pieces of content. The talk itself, a podcast and an article.

My first dive into documenting over creating content.

Without flow, ships would sink, without flow our teams are at risk of sinking also.

I want to take you back to July 2011, for reasons that we could debate Britain had decided to take action in Libya.

HMS Sutherland found itself just off the coast of Benghazi and we as the crew were primed for action. We had spent weeks training for every scenario possible and speculating about when we would be deployed.

As with most things, we found out on sky news soon enough.

The ship has been in defence watches for a few days which means half the ships company are on watch and the other half either eating, sleeping or resting up on a 6 hour rotation.. 6 hours on, 6 hours off.

This means the ship can be brought to full action stations quickly and efficiently.

So it’s now 11pm….

*General Alarm*

The moment that alarm sounds the ship enters a natural state of flow.

There is no panic, apart from the alarm and machinery there is little noise, only slight acknowledgements as people pass each other up and down the ship as they make their way to the respective action stations ( yes that is a real thing )

From the operations room to the galley, these individual groups of skilled people come together for a common purpose.

During times of war, flow even comes into account when feeding the ships company.

Each person has 7 minutes to leave their station, make their way to the dining area ( I say dining area loosely), eat and get back to relieve someone else who needs feeding.

All the while being ‘’motivated’ and ‘’encouraged’’ to be as quick as possible. ( I am looking at all your project managers out there )

Without the steady flow of people and food, energy and moral would drop, resulting in the fighting capability of the ship being compromised. If our teams are not properly nourished, the result, although not as extreme could be the same.

That junior chef becomes part of the fire support party, the young steward is now part of the damage control team. From the captain to the most junior sailor, if his or her leader could no longer fulfil their duty, they could step in and the ship would stay afloat.

Bottlenecks on warships do not exist, a problem is identified and swarmed upon before it could even be considered an issue.

Cross functional, T -shaped individuals if you like.

If someone walks past a fire onboard, do you think they wait for someone whose job it is to put it out?

No, they raise the alarm and start fighting that fire in the best way possible while waiting for assistance. That individual knows that help will come.

It’s part of the flow.

I believe the teams we work with should adopt the same or at least some of this mindset, the same unspoken loyalty to each other, the same want to succeed together. I am under no illusion this doesn’t happen overnight, if it did, most of us would be out of a job. But if we believe in the power of Kaizen and stick to what we believe in through the bureaucracy we sometimes face, it can be done.

Now, I spent ALOT of time at sea during my time in the navy. Did I like or even get along with everyone? Of course not, I even argued with the people closest to me at times. Does that mean when it came to it we wouldn’t have given everything to help each other out? I will let you make your own mind up.

Now I am not saying that we start running our teams like warships, my aim to bring to life something we all come across in our day to day work. For example,Without WIP limits, fast roping from a helicopter would be impossible, two people on the rope at any one time, it makes sense, it allows flow.

Why are we so cautious when introducing things such as WIP limits to teams. I’ll tell you.

Absence of trust, fear, and a shortage of accountability. These three things start and canend with every single person in this room. If we take on board ( pardon the pun ) even a small percentage of the warship mindset, then the teams we work with can only flourish.

If we are consistent in our actions on a daily basis, without doubt, trust will be built. If we are inconsistent in our own actions, trust will be lost.

Consistent actions build trust.

Now onto our old friend fear. I hear a lot of people talking about fear.

Fear of Scrum, Fear of Kanban, Fear of Agile.

There is nothing scary about frameworks. What is scary, is a team of individuals that don’t want to work together or feel they can’t due to the environment that has been created around them or the negative mindset that has been allowed to fester. If we manage to build trust and eliminate fear then those around us will soon want the best for each other and expect the best from those around them, that is all accountability is.

Shipmates are stronger than teams.

If we focus on working to eliminate the 3 things I highlighted while facilitating the environment for teams to succeed, flow will look after itself.

It’s not easy.

But I do not think any of us signed up for easy.

Now I have done the easy part by standing up here and telling you why it is important and I want to leave you with 3 things to put into action. I chose 3 things because the number 3 represents a number of things. In this case, a beginning, a middle and an end.

A beginning — Where is your team currently? I am sure you hold retrospectives but how many times does the team come out of them still thinking their voice hasn’t been heard. One thing you could do is during coaching sessions ask the other person to write on the board three words.

One to describe how they feel, one to describe how they think the collective team feels and one to describe how they think the team is perceived by the rest of the business. By the the time you have had a conversation with everyone, you should have a good, honest picture of your team’s health. Put these real thoughts and feelings into something tangible, that the team will digest. Personally, I write a weekly summary ( more of a blog ) that has gone down well in the past. Tell a story. Try and capture the emotion of the week and what has been discussed. You will of course have your own ideas on how to improve things but offer it out to everyone. Build accountability, let them be the change they want to see.

A middle — Focus! Sounds obvious but I mean another type FOCUS. Follow one course until successful to begin with.

This is where patience comes into play, if a team or business are new to the Agile mindset and associated frameworks there will be a slump in engagement if things don’t improve as quickly as first expected. As Agile practitioners, Scrum Masters or whatever titles we have bestowed upon ourselves. I am sure we have all faced this situation and potentially had our will bent to miss some things out or simply ‘’shift to Kanban’’. These are always testing times, but if we can’t get the basics right, how can we expect others to believe in what we are trying to create. My advice, if you want to take it, be patient and believe in the mindset, believe in the framework you are putting in place. Highlight every improvement that has been made and draw from them during the harder times. Use them as your fuel and don’t lose confidence in your own abilities to help teams succeed. People are always happy to judge at half time, if you retain your confidence throughout there will only be one result by the end.

Nothing is won at half time.

An end — As we all know there is a never an end to continuous improvement but holding up the mirror, not only to the team but to yourself, at regular intervals is key and the third and final actionable item. This doesn’t have to be in a retrospective, this could be simply taking 5 minutes a day and noting down your thoughts and feelings. Nothing will ever replace making a cup of tea and sitting down with a notepad and pen.

What are you grateful for?

What could you improve?

What are you proud of today?

You may not always like what you see, and that’s ok, as long as you accept it and move forward. No one likes to be called out on their own shortcomings but If we can’t hold up the mirror we can’t build consistency.

Three simple tools, tips, snippets of advice.

I wanted to add as much value with this, but the real value comes from all of you.

Ask yourselves.

Will you help your teams be ready when the general alarm goes off?

Jac Hughes

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