Minimum Viable Psychology for Agile Teams

HOTEL EUROPE, October 19th, 2019
Minimum
Viable
Psychology for Agile Teams
ENDER YÜKSEL, PHD
SENIOR DEVELOPMENT MANAGER, SIMCORP

Minimum Viable Psychology (MVP) for Agile Teams :: Ender Yüksel, PhD Bosnia Agile Day 2019
About me
I am Ender*
I am here because I believe that sharing is caring.
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*: just like in Ender’s Game
[EDU] BSc, MSc, PhD in
Computer Science
[WORK] Computer Scientist,
Software Engineer, Scrum Master,
Development Manager
[PASSION] Continuous learning
and continuous improvement,
along with an emphasis on
software craftsmanship.

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Who are you?
What do you think about psychology?
Keywords that come to your mind
About you

PSYCHOLOGY
Considered as a new science, with most advances
happening in the last 150 years
even though it can be tracked back to ancient Greece
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COMPUTER SCIENCE
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Is a new science, began to be established as a distinct
academic disciple in 1950s.
even though it can be tracked back to 1600s (the first calculator – binary system)

Can you predict what code will do?
⊡ What will myFunction(2) return?
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A) 1
B) 2
C) 3
D) 4

Can you predict what human will do?
⊡ What will the developer D3 do, when this team is
pulling features?
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Developer Business Domain
Knowledge
D1 BD1
D2 BD1
D3 BD2
D4 BD1
A) Will pull from the top of the backlog, with the intention of learning BD1, while teaching others BD2
B) Will pull from the top of the backlog, but will not touch any work relating to BD1
C) Will play all the tricks to convince his team to pull only BD2 features
Don’t just throw your poor dev into a
team with different skills, just for the
sake of creating cross-func teams.
Instead, explain the motivation, and
allow time, and create a fail-free
learning environment.
PRO TIP:

⊡ You want to hire a new member to an existing team.
⊡ You present these three candidates (assume that they all have
perfect personalities) to your team.
⊡ What do you think your team’s comment to C3 will be?
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Candidate Candidate skills
C1 Way below the team’s level
C2 Similar to the team’s level
C3 Above the team’s level
A) We can learn a lot of things from C3, let’s hire her.
B) Our team will be able to accomplish more, and it will also be good for other teams, let’s hire her.
C) We will look pale beside C3, don’t hire her.
Value learning and teamwork over
performance. Establish the growth
mindset, and be a role model in
leaving the comfort zone.
PRO TIP:

⊡ As a scrum master, you are assigned to a team that is very
traditional and old fashioned, even though it is composed of young
members.
⊡ Assuming that you explained them about the mindset, principles,
values; now you organized a session to teach them the practices
below.
⊡ What do you think their reaction will be?
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Practices Pair programming, TDD, Specification by
example, coded UI test,
A) They will thank you, for teaching them all these great practices
B) They will get interested, and then gradually they will try to learn more on these practices
C) They will hate you, and will never try any of these practices.
Don’t push changes impatiently.
Remember that it will create fear and be
percieved as a threat. Create the
environment and facilitate your team to
see their needs and make them want
(and own) these changes
PRO TIP:

Simons & Chabris Test
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Thanks to
Lisa
Cooney for
inspiration,
in Agile
2019

Simons & Chabris Test
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Inattentional Blindness:
“we are missing a lot of what goes on around us.
we have no idea that we are missing so much”
C. Chabris, D. Simons.
Don’t just focus on your own team’s
work items. Have an eye on what other
teams are working on. Especially in
scaled agile setting.
PRO TIP:

Cognitive Bias
.
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Holy book of cognitive bias
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Cognitive bias
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Thanks to
Fahran
Wallace for
inspiration,
in GOTO
2018

Dunbar's number
Number of relationships a person can maintain
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Image: http://www.kesolutions.biz/News-Entry-srk/Dunbars-number--
implications-for-internet-marketing-and-SEO---Part-1-bek/

Availability heuristic
Things that come to mind more easily, affect our judgement
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Image: https://kenthendricks.com/availability-heuristic/

False dichotomy
A logical fallacy which involves presenting two opposing views in a way that
they seem to be the only possibilities: if you do not accept one then the
other must be accepted.
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Image: http://www.menperium.com/news/message/Blog20190120en

Pratfall Effect
When you make a mistake, you appear more human, more like others and so
more likeable. People who are perfect can seem threatening, but people
who are imperfect are safe and hence easier to truly like.
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Dunning Kruger Effect
People mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is
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Dunning–Kruger effect
⊡ A cognitive bias,
formulated in 1999
⊡ People of low ability
have illusory
superiority and
mistakenly assess
their cognitive
ability as greater
than it is
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Image: http://agilecoffee.com/

Impostor Syndrome
Collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success
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Impostor syndrome
⊡ A psychological pattern,
formulated in 1978
⊡ An individual doubts their
accomplishments and has a
persistent internalized fear of
being exposed as a "fraud"
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Images: https://psychologycompass.com/ https://www.skeptical-science.com/

Jungian archetypes
.
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It can be helpful to know which archetypes are at play in oneself and others,
in order to gain personal insight into behaviors and motivations.

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Image: https://conorneill.com

Confirmation Bias
Tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that
affirms one's prior beliefs or hypotheses
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Image: http://www.success-resources.com.au/

Halo effect
Tendency to believe the person who speaks first and confidently
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Special thanks to:
Alma Didic
Daniela Lück
Fahran Wallace
Linda Rising
Lisa Cooney
My awesome Scrum Teams in SimCorp
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THANK YOU!

Minimum Viable Psychology for Agile Teams

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