Team Reboot

We welcomed three new members to our four-member agile human resources team recently.  One was new to the workforce, one an HR veteran returning to our company, and one a mid-career HR rising star.  All presented unique opportunities and challenges for personal and company growth.  When (not if) you have new members on your teams, they also present unique opportunities and challenges.  Addressing these from the start can magnify the former and minimize the latter.

First, let’s just level set on the idea that it’s important to acknowledge that a team has changed, and members will experience things differently because of that.  If you’re familiar with Tuckman’s 5 stages of team formation (forming, storming, norming, performing, mourning) you already know this.  If you’re not familiar with it, Google it.  Lots of good stuff out there on it.

When we first create an agile team, I facilitate a 6-hour kick-off session to jump start the team formation process.  For the most part I’ve taken the structure and games from Lisa Atkins book, Coaching Agile Teams.  In this case we were reteaming, so I assessed what the team needed, then used parts of the full session to give them that. 

Our returning veteran has deep knowledge of HR, company culture from 5 years ago, and personal development.  What she didn’t know was agile, agile HR, and our new agile culture.  Our mid-career member is newer to the management level and new to agile.  The new workforce member is not burdened with any past work experiences.  And the one remaining original member of our agile HR team is deep in knowledge of HR, personal development, agile and our agile culture.  The three new members had joined this team over 6 months.  Due to scheduling issues we were just now having our agile kickoff.  During those 6 months we had already addressed our agile framework, ceremonies, and agile values and principles.  But we were still individuals and not a team.  We were in an extended storming phase.  So this team “reboot” (as we called it) was to focus on norming. 

As we worked through the day, we learned of each other’s values.  Then we created individual “What’s in it for me?” statements, which fed into a team statement, then a company statement, and finally into a “What’s in it for the world?” statement.  It can be a powerful thing when a team sees how it can impact the world.  We ended the day by doing a high-level overview of our annual operating plan, which set us up for a more detailed planning session the following week.

This all happened recently, and I can’t say we are yet in the performing stage.  But something has changed.  Meetings feel different.  Conversations have more understanding.  We’re on our way.

Curiosity over Judgment

Curiosity over Judgement.  It’s the first thing I draw and discuss when introducing agile to a new team or team member.  I picked this up from the very personable  Tim Ottinger at Agile Iowa 2018 (click here to find his presentation) and it really resonates with people.

In agile, we ask our teams to think differently, act differently, and interact differently.  We are setting ourselves up to be judgmental as we navigate a totally new work context.  So why not be curious on why we feel judgmental, why someone is acting a certain way, why the team is doing something in a certain way.  For me personally, I’ve learned that I get judgmental when I’m frustrated when someone doesn’t behave or achieve as I expect they should.  Being curious forces me to take some time and space to reflect.  When I do that (surprise!) I typically find that the situation is different than I knew in the moment of my frustration.  Curiosity allows me to investigate before sharing my often incorrect insights. 

Curiosity over judgement sounds so basic, like something we should have learned in grade school.  And maybe it is, it’s been a long time since grade school for me.  Yet I see people drawing this figure on their notepads in meetings, or putting it on a whiteboard before a difficult discussion. 

Thanks, Agile Otter, for helping me and my teams to be agile.