Use Proven Success Factors From The Past To Improve Your Team In The Present

Share successes from the past, create transparency about the present, and identify improvements for the near future.

This article is also available as a free PDF on our webshop. It’s a nicely styled paper that allows you to share it with others easily. You can download the PDF here.

We created the Columinity to support Scrum and other Agile teams in their continuous improvement loop. The first step in that loop is to create transparency around where you are right now and then to work together as a team to identify improvements and make adaptations.

It can be used independently from Columinity. As such, it’s a powerful conversation starter. Eventually, our recommendation is to use the (free) survey to bring real data into the conversation and to identify improvements.

This blog post describes a detailed do-it-yourself workshop built on the factors from the survey. It uses Appreciative Interviews to share success stories from the past, Ecocycle Planning to create transparency about the present, and 15% Solutions to identify improvements for the near future.

Give it a try, and let us know the results!

You can download a high-resolution version of this illustration here.

How to prepare?

Group Size

This workshop is feasible from 8 participants onward and takes about 120 minutes. You can quickly scale this workshop up to many Scrum teams as well.

Intended Audience

We designed this workshop for one Scrum team, but we recommend inviting your supporters (managers, leaders, coaches), stakeholders, and other teams. Try it together, and see what becomes possible. This workshop is also suitable to run during public meetups. It’s interesting to explore the differences between the various organizations that might be joining the meetup.

Online Delivery

Liberating Structures work well virtually. Here too, they allow you to unleash and involve everyone. What is exceptionally important, however, is that you have the right tools. Because Liberating Structures are fundamentally about breaking down large-group interactions into smaller groups, you need tools to create subchannels or breakout rooms easily.

Step 1 — Opening

Start at the scheduled time. People who drop in later can jump in then. We always start our gatherings by saying “Hi!” followed by our name. We then explain the purpose and begin with the first structure. Superfast!

Step 2 — Share Success Stories With Appreciative Interviews

We’ve found that it works best if you build personal connections from what people are proud of or have warm memories about. The Liberating Structure Appreciative Interviews is a great way to do this.

Invitation

“In pairs, share a story of a time when you worked with a successful Agile or Scrum team. What happened? What did the team do or didn’t do? What made the success possible?”

Steps

1. (2 min) Explain the sequence of steps upfront so that people know they will be sharing a story, listening to another story, and then re-telling the story they listened to.
2. (2 min) Give participants a few minutes to silently bring back into memory a success story from their past, or at least the start of it.
3. (10 min) Invite pairs into their breakouts. In turn (5 min each), people interview each other about the success story of the other while paying attention to what made the success possible. The interviewer only asks questions (no advice, suggestions, etc.).
4. (10 min) Invite pairs to join another pair in new breakouts. Everyone retells the story of the person they interviewed. The other three participants listen for patterns in conditions/assets that supported the success. Invite groups to capture the most salient factors in your virtual whiteboard.
5. (10 min) When everyone is back in the main channel, collect insights from the group. Ask people to share some examples of what created the insights for them. The purpose here is not to collect everything but to spread ideas around. So don’t let this go on and on.

Appreciative Interviews during a meetup we hosted for the local French user group.

Step 3: Explore The Foundations Of Effective Scrum Teams

Now that everyone has loosened up made some fresh connections, and shared personal success stories, it’s time to have the group explore the Scrum team effectiveness model. The Liberating Structure 1–2–4-ALL is a great way to do this together, interactively.

Steps

1. (1 min) Prepare by putting the posters on the wall or in a digital workspace. Make sure that everyone can see and read the posters. Bring more copies if necessary.
2. (4 min) Invite everyone to review the posters silently.
3. (1 min) Ask: “In silence and individually, identify the two things from the posters that seem most meaningful or impactful to you.” These could be factors they already identified during Appreciative Interviews or new ones.
4. (2 min) Invite people to pair up with one other person and share their takeaways. Set up breakout rooms if you do this virtually. Ask: “In your pair, share your biggest insights and build on them together.”
5. (4 min) Invite the pairs to pair up with another pair to form groups of four as much as possible. Ask: “In small groups, share your biggest insights and build on them together.”
6. (10 min) With the whole group, collect the most critical insights and questions. Try to answer the questions by putting your insights together.

You can download a high-resolution version of this illustration here.

Step 4: Use Ecocycle Planning To Make The Current State Of Scrum Transparent

In the previous steps, the group shared stories about successful teams they’ve been part of and identified the success factors that stood out. Afterward, you explained the model of Scrum team effectiveness with the primary and subfactors. In this step, you help the participants reflect on how the factors connect to their team. Ecocycle Planning is perfectly suited for this. It creates transparency about the state of Scrum at this moment. From there, you can start the inspection and adaptation.

Steps

1. (2 min) Distribute A4-sized illustrations “Factors that determine Scrum team effectiveness” and “Ecocycle Planning.” At this point, everyone is familiar with the illustration containing all the factors. Ecocycle Planning is most likely not known to the group. If this is the case, it is fine; don’t explain Ecocycle Planning yet.
2. (10 min) One by one, present six prompts for everyone to complete on their Ecocycle Planning illustration. After each prompt, pause to give them time to write down their answer in the specified quadrant with their current team in mind.

• Top-left (Gestation): “A factor my team is unaware of or hasn’t started using is…”
• Bottom-left (Birth): “A factor my team recently started using or investing time in is…”
• Top-right (Maturity): “A factor that provides lots of value for my team is…”
• Bottom-right (Creative Destruction): “A factor we are currently rethinking, changing, or creatively destructing is…”
• Middle left (Poverty Trap): “A factor we consider valuable, talk about a lot, but somehow don’t invest enough time in is…”
• Middle right (Rigidity Trap): “A factor we keep doing, although we know it doesn’t generate much value anymore, is…”

3. (3 min) Once you’ve offered all the prompts, give the participants some time to reflect on the Ecocycle that emerged individually. Maybe they want to move some factors around or have questions that need clarification.

Our findings

• It’s probably easiest for the participants to plot the Ecocycle's subfactors because they are more specific than the primary factors.
• After each statement, invite the groups to discuss their chosen factor quickly. This can help people understand Ecocycle Planning better, bringing back some energy. This step would replace the full Impromptu Networking in step 5. Do step 5, but only make it one round. Or as a shout-out.

Use Ecocycle Planning to help the participants reflect on how the factors connect to their own team.

Step 5: Sharing Patterns And Findings

In the previous step, you created transparency around your team's current state of Scrum. Based on how you answered the prompts/sentences, you plotted some factors determining a Scrum team’s effectiveness on the Ecoccyle. This step aims to make sense of what this means for your team.

Steps

1. (4 min) Invite people to reflect on the individual Ecocycles you created in the previous step. Ask, “What does the placement of the factors say about the state of Scrum in your/our team? Where do you see connections between the various factors?”. In the meantime, prepare breakouts for three rounds of different pairs.
2. 2. (15 min) Invite people into pairs and their breakouts. Ask them to share the most salient patterns they notice (4 minutes). Repeat twice more in different pairs (8 minutes).
3. 3. (10 min) When everyone is back in the main channel, ask people to share the most salient patterns with the whole group. You can help draw patterns by noticing where most cards of one color appear, whether or not the Ecocycle is balanced, and which items appear in the traps.

Our Findings

• We purposefully use pairs, not larger groups, to create safety for everyone to share their insights. Even in small groups, loud voices can drown out silent voices. Quickly rotating pairs will spread great insights and observations throughout the group. If you really must do it with a larger group, use a Conversation Cafe.
• Use “Creative Destruction” as the area where activities that need to be creatively re-invented to be valuable again go. An Ecocycle Planning with nothing in this area may indicate that double-loop learning — where existing structures are challenged — is limited in your team.

Step 6: Identify Improvements

In the previous steps, you created transparency together for your team around the state of Scrum. Then, you identified the impact together. In this final step, you help the team identify improvements.

Steps

1. (5 min) First, individually and silently, ask people to consider the following question for a few minutes: “Which factors must we improve to become a more effective team? What would be actions to help us start improving?”. In the meantime, prepare breakouts for pairs and — for the step after that — breakouts with two pairs each.
2. (15 min) Invite people into pairs and breakouts to share and build on their ideas (5 min). Then, invite the pairs into new breakouts with another pair to share their ideas and build on them (10 min).
3. (5 min) When everyone returns to the main channel, ask every group to share two or three of their most promising ideas. Capture these potential improvements on 15% Solutions cards to make them tangible.
4. If you have the time and when the improvement ideas remain fairly abstract, you can use a Liberating Structure like “Shift & Share” to develop them further.

Draw inspiration from our card deck with 102 Quick Tips to improve your Scrum team. We categorized them into the factors of Columinity.

Product Kit: Unleash Scrum In Your Organization

Scrum impacts the entire organization. Improvements are necessary within and around teams to unlock your Scrum team’s superpowers. We created this kit to help see the bigger picture. It’s filled with materials to diagnose Scrum in your organization and unleash its potential with Scrum.

Although the product kit isn’t necessary material for this workshop, it can help to dig deeper into the results. The product kit contains the following materials:

• The exercise “Panarchy” to diagnose Scrum in your organization. You help Scrum teams, stakeholders, and supporters understand how their system works and find leverage points for improvement.
• The exercise “What I Need From You”. It helps Scrum teams express their needs clearly and helps others respond to those requests. The exercise includes a 50-sheet block of tearable ‘help request cards.’
• A card deck with 102 Quick Tips to improve your Scrum team. We categorized them into the factors of Columinity.
• 5 Impediment cards. Impediments are problems the team can’t resolve themselves. Use these five impediment cards to make visible where you’re stuck and need support from others to improve the situation.
• 2 large A0 posters: “Factors That Determine Scrum Team Effectiveness” AND “What Makes Scrum Teams Effective?”
• A 50-sheet block of tearable 15% Solution cards. Ready to be filled out by members of your team.
• A facilitation guide. You receive a 16-page PDF that describes how to use the included exercises.

Product Kit: Unleash Scrum In Your Organization.

Closing

In this blog post, we described a detailed do-it-yourself workshop built on the factors from Columinity. It uses Appreciative Interviews to share success stories from the past, Ecocycle Planning to create transparency about the present, and 15% Solutions to identify improvements for the near future.

Why don’t you give it a try? And if you’ve any questions, comments, or ideas, always feel free to reach out and share them with us.

Let’s learn and grow together!

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