Being Agile: Team Got To Know Its Limitations

#SridharPeddisetty #Agile #BeingAgile #Scrum #Motivational #ProjectManagement #Management #AgileBestPractices #Team

"A man's got to know his limitations”, a quote made immortal by Clint Eastwood in the 1973 movie Magnum Force. I am not a movie buff but do like to rewatch classics once in a while and the inspiration to write this blog came right after watching Clint deliver his famous one liner. While adopting Agile development practices, its often seen that Organizations have a great deal of passion and good intentions. But unfortunately the intent alone is not enough if the attempt involved either the adoption scope to be too large or at a pace too fast for the organization, whose culture is not ready. 

For successful adoption of Agile across Organization, its important to start with one or two pilot teams. For the team to be successful in adopting Agile practices, its important to get to know its limitations. Intimately knowing and addressing team limits, a lot could be truly accomplished. Below are my tips in identifying team limitations and playing to their strength for successful adoption of 'Being Agile'. 

#1. Deep philosophical understanding of Agile: In my earlier post An Agilist Needs More Than Training To Succeed, I had shared that getting trained in Agile does not necessarily mean that we have started thinking ‘Agile’. After training, it is important to work in your Org towards bringing in changes including predictable delivery by taking small steps in developing an environment, which fosters a collaboration culture with a shared vision across the Org. 

#2. Get familiar with individual team skills: Agile encourages team to consist of self performing & cross functional team members. Its important to understand the skills of each team member including front end, back end and other needed skills in the sprint (or) project. While grooming or planning, its essential to identify and play to the strengths of individual team members.  While finalizing the team, one needs to be very clear what the objectives are and what they need to deliver individually as a member and collectively as a team.

#3. Set clear goals for the team: Its vital for each member to understand how their individual goal fits into the overall objective. For a team to be highly productive, its vital for them to understand what they are delivering as a team and how the deliverables are going to be measured. A team, which understands the importance of what they are delivering will always be highly productive and will adhere to much higher standards than one with no clear purpose. 

#4. Provide team the necessary tools: Performance of any project team is only as successful as the weakest link in the team. So we need to constantly nurture the individual team members while providing the necessary tools to be productive. For instance, once we have identified the weakling, its necessary to plan the mitigation either by pair programming or mentoring by cross training or guiding. Keep in mind that a happy team would automatically take care of keeping your client(s) happy so its important for the team to be equipped with right & necessary tools.

#5. Build in culture of continuous improvement: Its essential to create a robust environment where feedback is encouraged, appreciated and taken (or) given on a standard basis. Without proper guidelines, measurements and feedback, it is very easy for team to fall into a spiral trap of stress, demotivation and rapid disintegration. When the right culture of continuous improvement is put in place, it always guarantees a well-functioning, highly motivated and goal-driven team. 

Summary

While the practitioners of Agile are still divided into teams that are highly productive ‘Being Agile' and teams that are not. In my experience, team is successful in adopting Agile when it understands well its limitations and plays to its strength within the known constraints while continuously striving to improve. Teams that usually fail in adopting Agile successfully or struggle in their adoption are the ones that are usually leaning towards why something will not work rather than working on finding solutions to the constraints. 

Share your thoughts in the comments sections to the best team management practices you employ while practicing Agile. 

Previous posts you might be interested in

• Active Listening Is Key For A Successful Delivery 
• Kanban & DevOps - Forming A Perfect Alliance
• An Agilist Needs More Than Training To Succeed

What Is The 'Shark' In Your Fish Tank Today?

#SridharPeddisetty #Motivational #Inspirational #Leadership #Management #Agile #ProjectManagement 

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish but the water close to Japan has not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The further the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring the fish and if the return trip took more time, the fish were not fresh. To solve this problem, fish companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea and freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen fish and they did not like the taste of frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price and so fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, they were tired, dull, and lost their fresh-fish taste. The fishing industry faced an impending crisis! But today, they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan. How did they manage? To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks but with a small shark. The fish are challenged and hence are constantly on the move. The challenge they face keeps them alive and fresh!

Many of us are living in a pond, which is making us most of the time, tired and dull. We basically are in need of a ‘shark', which is the new challenge that is necessary to keep us alive and kicking. In my earlier post 5 Tips For You To Run Faster Than Somebody Today, I had shared how important it is to not only keep pace with current disruptive phase but to run faster with combination of your experience and knowledge.
As shared in the post Only If You Knew How Much You Actually Know, mantra for your success is your ability to understand the potential of the wisdom you have gained by correlating the knowledge gained in all your experience and using that wisdom to come out of your comfort zone and challenge the status quo.

Summary

To summarize, discover your shark and put it in your fish tank today to keep you alive, energized and fresh. As I had shared in the post Positive Attitude Defines Your Successful Career, we mostly underestimate the power of choice we make everyday and its worth reminding ourselves so often that its our positive attitude towards every aspect of life, which is what makes it a successful journey.

PS: Above was a WhatsApp forward so source is unknown but the message is worth sharing.

Previous posts you might be interested in

• Value Stream Mapping As A Process Improvement Tool
• Only If You Knew How Much You Actually Know
• 5 Tips For You To Run Faster Than Somebody Today

5 Reasons To Let Your Team Struggle Today

#SridharPeddisetty #Leadership #Management #Motivational #Inspirational #ProductiveTeams #TeamMotivation   
A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther. Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly. What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Struggles are exactly what we need in our life to emerge stronger and smarter. Same philosophy is at times applicable when your team is struggling. As a leader, create safety net just enough not to let the team fail completely but mentor the team to face the adversities themselves. In my earlier post 'Empower Your Team To Own Responsibilities’, I shared why its important to empower your team and let them own their responsibilities. With the empowerment, team is in a better position to learn from their struggles. So here are the 5 reasons why you need to let your team struggle today

#1. Development of second rung leadership - In the face of adversity would emerge your next leaders, who emerge stronger and smarter.

#2. Revaluation of team goals - provides an opportunity to reevaluate team goals and align them as needed. 

#3. Reassessment of team skills - provides an opportunity to reassess skills needed by the team to perform more efficiently. 

#4. Opportunity of change - provides an opportunity to change for the good whether its letting go someone or changing the work culture. 

#5. Better team dynamics - provides an opportunity (provided handled properly) to increase the team dynamics as the team struggles together and emergencies victorious. 

If God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. And we could never fly.

Previous posts you might be interested in

• Empower Your Team To Own Responsibilities
• Trust Your Team But Make Sure To Verify
• Is there a rope holding you in managing

5 Reasons To Let Your Team Struggle Today was originally published in LinkedIn