Why self-organization might not work, and what has that to do with the company organization…

agile42 | the agile coaching company www.agile42.com | All rights reserved. Copyright © 2007 - 2015.
Why Self-Organization might
not work…
And what has that to do with the company
organization…

Andrea Tomasini
Agile Coach & Trainer
andrea.tomasini@agile42.com
@tumma72
@agile42/coaches

Teamwork, Synergy and
Performance…
How to group of people become teams, and how do they
grow or not… to a certain level of performance

agile42 | The Agile Coaching Company www.agile42.com | All rights reserved. Copyright ©2007-2015
Forming Storming Norming Performing
Tuckman, Katzenbach & Smith…
Performance
Team Eﬀectiveness (Maturity)
Working

Group
Pseudo

Team
Potential

Team
Real

Team
High

Performing

Team

Tuckman, Katzenbach & Smith… (with Coaching)
Performance
Team Eﬀectiveness (Maturity)
Forming Storming Norming Performing
Pseudo

Team
Potential

Team
Real

Team
High

Performing

Team
Working

Group

The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team
“Teamwork remains the one
sustainable competitive
advantage that has been
largely untapped.”

Patrick Lencioni

Dysfunctions #1
The fear to be vulnerable with
team members prevents the
building of trust within the
team.

☞ This is vulnerability based
trust: “I was wrong”, “I made a
mistake”, “I need your help”

☞ Work with people to gain
trust
Absence of

TRUST

Dysfunctions #2
The desire to preserve artificial
harmony stifles the occurrence
of productive, ideological
conflict.

☞ This is healthy, passionate
debate: “What do you think of
this idea?”

☞ Trust is essential for conflict
Fear of

CONFLICT
Absence of

TRUST

Dysfunctions #3
The lack of clarity and/or fear of
being wrong prevents team
members from making
decisions in a timely and
definitive way.

☞ This is all the cards on the
table: “Can you commit to this
idea?”

☞ Healthy debate leads to
commitment
Lack of

COMMITMENT
Fear of

CONFLICT
Absence of

TRUST

Dysfunctions #4
The need to avoid interpersonal
discomfort prevents team
members from holding one
another accountable for their
behaviors.

This is holding others
accountable for their behavior

Peer to peer is powerful
Avoidance of

ACCOUNTABILITY
Lack of

COMMITMENT
Absence of

TRUST
Fear of

CONFLICT

Dysfunctions #5
The desire for individual credit
erodes the focus on collective
success.

☞ This is about what the team
is trying to achieve more than a
member’s personal interest
Inattention to

RESULTS
Lack of
COMMITMENT
Absence of
TRUST
Fear of
CONFLICT
Avoidance of

ACCOUNTABILITY

Agile Values & Principles
Agile Values & Principles are supporting teams developing
the right attitude to enable continuos and regular value
delivering to the client, while continuously improving

agile42 | We advise, train and coach companies building software www.agile42.com | All rights reserved. Copyright © 2007 - 2014.agile42 | We advise, train and coach companies building software www.agile42.com | All rights reserved. Copyright © 2007 - 2009.
Individuals & interactions
Working software
Customer collaboration
Responding to change
Processes & tools
Comprehensive documentation
Contract negotiation
Following a plan
o
v
e
r
We recognize
the value here...We value
this more….

Self-Organization
Teams are organizing and managing themselves, as they
are taking responsibility to deliver value and maximize their
effectiveness and efﬁciency

self-
organized
managed
leader

...all on the same boat...all on the same boat

agile42 | We advise, train and coach companies building software www.agile42.com | All rights reserved. Copyright © 2007 - 2014.
Enabling Constraints Clear Direction
Creative Environment

Process Control
Agile is based on empirical control, through transparency, inspection and
adaptation the best processes are emerging while doing, and only retrospectively it
is possible to recognize successful adaptation from non successful ones

Deﬁned Process Control
The time required to complete a
repeatable action is a valid proxy
to predict time to complete

Statistical Process
Control
Based on analysis of historical
data, and repeatable patterns

68!
10s 20s5s 15s
20 38 52
80? 76? 69?

Empirical Process
Control
Every step performed while creating a
new product is unique, only outcome
can be trusted

Deﬁned Control
Repeatable Mechanical Activities
Statistical Control
Moderate Uncertainty and Variations
Empirical Control
High Uncertainty and Variations
€
€€
€€€

Pull Principle
Agile approaches are based on pull principle which allows self-organizing teams to
pull in work and knowledge as needed in order to deliver valuable quality software

Push
Pull
Individual
Team
Compliance
Collaboration Com
petition
Focusonvalue

Lean Thinking
Lean Thinking inspired process improvement through constant observation of the
unevenness in a ﬂow, resources or people overburdening and elimination of
wasteful activities

Sakichi Toyoda
(1867-1930)
• Founder of the Toyota Automatic
Loom Works, ltd.
• Inventor of the manual and
machine-powered looms
• Initiator of the Lean Thinking
• For-runner of the Toyota
Production System, by deﬁning
the Jidoka: “Autonomation”

Overburden
(:muri)
do not overload your
People

Unnecessary
Variations
(斑: mura) keep the Flow
Even

Wasteful
Activities
( : muda)
remove non value adding
Activities

Iterative & Incremental
Delivering a product in subsequent iterative releases, not only improves the explicit
quality of it, it also allows everybody involved in its development as well as every
stakeholder, to learn better what is really needed to support a business vision

agile42 | We advise, train and coach companies building software www.agile42.com | All rights reserved. Copyright © 2007 - 2014.agile42 | We advise, train and coach companies building software www.agile42.com | All rights reserved. Copyright © 2007 - 2009.agile42 | We advise, train and coach companies building software www.agile42.com | All rights reserved. Copyright © 2007 - 2009.
I need to move from A to B faster, and avoid
traffic…

I am not that good at stating in equilibrium I
need something more stable…

I am stable now, but not fast as I would
like to be, can we go faster?

I figure I am pretty tired in the evening, and
though I like sport, I still need to be faster

Inspect the outcome and
learn to validate your
assumptions & hypothesis
What is this?

Organizational transition to
agile…
The way the organization between people evolve with agile
can be represented by 5 transitional states…

Agile Leadership Progression Timeline (1/5)
Leader’s Skills
• Technical Expert
• Planner & Organizer
• Delegator
• Controller
Characteristics
• Controlling
• Individual Evaluation
• Individual Reward
Hierarchical

Leader’s Skills
• Group Communication
• Problem Solver
• Conﬂict Resolution
• Group Dynamic
Characteristics
• Participative
• Individual Evaluation
• Individual Reward
Enlightened

Leader’s Skills
• Facilitator
• Leader
• Conﬂict Resolution
Characteristics
• Participative
• Collaborative
• Team Evaluation
• Team Reward
Shared

Leader’s Skills
• Coach
• Benchmarking
Characteristics
• Collaborative
• Peer Evaluation
• Team Reward
Coordinated

Leader’s Skills
• Strategic Planner
Characteristics
• Empowered
• Peer Evaluation
• Team Reward
• Team Recruitment
Agile

2nd Principle: focus on value
and organize accordingly
Focusing on value means to make sure that there are as
few obstacles as possible in the direction of the value
streams…

The matrix organization…
SubSystem1
SubSystem2
SubSystem3
Infrastructure
Operations
PMO
Project 1
Project 2
Project 3
… optimized for utilization, not value delivery…
Handovers and coordination
Value
Client
Push in the lines

Stream 1
Stream 2
Stream 3
The agile organization…
SubSystem1
SubSystem2
SubSystem3
Infrastructure
Operations
… optimized for value delivery and time to market
Value
Client
Pull on the streams

3rd Principle: decentralize
control whenever possible
Decentralization of control and decision making, reduces
the feedback loops, and enables faster reaction times. It
requires deﬁning goals and constraints to allow for
autonomous decision making.

Control !
Worker 1
Sub 1
Worker 2
Sub 2 Sub 3
The hierarchical organization… Centralized Control,
ends up overloaded,
introducing delays
Requests
Authorization
the design is based on mistrust…
Information&power

Container for empowerment
Worker 3Worker 2
The agile organization… Decentralized
Control reduces
overhead, and
encourage
collaboration
the design is based on trust…
Worker 1
Collaboration
Information&power

• Both on the “budget”
level, as well as on the
expected delivery and
preparation levels
• This level of
transparency allows to
build trust between
Portfolio Management
and self-organizing
teams
• Clear Policies
describing the
range of autonomy
the teams have

• Every team has two “avatars” to
volunteer on upcoming
Opportunities
• The Opportunity Owner will get in
touch with the team to get their
input and enrich the backlog

Thank
You!

More food for thought...
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