2. Who are we?
Susan Smith
Director, IT Program Management at Heartland Crop Insurance
Agile Coach
Dawn Hinson
Senior business analyst at Berkley Medical Management Solutions
Tami Flowers
Director Governance Solutions at MetaGovernance
PMI-PMP, PMI-ACP, and Certified Scrum Master
Agile Coach
We helped take an organization from waterfall to Agile.
6. What is a high performing team?
They are self-organizing rather than role or title based
They are empowered to make decisions
They believe that as a team they can solve any problem
They are committed to team success vs. personal success
The team owns its decisions and commitments
Trust, vs. fear or anger, motivates them
They are consensus-driven
They live in a world of constant constructive disagreement
7. Stages of team formation and development
FORMING
A working group that is
learning about each other
STORMING
A pseudo team that is
challenging each other
and developing into a
potential team
NORMING
A potential team that is
working with each other
and developing into a real
team
PERFORMING
A real team that is working
as one and becomes a
high performing team
8. Situational leadership model
FORMING
Team Members
Low competence, high commitment
Leader
High directive, low supportive behavior
STORMING
Team Members
Low/some competence, low
commitment
Leader
High directive, high supportive behavior
NORMING
Team Members
Moderate/high competence, variable
commitment
Leader
Low directive, low supportive behavior
PERFORMING
Team Members
High competence, high commitment
Leader
Low directive, low supportive behavior
Directing
Coaching
Supporting
Delegating
9. Appreciations
Sets up good working relationships
Helps change the group’s focus from negative to positive
Helps set a positive tone for potentially hostile meetings
Helps others see the good things that are happening within the group
Doesn’t require any feedback
Is free
Framework: <Name>, I appreciate you for < >. (active)
NOT: I appreciate Tami
NOT: Thanks for your work Susan (passive)
10. Stage 1: Forming
What it may look like:
New kid on the block
Questioning and withholding
Low accomplishment of tasks or goals
Steep learning curve
Suspicion, fear or anxiety about the project
What you can do:
Ice breakers, lunches, ways to learn about each other
Understand personalities
Ensure team understands end goals
Iteration Retrospectives
Working Agreements
FORMING
Team Members:
Low competence, high commitment
Leader:
High directive, low supportive behavior
Nuggets of Goodness:
• Crucial Conversations
• Crucial Confrontations
• Agile Retrospectives: Making
Good Teams Great
11. Personalities and Impacts on the Team
Soft skills!
Interpersonal and general analytic abilities such as
Teamwork
Empathy
Leadership
Negotiation
Adaptability
Problem solving
12. Personality Tests
Extraversion and Introversion
Distinguishing between the two worlds in which all of us live; where we get our energy
When we are dealing with the world outside of ourself, we are "extraverting".
When we are inside our own minds, we are "introverting".
Sensing and INtuition
How we gather information
The "Sensing" preference absorbs data in a literal, concrete fashion.
The "Intuitive" preference generates abstract possibilities from information that is gathered.
Thinking and Feeling
When someone makes a decision that is based on logic and reason, they are operating in Thinking mode.
When someone makes a decision that is based on their value system, or what they believe to be right, they
are operating in Feeling mode.
Judging and Perceiving
our attitude towards the external world, and how we live our lives on a day-to-day basis
People with the Judging preference want things to be neat, orderly and established. Judgers want things
settled.
The Perceiving preference wants things to be flexible and spontaneous. Perceivers want thing open-ended.
13. Personality Tests
Myers-Briggs
The Big Five: extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness
and openness to experience
Jung Typology Profiler for Workplace (JPTW): Power, Assurance, Visionary,
Rationality, etc.
DiSC: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness
15. Experience: Personality Types
E or I
Will you go home today tired or energized?
When you attend a party do you go home tired or energized?
Exercise
Form group of E and a group of I
Come up with 3 questions to ask the other group
16. Experience: Personality Types
S or N
The "Sensing" preference absorbs data in a literal, concrete fashion.
The "Intuitive" preference generates abstract possibilities from information that is
gathered.
Exercise
Form group of S and a group of N
Describe the Object
Share with group
17. Experience: Personality Types
T or F
When someone makes a decision that is based on logic and reason, they are
operating in Thinking mode.
When someone makes a decision that is based on their value system, or what
they believe to be right, they are operating in Feeling mode.
Exercise
Form group of T and a group of F
You are hiring someone for a job. One candidate had a perfect resume and
interview. The other candidate was not as outstanding as the first, however the
second candidate is a single parent and really needs a job. You can only hire
one person. Who do you hire and why?
18. Experience: Personality Types
J or P
"I take my work seriously, and can enjoy myself only after I've taken care of my
responsibilities.”
“First and foremost, I must enjoy what I do. It is easy to be responsible and
committed to work I enjoy.”
Exercise
No talking
Form a line from front to back of the room as a continuum.
Front of the room Responsibility First (see first bullet above).
Back of the room Enjoyment First (see second bullet above0.
19. Stage 2: Storming
What it may look like:
Adolescence
Power/control/trust issues
Air differences of opinion, arguments, disagreements
Competition for formal and informal leadership roles on the team
Team beginning to understand each other
What you can do:
Give and Receive Feedback
Temperature Reading
Celebrate Small Team Achievements
Socialize
FORMING
Team Members:
Low competence, high commitment
Leader:
High directive, low supportive behavior
Nuggets of Goodness:
• Crucial Conversations
• Crucial Confrontations
• Agile Retrospectives: Making
Good Teams Great
20. Giving and Receiving Feedback
Make sure your feedback is constructive
Give feedback with caring and respect
What do I want for me?
What do I want for the other person?
What do I want for our relationship?
No praise, no blame
Be direct
Don’t sandwich it between compliments or complaints
Don’t sugar coat it
Don’t say things such as “Others think…” “The perception is…” : Own it “I
saw/heard/observed..”
Give positive feedback too…but not at the same time as constructive feedback
21. How to Give Feedback
Create an opening.
“Can we talk? Julie, I’d like to tell you about one specific thing that you did that was
a problem for me.”
Describe the behavior or results.
“When I saw/heard/learned that you (describe the behavior you want to
discourage), …”
State the impact.
“I felt ___ because (describe the impact).”
Make the request.
“What I would prefer to happen is (state what you would like to happen instead).
Can you do this next time?”
22. How to Receive Feedback
Remember that feedback is a gift.
Breathe.
Listen carefully. Don’t interrupt or discourage the person giving you
feedback.
Ask for specific examples, get clarity.
Take time to think about what you heard.
Keep what you can use.
Consider if you are willing to make a change and let the person know.
23. Experience: Giving and Receiving
Feedback
Partner with someone you do not know.
Take turns delivering the feedback on the cards to each other.
For each card,
Decide the role of the giver and receiver
Decide if the receiver is going to react positively or negatively
Repeat the card again, changing the roles and the reaction of the
receiver.
25. Appreciation cards
Name
Date
Send around the table and each person writes one thing that they
appreciate <name> for during the last <iteration, release, project, etc>
26. Stage 3: Norming
What it may look like:
Cohesive group
Significant progress made on task goals
Conflicts are more substantial
Team members face their issues, accept feedback and act on it
What you can do:
Encourage problem identification and problem solving
Beware of Group Think; encourage Devil’s Advocate
Celebrate team accomplishments
Release retrospectives
Model and teach conflict management
FORMING
Team Members:
Low competence, high commitment
Leader:
High directive, low supportive behavior
Nuggets of Goodness:
• Teamwork is an Individual Skill
27. Experience: Teamwork
52 card pickup
Sort cards in order
3 iterations, each 2 minutes long
Dawn, Susan or Tami are product owners
The rules:
One deck of cards per team
Cannot sort until all cards are on the table
Only 1 card in each hand
No talking
28. Experience: Teamwork
Iteration 1
The rules:
Shuffle cards
Scatter cards for your opponents
Your team will pick up your cards and sort in order
No talking!
One card in each hand at a time!
29. Experience: Teamwork
Iteration 2
The rules:
2 minutes to plan
Shuffle cards
Scatter cards for your opponents
Your team will pick up your cards and sort in order by face value
No talking!
One card in each hand at a time!
30. Experience: Teamwork
Iteration 3
The rules:
2 minutes to plan
Shuffle cards
Scatter cards for your opponents
Your team will pick up your cards and sort in order by face value and suit
No talking!
One card in each hand at a time!
31. Teamwork and Responsibility
Accountability vs. Responsibility
Accountability – others hold you accountable
Responsibility – you choose responsibility. Your ability to respond.
Responsibility is not
Denial
Lay Blame
Justification
Shame
Obligation
Quit
32. Experience: Non musical chairs
Do not let facilitator sit in a chair
No moving chairs
If you stand up, you must sit in the empty chair and you cannot sit back in
your chair
No calls to HR: no touching or pushing the facilitator
33. Team Dysfunction
As you evaluate where teams are in terms of maturity and what you can
do to help, also consider these (hard) questions:
Is the system in place in your organization causing team issues?
Is the company or department causing team issues?
Are you causing team issues?
Are the wrong people on the team?
34. Conflict
Conflict is going to happen.
Conflict can be constructive or destructive.
Conflict can be good, helpful and healthy.
Conflict can escalate and create a negative team environment.
Before rushing in to fix conflict, observe the situation to get a better view of
the issues. Listen to the language and see if the team can resolve the
conflict on their own.
35. Conflict – a framework
Level Name Characteristic Language Type Environment
1 Problem to Solve Information sharing
and collaboration
Open and fact-based People have differing opinions
Conflicting goals or values
Not comfortable but not emotionally charged
2 Disagreement Personal protection
trumps resolving the
conflict
Guarded and open to
interpretation
Self-protection becomes important
Team members distance themselves from the
debate
Discussions occur off-line
Good natured joking moves to half joking barbs
3 Contest Winning trumps
resolving the conflict
Includes personal
attacks
The aim is to win
People take sides
Blaming flourishes
4 Crusade Protecting one’s own
group becomes the
focus
Ideological Resolving the situation is not good enough
Team members believe that members “on the
other side” won’t change and need removed
5 World War Destroy the other! Little or non-existent “Destroy!” is the battle cry
The combatants must be separated
No constructive outcome can be had
Framework from Speed B. Leas
36. Stage 4: Performing
What it may look like:
Highly productive and high morale
Satisfaction at team progress
Trust that each team member will do his or her part
Commitment
Close attachment to team; team is like a clique
Conflicts resolved
What you can do:
Mentoring
Focus on continuous improvement
Manage transitions out of the team
Retrospectives
Keep celebrating
FORMING
Team Members:
Low competence, high commitment
Leader:
High directive, low supportive behavior
37. Experience: The Chair Exercise
Rules
3 teams
Select a team lead for your team
NO TALKING
NO mouthing of words
NO trips to the ER
NO calls to HR
38. Stage 5: Adjourning/Mourning
What it may look like:
Team members may move to different teams
Sadness or sense of loss
What you can do:
Don’t ignore it!
Help bring closure
CELEBRATE!
40. Full Circle
Review what you wanted from the day.
Any outstanding questions or thoughts?
41. Nuggets of Goodness
Crucial Conversations, Kerry Patterson
Crucial Confrontations, Kerry Patterson
Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great, Esther Derby and Diana
Larsen
The Deadline: A Novel about Project Management, Tom DeMarco
Teamwork is an Individual Skill, Christopher Avery
Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management, Johanna Rothman and
Esther Derby
Johanna Rothman books: http://www.jrothman.com/books/
Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace We Love, Richard Sheridan
Beautiful Teams, Andrew Stellman & Jennifer Greene
42. Nuggets of Goodness
Free Myers Briggs test http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
Sites with good info on the Myers Briggs personality types
http://www.personalitypage.com/INFJ.html (change the INFJ letters to the type
you want to view)
http://www.16personalities.com/personality-types
Problem Solving Leadership workshop:
http://www.estherderby.com/problem-solving-leadership-psl
Coaching Beyond the Team: http://www.estherderby.com/coaching-
beyond-the-team-influencing-the-organization
Christopher Avery’s site http://www.christopheravery.com/
www.tastycupcakes.com – has great ideas for exercises
43. Experience: Switching Costs
Each team selects someone who knows the following
How to count to 10
First 10 letters of the alphabet
First 10 Roman Numerals
Each team selects a time keeper
