In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
3. Also, some of things mentioned about bad behavior are a bit subjective \u2013 for example, his negative influence on other junior contractors? what are they? how has Mary come to know about? what is the adverse impact of being stone-faced in meetings? Being argumentative may be for a valid cause and openly to discuss dissent? Is that not good? I think there is a line separating some of these things before being labelled good or bad. It may even be that the problem is with Mary (SM) and not Vivek! Coach may have to observe more if he has not seen\/sensed already\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
2. Vivek\u2019s complaint about commuting time may not be such a red herring as it seems on first sight; may be he shifted residence recently; May be as a contractor, he is not eligible for company pick-up and drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Also, some of things mentioned about bad behavior are a bit subjective \u2013 for example, his negative influence on other junior contractors? what are they? how has Mary come to know about? what is the adverse impact of being stone-faced in meetings? Being argumentative may be for a valid cause and openly to discuss dissent? Is that not good? I think there is a line separating some of these things before being labelled good or bad. It may even be that the problem is with Mary (SM) and not Vivek! Coach may have to observe more if he has not seen\/sensed already\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
1. On the surface, it appears that the \u201ccontainer\u201d (viz., organization policy) has imposed a constraint on who can approve baselines which has contributed to Vivek\u2019s dysfunctional behavior; however, Vivek has been in the organization for two years and has apparently contributed and continues to contribute well on technical aspects; so, his dysfunctional behavior seem to have started recently. So, there may be other causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Vivek\u2019s complaint about commuting time may not be such a red herring as it seems on first sight; may be he shifted residence recently; May be as a contractor, he is not eligible for company pick-up and drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Also, some of things mentioned about bad behavior are a bit subjective \u2013 for example, his negative influence on other junior contractors? what are they? how has Mary come to know about? what is the adverse impact of being stone-faced in meetings? Being argumentative may be for a valid cause and openly to discuss dissent? Is that not good? I think there is a line separating some of these things before being labelled good or bad. It may even be that the problem is with Mary (SM) and not Vivek! Coach may have to observe more if he has not seen\/sensed already\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Suggested solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. On the surface, it appears that the \u201ccontainer\u201d (viz., organization policy) has imposed a constraint on who can approve baselines which has contributed to Vivek\u2019s dysfunctional behavior; however, Vivek has been in the organization for two years and has apparently contributed and continues to contribute well on technical aspects; so, his dysfunctional behavior seem to have started recently. So, there may be other causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Vivek\u2019s complaint about commuting time may not be such a red herring as it seems on first sight; may be he shifted residence recently; May be as a contractor, he is not eligible for company pick-up and drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Also, some of things mentioned about bad behavior are a bit subjective \u2013 for example, his negative influence on other junior contractors? what are they? how has Mary come to know about? what is the adverse impact of being stone-faced in meetings? Being argumentative may be for a valid cause and openly to discuss dissent? Is that not good? I think there is a line separating some of these things before being labelled good or bad. It may even be that the problem is with Mary (SM) and not Vivek! Coach may have to observe more if he has not seen\/sensed already\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Mary wants to know how to turn Vivek around. What would be your recommendation to her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. On the surface, it appears that the \u201ccontainer\u201d (viz., organization policy) has imposed a constraint on who can approve baselines which has contributed to Vivek\u2019s dysfunctional behavior; however, Vivek has been in the organization for two years and has apparently contributed and continues to contribute well on technical aspects; so, his dysfunctional behavior seem to have started recently. So, there may be other causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Vivek\u2019s complaint about commuting time may not be such a red herring as it seems on first sight; may be he shifted residence recently; May be as a contractor, he is not eligible for company pick-up and drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Also, some of things mentioned about bad behavior are a bit subjective \u2013 for example, his negative influence on other junior contractors? what are they? how has Mary come to know about? what is the adverse impact of being stone-faced in meetings? Being argumentative may be for a valid cause and openly to discuss dissent? Is that not good? I think there is a line separating some of these things before being labelled good or bad. It may even be that the problem is with Mary (SM) and not Vivek! Coach may have to observe more if he has not seen\/sensed already\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
As a coach, you observe the behavior of Vivek and find him stone-faced in meetings and argumentative at times. Vivek seems to complete his tasks on time but the related stories do not get closed. However, he is there in all the scrum ceremonies on time and participates as necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary wants to know how to turn Vivek around. What would be your recommendation to her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. On the surface, it appears that the \u201ccontainer\u201d (viz., organization policy) has imposed a constraint on who can approve baselines which has contributed to Vivek\u2019s dysfunctional behavior; however, Vivek has been in the organization for two years and has apparently contributed and continues to contribute well on technical aspects; so, his dysfunctional behavior seem to have started recently. So, there may be other causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Vivek\u2019s complaint about commuting time may not be such a red herring as it seems on first sight; may be he shifted residence recently; May be as a contractor, he is not eligible for company pick-up and drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Also, some of things mentioned about bad behavior are a bit subjective \u2013 for example, his negative influence on other junior contractors? what are they? how has Mary come to know about? what is the adverse impact of being stone-faced in meetings? Being argumentative may be for a valid cause and openly to discuss dissent? Is that not good? I think there is a line separating some of these things before being labelled good or bad. It may even be that the problem is with Mary (SM) and not Vivek! Coach may have to observe more if he has not seen\/sensed already\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
The scrum master, Mary, wore a worried look on her face when you met her 1:1. She was concerned about the attitude of Vivek, a senior developer in the team \u2013 respected by the team for his technical skills. Vivek is a contractor and has been with this team for couple of years. Mary tells you, \u201cVivek\u2019s enthusiasm has dropped and he picks up bare minimum work. He has told the contracting company that he would like change complaining about commute time to office. He is unhappy with not having rights to approve code baselines like permanent employees. What\u2019s worse \u2013 he is negatively influencing some of the junior contractors and impacting their attitude. Overall Vivek\u2019s productivity has dropped and other team members find him difficult to work with. I have spoken to him multiple times with no improvement. He is a critical technical resource and is important for this release. I don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a coach, you observe the behavior of Vivek and find him stone-faced in meetings and argumentative at times. Vivek seems to complete his tasks on time but the related stories do not get closed. However, he is there in all the scrum ceremonies on time and participates as necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary wants to know how to turn Vivek around. What would be your recommendation to her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. On the surface, it appears that the \u201ccontainer\u201d (viz., organization policy) has imposed a constraint on who can approve baselines which has contributed to Vivek\u2019s dysfunctional behavior; however, Vivek has been in the organization for two years and has apparently contributed and continues to contribute well on technical aspects; so, his dysfunctional behavior seem to have started recently. So, there may be other causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Vivek\u2019s complaint about commuting time may not be such a red herring as it seems on first sight; may be he shifted residence recently; May be as a contractor, he is not eligible for company pick-up and drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Also, some of things mentioned about bad behavior are a bit subjective \u2013 for example, his negative influence on other junior contractors? what are they? how has Mary come to know about? what is the adverse impact of being stone-faced in meetings? Being argumentative may be for a valid cause and openly to discuss dissent? Is that not good? I think there is a line separating some of these things before being labelled good or bad. It may even be that the problem is with Mary (SM) and not Vivek! Coach may have to observe more if he has not seen\/sensed already\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
You are coaching an agile team in India which has been practising agile for the last three releases. The team has been stable and has embraced agile with enthusiasm. Product management team is based out of the U.S. with a local product owner who worked with the team every day. Management is happy with the team\u2019s progress and the results thus far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scrum master, Mary, wore a worried look on her face when you met her 1:1. She was concerned about the attitude of Vivek, a senior developer in the team \u2013 respected by the team for his technical skills. Vivek is a contractor and has been with this team for couple of years. Mary tells you, \u201cVivek\u2019s enthusiasm has dropped and he picks up bare minimum work. He has told the contracting company that he would like change complaining about commute time to office. He is unhappy with not having rights to approve code baselines like permanent employees. What\u2019s worse \u2013 he is negatively influencing some of the junior contractors and impacting their attitude. Overall Vivek\u2019s productivity has dropped and other team members find him difficult to work with. I have spoken to him multiple times with no improvement. He is a critical technical resource and is important for this release. I don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a coach, you observe the behavior of Vivek and find him stone-faced in meetings and argumentative at times. Vivek seems to complete his tasks on time but the related stories do not get closed. However, he is there in all the scrum ceremonies on time and participates as necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary wants to know how to turn Vivek around. What would be your recommendation to her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. On the surface, it appears that the \u201ccontainer\u201d (viz., organization policy) has imposed a constraint on who can approve baselines which has contributed to Vivek\u2019s dysfunctional behavior; however, Vivek has been in the organization for two years and has apparently contributed and continues to contribute well on technical aspects; so, his dysfunctional behavior seem to have started recently. So, there may be other causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Vivek\u2019s complaint about commuting time may not be such a red herring as it seems on first sight; may be he shifted residence recently; May be as a contractor, he is not eligible for company pick-up and drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Also, some of things mentioned about bad behavior are a bit subjective \u2013 for example, his negative influence on other junior contractors? what are they? how has Mary come to know about? what is the adverse impact of being stone-faced in meetings? Being argumentative may be for a valid cause and openly to discuss dissent? Is that not good? I think there is a line separating some of these things before being labelled good or bad. It may even be that the problem is with Mary (SM) and not Vivek! Coach may have to observe more if he has not seen\/sensed already\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
In conclusion, <\/em><\/strong>I feel that by influencing the container, differences and exchanges, a coach can facilitate the process of self-organization and improve the performance of the team!<\/em><\/p>\n","post_title":"Enabling self-organization of Agile teams","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"enabling-self-organization","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:41:35","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:41:35","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/blogs\/?p=5624","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":7239,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-08-27 16:11:32","post_date_gmt":"2016-08-27 10:41:32","post_content":"\n You are coaching an agile team in India which has been practising agile for the last three releases. The team has been stable and has embraced agile with enthusiasm. Product management team is based out of the U.S. with a local product owner who worked with the team every day. Management is happy with the team\u2019s progress and the results thus far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scrum master, Mary, wore a worried look on her face when you met her 1:1. She was concerned about the attitude of Vivek, a senior developer in the team \u2013 respected by the team for his technical skills. Vivek is a contractor and has been with this team for couple of years. Mary tells you, \u201cVivek\u2019s enthusiasm has dropped and he picks up bare minimum work. He has told the contracting company that he would like change complaining about commute time to office. He is unhappy with not having rights to approve code baselines like permanent employees. What\u2019s worse \u2013 he is negatively influencing some of the junior contractors and impacting their attitude. Overall Vivek\u2019s productivity has dropped and other team members find him difficult to work with. I have spoken to him multiple times with no improvement. He is a critical technical resource and is important for this release. I don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a coach, you observe the behavior of Vivek and find him stone-faced in meetings and argumentative at times. Vivek seems to complete his tasks on time but the related stories do not get closed. However, he is there in all the scrum ceremonies on time and participates as necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary wants to know how to turn Vivek around. What would be your recommendation to her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. On the surface, it appears that the \u201ccontainer\u201d (viz., organization policy) has imposed a constraint on who can approve baselines which has contributed to Vivek\u2019s dysfunctional behavior; however, Vivek has been in the organization for two years and has apparently contributed and continues to contribute well on technical aspects; so, his dysfunctional behavior seem to have started recently. So, there may be other causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Vivek\u2019s complaint about commuting time may not be such a red herring as it seems on first sight; may be he shifted residence recently; May be as a contractor, he is not eligible for company pick-up and drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Also, some of things mentioned about bad behavior are a bit subjective \u2013 for example, his negative influence on other junior contractors? what are they? how has Mary come to know about? what is the adverse impact of being stone-faced in meetings? Being argumentative may be for a valid cause and openly to discuss dissent? Is that not good? I think there is a line separating some of these things before being labelled good or bad. It may even be that the problem is with Mary (SM) and not Vivek! Coach may have to observe more if he has not seen\/sensed already\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Let us look at another intervention that facilitated self-organization. This team, although new to agile, was doing reasonably well in delivering their committed stories. There was one issue though \u2013 some \u2018done\u2019 stories started showing some issues in later sprints. Team discussed the issue in their retrospective \u2013 without any conclusions. There was no finger-pointing but they could not figure out how to tweak their processes. When I asked the team \u201cwhat data would help them work out a solution?\u201d, then they realized there was hardly any data to discuss the issue objectively. Team decided to start capturing relevant data like \u2018number of unit tests\u2019, \u2018number of tests by the tester\u2019, \u2018defect analysis to identify source of defects\u2019, etc. When they reviewed this data in each sprint retrospective, they started figuring out suitable solutions. Essentially, coach enabled a new \u2018exchange\u2019 <\/strong>\u2013 sharing of quality-related information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In conclusion, <\/em><\/strong>I feel that by influencing the container, differences and exchanges, a coach can facilitate the process of self-organization and improve the performance of the team!<\/em><\/p>\n","post_title":"Enabling self-organization of Agile teams","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"enabling-self-organization","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:41:35","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:41:35","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/blogs\/?p=5624","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":7239,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-08-27 16:11:32","post_date_gmt":"2016-08-27 10:41:32","post_content":"\n You are coaching an agile team in India which has been practising agile for the last three releases. The team has been stable and has embraced agile with enthusiasm. Product management team is based out of the U.S. with a local product owner who worked with the team every day. Management is happy with the team\u2019s progress and the results thus far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scrum master, Mary, wore a worried look on her face when you met her 1:1. She was concerned about the attitude of Vivek, a senior developer in the team \u2013 respected by the team for his technical skills. Vivek is a contractor and has been with this team for couple of years. Mary tells you, \u201cVivek\u2019s enthusiasm has dropped and he picks up bare minimum work. He has told the contracting company that he would like change complaining about commute time to office. He is unhappy with not having rights to approve code baselines like permanent employees. What\u2019s worse \u2013 he is negatively influencing some of the junior contractors and impacting their attitude. Overall Vivek\u2019s productivity has dropped and other team members find him difficult to work with. I have spoken to him multiple times with no improvement. He is a critical technical resource and is important for this release. I don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a coach, you observe the behavior of Vivek and find him stone-faced in meetings and argumentative at times. Vivek seems to complete his tasks on time but the related stories do not get closed. However, he is there in all the scrum ceremonies on time and participates as necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary wants to know how to turn Vivek around. What would be your recommendation to her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. On the surface, it appears that the \u201ccontainer\u201d (viz., organization policy) has imposed a constraint on who can approve baselines which has contributed to Vivek\u2019s dysfunctional behavior; however, Vivek has been in the organization for two years and has apparently contributed and continues to contribute well on technical aspects; so, his dysfunctional behavior seem to have started recently. So, there may be other causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Vivek\u2019s complaint about commuting time may not be such a red herring as it seems on first sight; may be he shifted residence recently; May be as a contractor, he is not eligible for company pick-up and drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Also, some of things mentioned about bad behavior are a bit subjective \u2013 for example, his negative influence on other junior contractors? what are they? how has Mary come to know about? what is the adverse impact of being stone-faced in meetings? Being argumentative may be for a valid cause and openly to discuss dissent? Is that not good? I think there is a line separating some of these things before being labelled good or bad. It may even be that the problem is with Mary (SM) and not Vivek! Coach may have to observe more if he has not seen\/sensed already\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Experience #3 \u2013 Let us look at data<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us look at another intervention that facilitated self-organization. This team, although new to agile, was doing reasonably well in delivering their committed stories. There was one issue though \u2013 some \u2018done\u2019 stories started showing some issues in later sprints. Team discussed the issue in their retrospective \u2013 without any conclusions. There was no finger-pointing but they could not figure out how to tweak their processes. When I asked the team \u201cwhat data would help them work out a solution?\u201d, then they realized there was hardly any data to discuss the issue objectively. Team decided to start capturing relevant data like \u2018number of unit tests\u2019, \u2018number of tests by the tester\u2019, \u2018defect analysis to identify source of defects\u2019, etc. When they reviewed this data in each sprint retrospective, they started figuring out suitable solutions. Essentially, coach enabled a new \u2018exchange\u2019 <\/strong>\u2013 sharing of quality-related information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In conclusion, <\/em><\/strong>I feel that by influencing the container, differences and exchanges, a coach can facilitate the process of self-organization and improve the performance of the team!<\/em><\/p>\n","post_title":"Enabling self-organization of Agile teams","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"enabling-self-organization","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:41:35","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:41:35","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/blogs\/?p=5624","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":7239,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-08-27 16:11:32","post_date_gmt":"2016-08-27 10:41:32","post_content":"\n You are coaching an agile team in India which has been practising agile for the last three releases. The team has been stable and has embraced agile with enthusiasm. Product management team is based out of the U.S. with a local product owner who worked with the team every day. Management is happy with the team\u2019s progress and the results thus far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scrum master, Mary, wore a worried look on her face when you met her 1:1. She was concerned about the attitude of Vivek, a senior developer in the team \u2013 respected by the team for his technical skills. Vivek is a contractor and has been with this team for couple of years. Mary tells you, \u201cVivek\u2019s enthusiasm has dropped and he picks up bare minimum work. He has told the contracting company that he would like change complaining about commute time to office. He is unhappy with not having rights to approve code baselines like permanent employees. What\u2019s worse \u2013 he is negatively influencing some of the junior contractors and impacting their attitude. Overall Vivek\u2019s productivity has dropped and other team members find him difficult to work with. I have spoken to him multiple times with no improvement. He is a critical technical resource and is important for this release. I don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a coach, you observe the behavior of Vivek and find him stone-faced in meetings and argumentative at times. Vivek seems to complete his tasks on time but the related stories do not get closed. However, he is there in all the scrum ceremonies on time and participates as necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary wants to know how to turn Vivek around. What would be your recommendation to her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. On the surface, it appears that the \u201ccontainer\u201d (viz., organization policy) has imposed a constraint on who can approve baselines which has contributed to Vivek\u2019s dysfunctional behavior; however, Vivek has been in the organization for two years and has apparently contributed and continues to contribute well on technical aspects; so, his dysfunctional behavior seem to have started recently. So, there may be other causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Vivek\u2019s complaint about commuting time may not be such a red herring as it seems on first sight; may be he shifted residence recently; May be as a contractor, he is not eligible for company pick-up and drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Also, some of things mentioned about bad behavior are a bit subjective \u2013 for example, his negative influence on other junior contractors? what are they? how has Mary come to know about? what is the adverse impact of being stone-faced in meetings? Being argumentative may be for a valid cause and openly to discuss dissent? Is that not good? I think there is a line separating some of these things before being labelled good or bad. It may even be that the problem is with Mary (SM) and not Vivek! Coach may have to observe more if he has not seen\/sensed already\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Here was an agile team which had done well to deliver on the last two releases beyond the expectations of the product owner. In the third release, team struggled and achieved only 30-40% of their committed stories in the first two sprints. Many regression defects started appearing and integrated code did not stabilize within the sprint. As a coach, I asked the question in the retrospective, \u2018what is different about this release?\u2019 After a brief discussion, it came to light that the earlier releases had enhancements to features while this release had couple of new features. After a few more probing questions, team came to the conclusion that the design of the new features needed more discussion within the team. A new process was established \u2013 step 1: team will flag stories that needed design discussions; step 2: there would be specific meetings held with the entire team to discuss the design of those flagged stories within the first two days of the sprint \u2013 essentially coach enabled the creation of a new \u2018exchange\u2019<\/strong> within the team. This helped reduce the regression issues and helped the team to improve its throughput!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Experience #3 \u2013 Let us look at data<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us look at another intervention that facilitated self-organization. This team, although new to agile, was doing reasonably well in delivering their committed stories. There was one issue though \u2013 some \u2018done\u2019 stories started showing some issues in later sprints. Team discussed the issue in their retrospective \u2013 without any conclusions. There was no finger-pointing but they could not figure out how to tweak their processes. When I asked the team \u201cwhat data would help them work out a solution?\u201d, then they realized there was hardly any data to discuss the issue objectively. Team decided to start capturing relevant data like \u2018number of unit tests\u2019, \u2018number of tests by the tester\u2019, \u2018defect analysis to identify source of defects\u2019, etc. When they reviewed this data in each sprint retrospective, they started figuring out suitable solutions. Essentially, coach enabled a new \u2018exchange\u2019 <\/strong>\u2013 sharing of quality-related information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In conclusion, <\/em><\/strong>I feel that by influencing the container, differences and exchanges, a coach can facilitate the process of self-organization and improve the performance of the team!<\/em><\/p>\n","post_title":"Enabling self-organization of Agile teams","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"enabling-self-organization","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:41:35","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:41:35","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/blogs\/?p=5624","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":7239,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-08-27 16:11:32","post_date_gmt":"2016-08-27 10:41:32","post_content":"\n You are coaching an agile team in India which has been practising agile for the last three releases. The team has been stable and has embraced agile with enthusiasm. Product management team is based out of the U.S. with a local product owner who worked with the team every day. Management is happy with the team\u2019s progress and the results thus far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scrum master, Mary, wore a worried look on her face when you met her 1:1. She was concerned about the attitude of Vivek, a senior developer in the team \u2013 respected by the team for his technical skills. Vivek is a contractor and has been with this team for couple of years. Mary tells you, \u201cVivek\u2019s enthusiasm has dropped and he picks up bare minimum work. He has told the contracting company that he would like change complaining about commute time to office. He is unhappy with not having rights to approve code baselines like permanent employees. What\u2019s worse \u2013 he is negatively influencing some of the junior contractors and impacting their attitude. Overall Vivek\u2019s productivity has dropped and other team members find him difficult to work with. I have spoken to him multiple times with no improvement. He is a critical technical resource and is important for this release. I don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a coach, you observe the behavior of Vivek and find him stone-faced in meetings and argumentative at times. Vivek seems to complete his tasks on time but the related stories do not get closed. However, he is there in all the scrum ceremonies on time and participates as necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary wants to know how to turn Vivek around. What would be your recommendation to her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. On the surface, it appears that the \u201ccontainer\u201d (viz., organization policy) has imposed a constraint on who can approve baselines which has contributed to Vivek\u2019s dysfunctional behavior; however, Vivek has been in the organization for two years and has apparently contributed and continues to contribute well on technical aspects; so, his dysfunctional behavior seem to have started recently. So, there may be other causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Vivek\u2019s complaint about commuting time may not be such a red herring as it seems on first sight; may be he shifted residence recently; May be as a contractor, he is not eligible for company pick-up and drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Also, some of things mentioned about bad behavior are a bit subjective \u2013 for example, his negative influence on other junior contractors? what are they? how has Mary come to know about? what is the adverse impact of being stone-faced in meetings? Being argumentative may be for a valid cause and openly to discuss dissent? Is that not good? I think there is a line separating some of these things before being labelled good or bad. It may even be that the problem is with Mary (SM) and not Vivek! Coach may have to observe more if he has not seen\/sensed already\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Experience #2 - Where is the design?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here was an agile team which had done well to deliver on the last two releases beyond the expectations of the product owner. In the third release, team struggled and achieved only 30-40% of their committed stories in the first two sprints. Many regression defects started appearing and integrated code did not stabilize within the sprint. As a coach, I asked the question in the retrospective, \u2018what is different about this release?\u2019 After a brief discussion, it came to light that the earlier releases had enhancements to features while this release had couple of new features. After a few more probing questions, team came to the conclusion that the design of the new features needed more discussion within the team. A new process was established \u2013 step 1: team will flag stories that needed design discussions; step 2: there would be specific meetings held with the entire team to discuss the design of those flagged stories within the first two days of the sprint \u2013 essentially coach enabled the creation of a new \u2018exchange\u2019<\/strong> within the team. This helped reduce the regression issues and helped the team to improve its throughput!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Experience #3 \u2013 Let us look at data<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us look at another intervention that facilitated self-organization. This team, although new to agile, was doing reasonably well in delivering their committed stories. There was one issue though \u2013 some \u2018done\u2019 stories started showing some issues in later sprints. Team discussed the issue in their retrospective \u2013 without any conclusions. There was no finger-pointing but they could not figure out how to tweak their processes. When I asked the team \u201cwhat data would help them work out a solution?\u201d, then they realized there was hardly any data to discuss the issue objectively. Team decided to start capturing relevant data like \u2018number of unit tests\u2019, \u2018number of tests by the tester\u2019, \u2018defect analysis to identify source of defects\u2019, etc. When they reviewed this data in each sprint retrospective, they started figuring out suitable solutions. Essentially, coach enabled a new \u2018exchange\u2019 <\/strong>\u2013 sharing of quality-related information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In conclusion, <\/em><\/strong>I feel that by influencing the container, differences and exchanges, a coach can facilitate the process of self-organization and improve the performance of the team!<\/em><\/p>\n","post_title":"Enabling self-organization of Agile teams","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"enabling-self-organization","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:41:35","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:41:35","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/blogs\/?p=5624","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":7239,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-08-27 16:11:32","post_date_gmt":"2016-08-27 10:41:32","post_content":"\n You are coaching an agile team in India which has been practising agile for the last three releases. The team has been stable and has embraced agile with enthusiasm. Product management team is based out of the U.S. with a local product owner who worked with the team every day. Management is happy with the team\u2019s progress and the results thus far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scrum master, Mary, wore a worried look on her face when you met her 1:1. She was concerned about the attitude of Vivek, a senior developer in the team \u2013 respected by the team for his technical skills. Vivek is a contractor and has been with this team for couple of years. Mary tells you, \u201cVivek\u2019s enthusiasm has dropped and he picks up bare minimum work. He has told the contracting company that he would like change complaining about commute time to office. He is unhappy with not having rights to approve code baselines like permanent employees. What\u2019s worse \u2013 he is negatively influencing some of the junior contractors and impacting their attitude. Overall Vivek\u2019s productivity has dropped and other team members find him difficult to work with. I have spoken to him multiple times with no improvement. He is a critical technical resource and is important for this release. I don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a coach, you observe the behavior of Vivek and find him stone-faced in meetings and argumentative at times. Vivek seems to complete his tasks on time but the related stories do not get closed. However, he is there in all the scrum ceremonies on time and participates as necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary wants to know how to turn Vivek around. What would be your recommendation to her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. On the surface, it appears that the \u201ccontainer\u201d (viz., organization policy) has imposed a constraint on who can approve baselines which has contributed to Vivek\u2019s dysfunctional behavior; however, Vivek has been in the organization for two years and has apparently contributed and continues to contribute well on technical aspects; so, his dysfunctional behavior seem to have started recently. So, there may be other causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Vivek\u2019s complaint about commuting time may not be such a red herring as it seems on first sight; may be he shifted residence recently; May be as a contractor, he is not eligible for company pick-up and drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Also, some of things mentioned about bad behavior are a bit subjective \u2013 for example, his negative influence on other junior contractors? what are they? how has Mary come to know about? what is the adverse impact of being stone-faced in meetings? Being argumentative may be for a valid cause and openly to discuss dissent? Is that not good? I think there is a line separating some of these things before being labelled good or bad. It may even be that the problem is with Mary (SM) and not Vivek! Coach may have to observe more if he has not seen\/sensed already\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Here was a team that had 6 developers and 3 testers \u2013 team was in early stages of agile adoption with low level of test automation. One of the testers was dedicated to test automation and was not available for any manual testing during the sprint. Team could not complete the committed stories within a sprint due to lack of manual test effort. Team fell short of the committed stories. Product Owner was unhappy with the release progress. Test Manager said he could not allocate more testers for the team \u2013 no budget. As a coach, I intervened and asked questions during sprint planning \u2013 \u2018how could this lack be addressed by the team itself?\u2019 Some of the developers in the team volunteered to do test execution as long as the testers would write the test cases \u2013 basically re-organize themselves to address the imbalance caused by \u2018differences\u2019<\/em><\/strong> in skill-sets. In spite of that, the team could not progress as much as they wanted to. As a coach, I realized that allocation of resources to the team was not within the influence of the team \u2013 the \u2018container\u2019<\/strong> needed to be altered. As a coach, I (along with the scrum master) had to have conversations with the functional managers to find ways to pool their budgets and replace one developer with a tester. This change helped the team to organize themselves better and improve their throughput!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Experience #2 - Where is the design?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here was an agile team which had done well to deliver on the last two releases beyond the expectations of the product owner. In the third release, team struggled and achieved only 30-40% of their committed stories in the first two sprints. Many regression defects started appearing and integrated code did not stabilize within the sprint. As a coach, I asked the question in the retrospective, \u2018what is different about this release?\u2019 After a brief discussion, it came to light that the earlier releases had enhancements to features while this release had couple of new features. After a few more probing questions, team came to the conclusion that the design of the new features needed more discussion within the team. A new process was established \u2013 step 1: team will flag stories that needed design discussions; step 2: there would be specific meetings held with the entire team to discuss the design of those flagged stories within the first two days of the sprint \u2013 essentially coach enabled the creation of a new \u2018exchange\u2019<\/strong> within the team. This helped reduce the regression issues and helped the team to improve its throughput!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Experience #3 \u2013 Let us look at data<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us look at another intervention that facilitated self-organization. This team, although new to agile, was doing reasonably well in delivering their committed stories. There was one issue though \u2013 some \u2018done\u2019 stories started showing some issues in later sprints. Team discussed the issue in their retrospective \u2013 without any conclusions. There was no finger-pointing but they could not figure out how to tweak their processes. When I asked the team \u201cwhat data would help them work out a solution?\u201d, then they realized there was hardly any data to discuss the issue objectively. Team decided to start capturing relevant data like \u2018number of unit tests\u2019, \u2018number of tests by the tester\u2019, \u2018defect analysis to identify source of defects\u2019, etc. When they reviewed this data in each sprint retrospective, they started figuring out suitable solutions. Essentially, coach enabled a new \u2018exchange\u2019 <\/strong>\u2013 sharing of quality-related information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In conclusion, <\/em><\/strong>I feel that by influencing the container, differences and exchanges, a coach can facilitate the process of self-organization and improve the performance of the team!<\/em><\/p>\n","post_title":"Enabling self-organization of Agile teams","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"enabling-self-organization","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:41:35","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:41:35","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/blogs\/?p=5624","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":7239,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-08-27 16:11:32","post_date_gmt":"2016-08-27 10:41:32","post_content":"\n You are coaching an agile team in India which has been practising agile for the last three releases. The team has been stable and has embraced agile with enthusiasm. Product management team is based out of the U.S. with a local product owner who worked with the team every day. Management is happy with the team\u2019s progress and the results thus far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scrum master, Mary, wore a worried look on her face when you met her 1:1. She was concerned about the attitude of Vivek, a senior developer in the team \u2013 respected by the team for his technical skills. Vivek is a contractor and has been with this team for couple of years. Mary tells you, \u201cVivek\u2019s enthusiasm has dropped and he picks up bare minimum work. He has told the contracting company that he would like change complaining about commute time to office. He is unhappy with not having rights to approve code baselines like permanent employees. What\u2019s worse \u2013 he is negatively influencing some of the junior contractors and impacting their attitude. Overall Vivek\u2019s productivity has dropped and other team members find him difficult to work with. I have spoken to him multiple times with no improvement. He is a critical technical resource and is important for this release. I don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a coach, you observe the behavior of Vivek and find him stone-faced in meetings and argumentative at times. Vivek seems to complete his tasks on time but the related stories do not get closed. However, he is there in all the scrum ceremonies on time and participates as necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary wants to know how to turn Vivek around. What would be your recommendation to her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. On the surface, it appears that the \u201ccontainer\u201d (viz., organization policy) has imposed a constraint on who can approve baselines which has contributed to Vivek\u2019s dysfunctional behavior; however, Vivek has been in the organization for two years and has apparently contributed and continues to contribute well on technical aspects; so, his dysfunctional behavior seem to have started recently. So, there may be other causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Vivek\u2019s complaint about commuting time may not be such a red herring as it seems on first sight; may be he shifted residence recently; May be as a contractor, he is not eligible for company pick-up and drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Also, some of things mentioned about bad behavior are a bit subjective \u2013 for example, his negative influence on other junior contractors? what are they? how has Mary come to know about? what is the adverse impact of being stone-faced in meetings? Being argumentative may be for a valid cause and openly to discuss dissent? Is that not good? I think there is a line separating some of these things before being labelled good or bad. It may even be that the problem is with Mary (SM) and not Vivek! Coach may have to observe more if he has not seen\/sensed already\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. I feel that the SM (who may know Vivek personally better than the coach), should be encouraged by the coach to probe indirectly \u2013 informal chats with Vivek, getting other contractors\/buddies close to Vivek to talk to him etc. Then there is a chance to find the real causes. Some of these causes may or may not be directly addressable by the SM or coach (if very personal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. If Vivek has come in from another sourcing organization, it may be worthwhile for Mary to talk to Vivek\u2019s supervisor there as part of her initial probing and subsequent chats with Vivek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possible approaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two possible approaches for the SM (Mary): (a) work towards retention (b) work towards smoothly transitioning Vivek out of the project; Mary would have to make that choice quickly and that would depend on her analysis of the root causes for change in Vivek\u2019s behaviour. Would like to hear your point of view.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #25\u2013 Difficult team member","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chow-25-difficult-team-member-2","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:42:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=7239","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6205,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-05-02 17:03:38","post_date_gmt":"2016-05-02 11:33:38","post_content":"\n You are a scrum master and you find that your team does not attend the daily stand-up on time and you also find that most of the team members do not update their tasks in the iteration tracker. Burn-down is never up to date. You see this as a culture issue and would like to fix it as soon as possible because the VP of the business unit from the Head Office overseas is visiting your location next week. In the stand-up, you announce the visit to the team and tell them to correct their behavior. You also tell them you have no way of knowing the true status unless they update the tracker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Why or why not? What would you do in such a scenario?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suggested Solution:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Will this work? Answer is \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018no\u2019. It is likely to work in the short-term until the visit of the VP from the Head Office \u2013 because in general, people fear senior management \u2013 they do not want to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Alternately, they may respect a senior manager so much that they would be in their best behaviour in front of them. They would love to be in the good books of someone they respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the visit, though, team is likely to go back to its old ways. Team members came late to daily stand-ups and did not update the tasks daily because they did not see value in doing those things. As a scrum master, you need to help them see the value. It cannot be done by telling them what to do and not even by telling them why they should do it. \u2018Telling\u2019 is a poor tool for the facilitative role of a scrum master. Alternative \u2018telling\u2019 is \u2018Asking questions\u2019 \u2013 a powerful tool for a Scrum Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, people need to update the tracker not for the Scrum Master to know the true status but for the team to see the status collectively. That raises the question: \u2018Why should the team need to know the correct status?\u2019 \u2013 because team owns the iteration goals and they have the responsibility to achieve that short-term goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrum Master is an enabler. He\/she can enable change in two ways here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Scrum Master needs to learn to be patient and persist. It does take time to bring in change in people\u2019s behaviour. Moreover, different people may change at different rates \u2013 there will be a few who take the lead and Scrum Master can cite and encourage their behaviour. Over a period of time, team will start taking responsibility for the iteration goals. A new culture will emerge as they work towards achieving the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has been your experience as Scrum Master? Please do share your ideas in this forum.<\/p>\n","post_title":"CHOW #15- \u201cTell them to behave\u201d \u2013 A scrum master problem","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"tell-behave-scrum-master-problem","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:49:22","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6205","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":6166,"post_author":"7","post_date":"2016-02-15 21:21:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-02-15 15:51:55","post_content":"\n As Project Managers, we sooner or later learn the significance of managing risks in a project. We get good at identifying risks that impact project goals and figuring out mitigation\/contingency actions. We plan these mitigation actions diligently and make sure that those are done. However, sometimes, we fall into a trap that I call the \u2018Mirage of Mitigation\u2019. Let me illustrate from my personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was leading a project to develop a marketing application for a retail bank on a mainframe. One of the requirements was that a cross-selling message be displayed on the PC front-end when a customer does a withdrawal or deposit transaction in a branch. The message would prompt the teller to promote a product to the customer based on his\/her relationship profile. That sounds fairly simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right at the beginning, I realised that the project team did not understand the 50,000-line COBOL back-end code running on the mainframe that processed bank transactions for their deposit accounts. We sought inputs and time from the team that supported the transaction processing (TP) application but there were delays in getting their support and that would impact the project timeline. Risk was identified with a mitigation action to get COBOL-experts to read the code and proceed with the impact analysis. An analysis note was sent to the team that supported the TP application for review. With this review feedback and a lot of code-reading, the project team made the changes and got them tested by the user acceptance test team. The team was happy to have met the deadline despite the challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disaster struck, when the changes went into production. There were calls from every branch saying that account closing request was throwing up random and ridiculously high closing balances on the screen. To cut the long story short, changes were rolled back and I was humbled by multiple post-mortems at various levels of the organization. We did not have the insight to understand that account closing invoked an implicit withdrawal transaction which we had not quite factored into our changes. Under some conditions, account closing failed due to the code changes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In hindsight, I think I had suffered from the Mirage of Mitigation. Team had worked hard and some sharp developers had spent weeks on the TP code changes, did peer review and multiple rounds of testing. The intensity of the mitigation action and the \u2018apparent\u2019 success dulled our senses. We were so thrilled by the ride and drunk with ego that we forgot that mitigation action does not eradicate the risk. We lost focus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While risk management theory would suggest various solutions to avoid such mishaps, I feel that we need to be more \u2018mindful\u2019 \u2013 pay attention where it is due and become aware when our attention is wavering. Such awareness could be the best tool in a project manager\u2019s armoury to see through the mirage of mitigation!<\/p>\n","post_title":"The \u201cMirage of mitigation\u201d in project management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"mirage-mitigation-project-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-24 11:50:04","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/pm-powerconsulting.com\/?p=6166","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"next":false,"prev":true,"total_page":5},"paged":1,"column_class":"jeg_col_3o3","class":"epic_block_11"};
Experience #1 - Need more testers!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here was a team that had 6 developers and 3 testers \u2013 team was in early stages of agile adoption with low level of test automation. One of the testers was dedicated to test automation and was not available for any manual testing during the sprint. Team could not complete the committed stories within a sprint due to lack of manual test effort. Team fell short of the committed stories. Product Owner was unhappy with the release progress. Test Manager said he could not allocate more testers for the team \u2013 no budget. As a coach, I intervened and asked questions during sprint planning \u2013 \u2018how could this lack be addressed by the team itself?\u2019 Some of the developers in the team volunteered to do test execution as long as the testers would write the test cases \u2013 basically re-organize themselves to address the imbalance caused by \u2018differences\u2019<\/em><\/strong> in skill-sets. In spite of that, the team could not progress as much as they wanted to. As a coach, I realized that allocation of resources to the team was not within the influence of the team \u2013 the \u2018container\u2019<\/strong> needed to be altered. As a coach, I (along with the scrum master) had to have conversations with the functional managers to find ways to pool their budgets and replace one developer with a tester. This change helped the team to organize themselves better and improve their throughput!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The key to retention option would depend essentially on organization\u2019s ability to address the root causes and Vivek\u2019s openness to change.
The key to transitioning option would depend on speed at which one can find a suitable replacement. Transparency between Mary, Vivek and Vivek\u2019s source organization is important so that transitioning happens with minimal impact on the team and the release goals. Mary would need the support of her management to enable this change to the \u2018container\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
