Part 10: Unleash Your Scrum with Multi-Skilled Professionals — Creating Social Ability
In today’s article, we’ll continue our exploration of change’s social dynamics. Building upon our discussion of Social Motivation, we’ll uncover how Social Ability — the art of cultivating collaboration and collective expertise — unlocks a team’s true potential.
Social Capital is at the heart of social ability — the shared strength built on trust and mutual support, unfolding as teams leverage their collective intellect and skills toward unified objectives. Social Capital thrives when teams help each other succeed, embracing a mindset of “we’re in this together.”
One crucial aspect of social ability is transforming those who might be hindering progress. By shifting from a singular “my problem” outlook to a collective “our problem” perspective, we can help individuals with misaligned behaviors become powerful agents of positive change and evolve from being part of the problem to being part of the solution.
Social Ability is essential when no single person has all the answers. In these moments, teamwork becomes the solution, igniting a shared determination to face and overcome the unknown, laden with uncertainty and risk, together.
Social Ability covers eight experiments. We’ll start by exploring the first four:
- Making It Their Problem
- Systemic Retrospectives
- Using Team Agreements
- Frequent Feedback Cycles
We’ll dedicate separate articles to the remaining four. Pairwork, mob programming, and swarming are powerful and multifaceted techniques for developing social ability, each deserving of focused attention. In the closing article on Social Ability, we’ll explore how to combine all three working modes for maximum collaborative impact.
If you’re joining me for the first time, I recommend reading the previous parts for context:
Unleash Your Scrum with Multi-Skilled Professionals — Series Outline
Chapter 10
10.6. Creating Social Ability
Try … Making It Their Problem
Realizing the necessity for change is the first step toward modifying behavior. The Scrum framework offers various metrics to evaluate whether the team is on the right track in doing the right thing (effectiveness) and doing it right (efficiency). Here are some pivotal questions:
- Are we working on the most valuable item?
- Are we achieving our Sprint and Product Goals?
- Are we delivering value through a shippable increment every Sprint?
- Are we genuinely progressing empirically, utilizing each Scrum event as an avenue to foster transparency, inspection, and adaptation?
A negative response to these inquiries indicates team failure, signaling that the status quo is untenable.
Further objective evaluation can be introduced using Kanban metrics such as Cycle Time and Work in Progress (WIP). These metrics help quantify performance, making existing problems evident and tangible, instilling a sense of urgency for change.
Objective performance based on metrics makes the inadequacy of the current working model apparent and undeniable. It accentuates that the entrenched single-skilled silos, utilization focus, long queues, and bottlenecks are the root causes of the failure. The tangible evidence from these metrics instills a sense of urgency within the team, making it evident that change is imperative.
Failure is no longer an abstract concept but a palpable reality; it’s the team’s problem now. This realization serves as a catalyst, urging the team to deviate from old, ineffective habits and seek new, synergistic approaches to improving performance and achieving goals.
Try … Systemic Retrospectives
With performance made objective, retrospectives suddenly gain a new layer of meaning. The issues spotlighted by the metrics are not individual hurdles but collective challenges that can only be resolved through a united effort where everyone’s participation is imperative.
This forms a robust foundation for the team to transition from dissecting individual concerns — such as ‘the product owner provided bad requirements,’ ‘the analyst shared incomplete specifications,’ or ‘the developers didn’t even test their code before sending it off to testing’ — towards unveiling systemic problems. Essentially, the focus shifts towards uncovering the unseen factors within the team and the broader organization contributing to the prevailing issues. The central question becomes: How can we as a team alter our structures, interactions, and processes to significantly reduce the likelihood of reencountering such problems?
Systemic retrospectives are an evolved form of the classic retrospective, in which the focus is zoomed out from sprint-specific issues to broader systemic challenges hampering the team’s performance.
An introduction to the principles of Systems Thinking, specifically the Iceberg Model of Systems Thinking and causal loop diagrams (CLD), may be warranted to equip the team with the ability to explore systemic problems systematically.
The Iceberg Model empowers the team to discern how individual events coalesce into patterns upheld by specific structures and mental models.
On the other hand, a CLD serves as a potent visualization tool, enabling the team to comprehend the system’s structure and the interrelations among its elements. In “Creating Agile Organizations,” Ilya Pavlichenko suggests a starter technique called “Doom Loop” to introduce a team to CLDs.
Through the discourse on larger systemic issues, the team gradually realizes that success in cross-functional teams developing complex products hinges on the ability to transcend main areas of expertise and continually progress as a unit. One foundational solution emerges: nurturing individuals with deep expertise to expand their skill sets across different disciplines, evolving into multi-skilled specialists.
Try … Using Team Agreements
Systemic retrospectives may unveil a need for new behaviors and altered ways of work that could be pivotal in addressing the identified systemic issues.
This may prompt a reevaluation of the very fundamentals of the team: its shared purpose explaining why the team exists in the first place, the definition of team success, the team’s values, and specific behaviors associated with each value, along with the work arrangements that contribute to the team’s success.
Asking for help, collaborative problem-solving, and collaborative learning could emerge as essential behaviors. Specific practices such as pair and mob programming could serve as potent models for such behaviors.
Mutual mentorship may become a source of continuous cross-training, with skill swaps where team members can teach each other skills they’re proficient in, open office hours encouraging experienced team members to provide time slots where others can drop in for advice, guidance or to discuss challenges and group training sessions where team members can learn together, ask questions, and support each other.
Creating clear working agreements may help institutionalize the insights gained and new behaviors identified, establish a shared understanding among team members of what they mean, and generate a commitment to them.
Making team agreements visible and accessible to everyone helps transparency and reinforces the desired behaviors. Such agreements form the basis for 200% accountability, where everyone becomes accountable for one another to live up to the values, expectations, behaviors, and ways of working laid out in the agreements. They also become the foundation for sharing unambiguous real-time feedback.
Try … Frequent Feedback Cycles
Frequent feedback instills a sense of 200% accountability, which denotes mutual responsibility within the team. Mastering the art of feedback is a skill to be honed through regular practice, paving the way for meaningful and constructive communication.
Traditionally, feedback has been a formal procedure occurring every six to twelve months during performance reviews. This delayed approach often leads to surprising revelations about one’s performance. Real-time feedback eradicates such surprises, offering team members a continuous understanding of their performance from their peers — highlighting strengths, areas for improvement, and potential roadblocks.
Susan Scott, in her book “Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work & Life, One Conversation at a Time,” introduces a framework for delivering and receiving what she terms as “fierce” feedback. This framework promotes growth, rich interactions, and a deeper understanding of personal and collective realities.
Scott’s framework helps us transition from harboring assumptions or criticisms to engaging in conversations that challenge our understanding and spark curiosity. It’s about exploring shared realities and forging stronger relationships through open communication.
Steps for Effective Feedback Sessions
1. Share Observations:
Begin by describing what you observed from a factual standpoint, providing context for this feedback concerning the situation’s when, where, and what. Following your description, invite them to share their perspective.
2. Tell Your Story:
Share your interpretation of the events and describe your emotions regarding this issue. Clarify what is at stake and articulate your perception of the impact for them, for you, and/or others. Explain why you are having this conversation and why it’s important. Discuss the implications of the observed behavior, conveying why you felt compelled to address this with them. Identify your contribution to the issue and express your desire to resolve it.
3. Listen to Their Story:
Allow them to share their interpretation of the events. This is an opportunity to delve into their perspective on what you just shared. They might provide a perfectly reasonable explanation, assuring you that this isn’t a problem likely to recur. Alternatively, they might acknowledge the misstep and apologize. On the other hand, they could react with shock, surprise, or even anger, which isn’t uncommon when someone is unaware of their actions. We might learn about something we said or did and have no recollection of it. This is a pivotal moment to recognize a possible “fight or flight” reaction manifested as denial, defensiveness, or deflection. Your role is to listen attentively to foster new learning.
Suppose denial, defense, or deflection occurs. In that case, the focus should be on maintaining curiosity, continuing to pose clarifying questions, and openly discussing the impact of the issue on the individual, the team, and/or the organization.
4. Arrive at a Shared Understanding:
This stage is where the crux of the conversation unfolds. It’s a juncture where reality is thoroughly examined. A deep dive for full understanding occurs here. This stage is characterized by numerous perception checks and paraphrasing of what has been heard and discussed to articulate what both parties have gleaned from the feedback. The following questions become pivotal:
“What have we learned?”
“Where do we stand now?”
“Has anything been left unsaid that needs to be voiced?”
“What is required for resolution?”
“How can we progress from here, given our new understanding?”
It’s through thoroughly exploring each other’s realities and arriving at a shared understanding that we pave the way to deciding on the next steps together.
5. Decide What to Do:
As you wrap up the conversation, determine what, if anything, needs to change (on both your parts, if appropriate). Agree and determine how you will hold each other responsible for keeping it. Paraphrase and check perceptions to be sure you are leaving the discussion on the same page. If more time is needed to process the feedback and arrive at things that need to and can be changed, it’s perfectly ok to agree on a follow-up session.
With a few minor adjustments, the outlined framework can effortlessly adapt to sharing and receiving positive feedback — a practice that should be generously and regularly employed. The ripple effect of positive feedback is undeniably far-reaching, leaving a lasting, uplifting emotional imprint. It’s crucial to be precise and articulate when delivering positive feedback. Commence by vividly depicting the scenario that prompted the feedback. When and Where? Detail the situation that unfolded. What? Elaborate on the actions observed, ensuring a detailed description. Why? Explore the impact and significance those actions had on you, others, and potentially on the person receiving the feedback. Finally, express your gratitude with a heartfelt “Thank You.”
Given the intricacy of this topic, organizing a dedicated workshop might be an invaluable step to ensure the team thoroughly grasps the concepts and gets a chance to practice them in a controlled, supportive environment. The workshop could incorporate modeling and role-play to help elucidate the distinctions between constructive, “fierce” feedback, and potentially detrimental feedback. Additionally, it’s a prime opportunity to delve into the feelings and the lasting impression or “wake” each type of feedback tends to generate, developing a deeper understanding and sensitivity towards well-crafted feedback sharing. Moreover, a cooperative endeavor within the workshop could be creating a feedback template. Engaging the team in designing this template empowers them and provides a structured framework to aid in sharing feedback constructively moving forward.
Practicing frequent feedback, spontaneously and during planned team events like retrospectives, reinforces the concept of 200% accountability, instills a shared responsibility, and nurtures open and constructive communication.
By confronting objective performance metrics, digging into systemic issues, establishing team agreements, and fostering a culture of frequent feedback, teams begin their transformation toward true collaboration. They shift from a “my problem” mindset to an “our problem” mentality, creating a foundation of social ability.
However, collaborative problem-solving requires practical techniques. In our next article, we’ll delve into the power of pairwork — a foundational method for cross-skill development, knowledge sharing, and building relationships within a team.
Continue exploring the nuances of multi-skilling in transforming our Scrum practices and elevating our teams to new heights of agility in the next part of the series:
Part 11: Unleash Your Scrum with Multi-Skilled Professionals — Pair Work to Enable Social Ability
References
- Cesário Oliveira Ramos, Ilia Pavlichenko. Creating Agile Organizations. A Systemic Approach (Addison-Wesley, 2023)
- Susan Scott. Fierce Conversations. Achieving Success at Work & Life, One Conversation at a Time (Berkley, 2017)
