Leadership Tribe

Systems Coaching: Coaching teams to maximum efficiency, or is there a better way?

by Krishna Chodipilli | Sep 20, 2022 | Leadership Tribe

You are an Enterprise Change Agent, Agile Coach, or a leader looking to improve your ability to work with complex adaptive systems. You have heard that systems coaching can be a valuable tool, but you are unsure what it is or how it can help you. This article will explain what systems coaching is and how it can help coaches and leaders improve their potential to work with complex problems and investigate if there are even better leadership styles or approaches.

Systems are everywhere—for example – the automobile as a system.

No single car part can take you from point A to point B by itself. The wheel, axle, seat, and motor must work together for the car to move.

This is also true for a company. An organization is not just the sum of its parts. It’s the product of their interactions. But unlike a car, your organization is a complex system of people and relationships. And unlike the elements of a vehicle, people have their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. They make organizations not just complex but also dynamic, adaptive, and unpredictable. Today’s organizations operate in a more interconnected world than ever before. So how do you make decisions, solve problems and manage change in this complex environment?

Systems Theory

System theory was developed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, a biologist who wanted to find a way to explain complex systems in terms of their parts. He believed you couldn’t understand a system by looking at it in isolation. You had to look at the whole system and how its parts interact.

To understand things like communication within an organization, we must look at it from a systemic perspective. It means considering the sender, the message, the receiver, and the context in which it all takes place. It also means understanding how all these elements interact with each other.

Communication is not just about sending and receiving messages. It’s also about creating shared meaning between two or more people.

Systems Thinking

Systems thinking is a way of looking at the world that considers the interconnectedness of everything. You have to look at the whole system and how its parts interact. But you also need to understand people’s motivations so you can design things that will make them act in a certain way. We often abstractly look at systems, making us lose sight of people’s experiences. Or we focus only on people and miss the more significant dynamics at play. The key is to zoom in and out between these different perspectives to get a complete view of our systems.

By understanding the system-wide influences on single-person behaviors and the many relationships between individuals, it may be possible to fully understand how and why the individual created these actions at the time.

What is Systems coaching?

Systems coaching is a relatively new field that is growing in popularity. Systems coaches help overcome the challenges associated with working with these systems and help clients achieve their desired results. They serve as a liaison for the district leadership teams and, if required, school leaders (professional coaching programs, mentoring, training methodologies, facilitating) for leadership development or any organization to guide systems intervention and sustainable organizational behaviour change.

To be successful, systems coaches need to have several skills, including the ability to:

• Understand complex adaptive systems and particular relationship systems
• See the organization as a whole new world and facilitate change for better decisions

It can be challenging to be productive when you feel like you’re constantly swimming against the current. You try to get organized, but your thoughts and ideas keep escaping. You start to work on one task but get interrupted and can’t seem to pick up where you left off. Before you know it, hours have gone by, and you haven’t accomplished anything. The good news is that you can take steps to overcome them.

Complex Adaptive System (CAS)

A CAS is a system of numerous agents interacting to produce the observed behavior. CAS are systems composed of multiple agents that interact with each other to create the observed behavior. The agents can be human beings, things, or ideas. The system can be as small as a family or as large as an organization.

Elaborating on these three properties of CAS shows how they benefit the systems coaching approach.

• Self-organization is the ability of a system to create its structure and order.
• Emergence is the process by which something new arises from the agents’ interactions in a system.
• Adaptation is the ability of a system to change its behavior in response to feedback from its environment.

All three of these properties are essential in system coaching. Self-organization allows coaches to work with teams to create their structure and order. Emergence will enable coaches to help teams develop and build relationship systems; coaching focuses on nurturing new ways of working and adapting to change. Adaptation allows coaches to help crews respond to feedback from their environment.

Organization Relationship Systems Coaching and The Third Entity

ORSC is an operating system that helps to manage and understand relationships between people. Relationship systems coaching focuses on your whole client and allows you to look at the bigger picture at play. It is a more effective strategy that considers all the different parts of your client and how they interact with one another. It happens without any planning and is an example of emotional intelligence and social intelligence in the workplace.

This is an example of The Third Entity, a term that refers to the group of people in a relationship system, such as family system dynamics, work team, or couple. Jungian scholars coined the term also called collective consciousness. Systems Coaches can benefit from ORSC principles, which are based on Systems Theory, Process Work, Family Systems Therapy, Professional Coaching, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Co-Active Coaching, and more. Relationship Systems Intelligence is the focus of this approach. It helps create sustainable and resilient teams, organizations, and families.

As a systems designer, I’ve learned that we must think about people and their mental models when solving complex problems. To do this, we must embrace a human-centered approach to systems thinking. It means having a mindset and methodology that focus on people first.  Peter Senge, the author of The Fifth Discipline, describes it as a way of seeing the structures behind complex situations.

Human-centered system thinking

When it comes to problem-solving, we tend to focus on what we can see. But in a complex system, this can lead us only to treat the symptoms of a problem, not the source.

In a relationship system, everything is connected. We can’t solve problems without considering the whole picture and surfacing the root of the problem. We use the iceberg model to help us map out the layers of a problem. Step one, start with what you can see; events and behaviors are the tips of the iceberg. Zoom in on what’s happening, then zoom out to discover if there’s a relationship between events. Has the event occurred before? Has anything changed? And for most of us, this is as deep as we go when we want to solve a problem.

The system’s structure is the next layer of the iceberg for a systems coach. These structures are the tangible things you can design and redesign to influence your system. It can include policies, procedures, guidelines, processes, and more. Structures are often the cause of the events you’ve identified. Ask yourself, why aren’t events happening? Then think about the robust coaching model-based structure.

Systems Coaches

Systems Coaches work with all organization stakeholders to help them understand how they fit into the larger picture and how their work affects the rest of the organization.

They also help to identify systemic issues and design solutions that address those issues and mental models. System Coaches can also serve as a liaison for the district leadership teams and, if required – school leaders (professional coaching, mentoring, training methodologies, emotional intelligence, particular relationship system, facilitating) or any organization to guide systems change, intervention, and sustainable organizational change.

Benefits of Systems Coaching

There are numerous benefits to using systems coaching, including helping organizations and individuals overcome the challenges associated with working with these relationship systems.

Standard benefits:

• Increased productivity and commitment
• Creates a paradigm shift from engaging individuals to the entire group
• Creates sustainable and resilient teams, organizations, and families

Emotional benefits:

• A greater sense of accomplishment when goals are met.
• Individuals and students report great satisfaction from completing tasks and outcomes

How to implement systems coaching?

Implementing Systems Coaching requires four steps:

1. Assess the current state of your team’s system and identify areas for improvement.
2. Work with your team to create a new system that meets their needs.
3. Tweak and improve the system to create sustainable and resilient teams.
4. Hire systems coaches, train, mentor, and coach your team on how to use the new system effectively.

Many different coaching styles and approaches can be effective, depending on the needs of your team. Following the steps outlined above, you can start using systems coaching with your team today!

However, System Coaching is not the only way to build a high-performing team or an organization.

Agile Coaching

Agile coaching is a growing profession that helps teams and individuals work smarter and faster. Agile coaches usually have a background in project management, engineering, or software development. They also need to be able to work with people from all backgrounds and have strong facilitation skills. It means encouraging a culture of flexibility and innovation and working with teams to find solutions that work for them using team coaching techniques.  Agile coaching is not about telling people what to do or introducing the team to agile methods and tools but also about helping them adopt the agile mindset.

Agile System Coaching

Agile systems coaching is still being developed and refined, which combines both Systems Coaching and Agile Coaching. So what can you expect if you decide to become an agile systems coach?

It is a robust coaching model that focuses on improving the system in which people work rather than trying to fix individuals. The goal is to help teams and organizations work more effectively by improving communication, problem-solving, creativity, and productivity by building sustainable and resilient teams using evidence-based practices. In addition, agile system coaching can help your team become more self-sufficient and autonomous. This type of coaching is also a great way to build team morale and create a sense of camaraderie.

How to be an Agile System Coach?

To become an agile systems coach, you need to have training in both systems coaching and agile coaching and a solid ability to communicate with people at all levels of the organization. As an Agile Coach you also need to be familiar with the principles of agile development and understand the agile methodologies and frameworks and how they can apply to different situations. They also need to understand the feedback loops and how changes in one part of the system can affect the rest. In addition, an agile systems coach needs to facilitate collaboration and communication between teams, business units, and the organization as a whole.

Conclusion

Systems Coaching and Agile Coaching are two necessary fields that work together to create successful agile systems.

A system coach helps an organization understand how all the parts interact with each other to produce the desired behavior. They also help design solutions to systemic issues, identify emergent behaviors, and facilitate communication between teams and business units. An agile coach works with teams to help them be more effective and efficient by teaching them the principles of agile development and how they can apply them in different situations. Together, this approach is an integrated robust coaching model based on creating sustainable organizational change and a robust coaching model. Are you interested in becoming a system or agile coach? Let us know in the comments!

We hope this blog post has helped you understand systems coaching and Agile systems coaching a bit better, and you can reach out to our business consultants to help you set up a systems team for success.  Contact us for more info, plus you can also check out the upcoming webinars and ICAgile training courses.

The Power of Questions – Facilitation Vs Coaching

by Krishna Chodipilli | Aug 31, 2022 | Agile Coaching, Leadership Tribe

Real learning is bequeathed from seeking, and seeking is brought forth from asking questions, not giving answers. When you ask a question, you are opening up to a realm of infinite possibilities. But when you are only giving answers, you are trapped in the confines of your understanding. Answers are inhibitors; they restrict the possibilities to the solution offered. Questions, on the other hand, are powerful creators and powerful questions are the harbingers of discovery.

If you’re considering individual or team coaching, read on. The process of team coaching or team facilitation can improve team-building, encourage individual and team creative thinking and improved decision-making and output. Whether it’s executive coaching, agile team facilitation or individual coaching – results can be tangible and so positive.

The coach and the facilitator explained

A coach has mastered the art of asking the right powerful questions. Their competence lies in eliciting the coachee into new design thinking by a process of enquiry. The outcome of such a process is a refined realisation that can be transmuted into ready action. It can have a positive effect on mental health as well as professional performance.

A facilitator’s role, on the other hand, is to create a psychological space that encourages thinking. They influence the group to seek and debate on issues concerning beliefs, values and culture. They encourage doubt. They facilitate a healthy environment and group process wherein members can freely ideate, express and question on predetermined agendas without barriers of guilt, shame or prejudice. Hence, while a coach helps you on a journey of discovery, a facilitator creates visibility of such journeys.

The fundamental distinctions of coaching vs facilitation: common questions answered

• Coaching is effective with individuals, dyads or very small groups (not more than 10)

• Facilitation is best complimented for groups, teams, task forces or organisations

• Coaching focuses primarily on an individual’s ecology and world view

• Facilitation is focused on the community

• Coaching services are transactional, usually by one on one meetings or phone calls

• Facilitation services are issue-based, conducted through group sessions, virtual meetings, webinars or workshops

• Coaching sessions are more intimate and best-done face to face

• Facilitation sessions are more dispassionate and best delivered in a ‘one to many forums’.

In agile, coaching and facilitation meet the common ground. Hence the impact is more powerful and sustainable. From the perspective of coaching and facilitation, agile practices enable commonality of function and purpose, as under:

• Agile presumes the client(s) / participant(s) are creative, resourceful and whole such that they can find their solutions

• Agile uses various methods to draw or pull information out of the participant(s) / client(s)

• Agile adopts fundamental coaching and facilitation skills and methods such as Appreciative Inquiry, setting safe environments and relationship guidelines

• Agile advocates neutrality without taking sides on issues

• Agile mandates allowing flexibility and adaptability in using different techniques or methods to meet clients’ or stakeholders’ needs

• Agile facilitation promotes active listening to client needs, to what is being said and more often than not, what is not being said

• Agile promotes delving deeper into strengths, possibilities, change management and transformation through a journey of realisation and discovery.

The significant advantage of the Agile methodology is that it enables you to master both these roles through an experiential process. Agile is a world where the phenomena of seeking a quest and finding numerous possibilities from it are an everyday occurrence. Being Agile is not about giving solutions, it is about seeking the right, most powerful questions and discovering new ways of doing things and decision-making. In the process, finding powerful and path-breaking personal and professional results.

Why Do Developers Dislike Agile?

by Krishna Chodipilli | Aug 28, 2022 | Agile Methodology, Leadership Tribe

How did agile methodology develop?

Running a business requires business people to be on their feet and to make effective decisions in a split second. For, these decisions can affect an entire organisation and its growth, the company’s lifecycle, and operations from stakeholders down to new staff.

The importance of quick and effective decision making is also applicable to the development team and programmers. It is probably why a group of programmers collaborated a long time ago to find ideas and implement them to better themselves and their profession. Their ideas turned to experiments to decide their efficacy and impact of the operations of the programmers, coders and development team. At the time, practices like pair programming, user stories, stand-up meetings, iterative approaches and processes that are used today widely, was, but, just a few experiments. However, among these trials, some ideas failed, while some worked. The group of programmers weren’t disappointed by the failures and chose to work on the new features that worked.

Their steadfast determination led to the formation of principles that are known today, as the Agile Manifesto. The manifesto and the concept of Agile spread like wildfire due to its efficacy in making operations easy and effective. So, much so, that, business people outside the developer world began using these agile methods to run their organisations and to train their executives.

The widespread use of the concepts also led to the formation of practices that hindered the growth of companies and individuals working in them. A certain amount of structure and formality was built around Agile that was a contrast to its beliefs. Ultimately, this lead to concepts like Scrum Teams and Scrum Master. When done right, the concepts are about ensuring a team is able to work together and solve problems through training and coaching. However, without proper training and knowledge about the concepts of Scrum and Agile, the employees can feel like slaves and start disliking the idea.

What does it mean to be agile?

The Agile Manifesto created in 2001 in Utah by seventeen developers talks about various elements of the software development lifecycle:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

• Working software over comprehensive documentation

• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

• Responding to change over following a plan

The content of the Agile Manifesto, and the four key values in it, shows the true nature of the Agile model and what it means to be Agile, not just in a software development process such as (FDD: feature-driven development), but in workflow overall. An Agile mindset keeps people as a priority over tools and development processes. The first value of the Agile Manifesto focuses on this point strongly by promoting dynamic communication between teammates and colleagues over a structured one.

Being Agile also means that an individual or company focuses more on the task at hand than the documentation. However, this does not mean it promotes a lack of records. What it tries to propagate is a work culture where individuals don’t waste their time documenting every little detail and following a hierarchy from testers to project managers and developers in getting approvals. Instead, they utilize their time to finish the task effectively and fast across the team – therefore assisting in rapid application development or extreme programming for example.

Agility is a set of practices that involve a product’s end-users in the development process of the same. Unlike negotiation, where the consumer is approached at the start and end of the production. This Agile mindset is more adaptive and can help speed up the process of software development (or services in case of businesses) by constantly checking in the customer’s feedback through smaller milestones and 2 week sprints. Then it is easier to refactor necessary changes based on business needs and customer needs alike avoiding large technical debt.

Being Agile, like its dictionary definition, means to be able to move quickly. The core of the concept of Agility is reacting to change with positivity and fluidity – consider this a continuous integration for instance. So, if one iteration doesn’t work out in the development process, the agile team’s focus is changed in the next sprint.

How do companies implement Agility?

When it comes to implementing Agility in companies, many fail to capture the essence of the concept. They treat it as a medium to improve the performance of an Agile team of employees. It should be used as a tool to transform the work culture of an organisation.

For instance, when one is not able to estimate the results of an experiment precisely. What an Agile-mindset should do is to accept that sometimes there are parameters that are uncontrollable and unpredictable. However, what most companies do is try and bring in new methods to ‘improve’ the ability to estimate, review story points, tweak metrics, refresh/revise the overall strategy or software development method for instance.

The above is one among many such practices and mistakes that individuals and companies alike make in implementing Agile. Moreover, organizations make things worse by adding rigid structure and unrealistic ideas into the mix.

For instance, a manager set a two-week deadline for a task that could use a little time. They asked for daily reports and daily standups, instead of every week. This practice of micromanagement led to the employees being stressed out as they needed to have something to report to the head every day. This kind of practice may get faster results, but they will lack quality. It violates Agility because it can often get caught up in feedback loops, burndown rates or working on projects in very small increments. Being Agile means having the freedom to be self-organizing, to choose your work and set realistic deadlines and be open to changes. Many organizations fail to grasp this and many team members often don’t know when to stand up to it.

Why developers dislike the agile software development methodology

Lack of knowledge

One of the foremost reasons why software developers hate agile is that their managers don’t understand the concept of Agility. They try to utilize the ideas of Agile in a structured manner. In turn, this violates the nature of an Agile-mindset and ends up regressing to traditional project management tactics that they are familiar with.

The fault lies in their understanding of the principles mentioned in the Agile Manifesto. The inability to comprehend the concept makes them implement structure and hierarchy that they are familiar with from experience. This results in a work culture that makes employees feel like they are slaves and pushes them further away from team work and collaborate less often within.

For instance, pressuring the team to follow a short deadline to complete a task that can use a little time. In such situations, the employees subjected to the pressure are exhausted, making them hate working at the company or in a team.

Process-oriented development teams

Another reason developers dislike Agile is the way their superiors treat the concept more as a religion than a process that can increase productivity. Which means, they blindly stick to their beliefs and refuse to budge towards a more agile approach of product management. Consequently, they forget the core of Agility – change.

When superiors have incomplete knowledge of the concept and believe it to be something akin to a religion that can save them, they try to force it on their team. Moreover, they refuse to be flexible with their implementation, thinking they need to follow a rule strictly. Whereas, an Agile framework and Agile mindset within the team’s members should be able to adapt to changes with ease.

When practitioners of Agile fail to grasp the concept itself, it leads to their teams disliking Agility and choose to work against it. This reduces functionality across the team and causes issues overall.

Will to change during a project

The fundamental reason that makes software project managers (and project managers overall) unknowingly violate the principles of Agile is basic human nature. Since childhood, an individual is moulded to listen and take orders from people superior to them. The training remains deep in the consciousness of an individual as they grow to be independent and salaried individuals, including the rebellious ones who flaunts authority.

This nature then is applied in the implementation of Agile with a structured process, as it makes it comfortable to do so. Another reason why individuals don’t wish to be Agile is the core reasoning of the concept and the ability to make the project or product owner responsible for blame. On the other hand, an Agile-mindset not only responds positively to change but also takes responsibility for tasks. As such, if it fails to blame no one other than the individual themselves it puts the risk on them in these changing requirements.

The very idea of taking upon blame or responsibility for failure is scary to such individuals. For, as human beings, they fear failure the most.

Moreover, the usual blame game is not applicable when being Agile. It is not surprising when considering human nature that individuals dislike taking the culpability, and would rather blame a third-party for something that went wrong in the overall project or product development for instance. As such, when a particular idea fails in a strategy one can easily hold the manager responsible or the team leader; or even overall resource – blaming anyone but themselves. However, when applied in a true sense, Agility does not support blaming others and promotes taking responsibility for their own actions. This is one of the aspects that makes individuals dislike Agile.

Are there any lean alternatives to Agile development

The only alternative to Agile processes is Agile alone. The structured and the managerial way the concept of Agility is handled and the human nature causing it is the root cause of why developers dislike Agile and why the concept is not effective sometimes. As such, the only way forward from this slump is to implement the true meaning and essence of Agile.

Managers have to be ready to let go of their false beliefs and be open to change in a decent timeframe. They should try and establish a work culture that focuses its prioritization on Agile, following the four core values and twelve principles of the Agile Manifesto. Only then, would the employees like developers start accepting the concept and applying it effectively in retrospective and for ideas moving forward.

To conclude, Being Agile and having an Agile-mindset is important for the growth of a company, enabling cross-functional teams and therefore its overall productivity. As such, an organization and its executive should implement whatever is necessary to make its employees accept the concept. Through Business Agility programs from institutions like Leadership Tribe, a company can train its managerial staff to make them understand what Agility and being Agile means. Doing so will lead to the staff being better managers who can inspire their teams into being Agile.

The human nature that constantly fights Agility can only be changed by implementing the core values of concept in daily life without limiting it to professional areas. Therefore, to make developers like, and use the concepts of Agility, a manager should be Agile thoroughly. We, at Leadership Tribe, offer Agile methods in our coaching and training to support you and your team members in your journey to being Agile, as well as Kanban, Scrum Methodology, Sprint Planning and more.

Learn more about Agile Project Management and Agile Project delivery frameworks such as Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) with LeadershipTribe and contact us today for more info.

How To Make Agile Transitions In A Company

by Krishna Chodipilli | Aug 23, 2022 | Agile Methodology, Leadership And Management, Leadership Tribe

“Thriving in today’s marketplace frequently depends on transforming to become more agile”- Scott M. Graffius

Most organizations are thriving and surviving in the digital era by transitioning towards agile methodology from traditional methods. By adopting agile transitions, they are gaining improvements and substantiative performance, leading to profitability, improved growth, employee engagement and ultimately customer satisfaction. However, many companies claim they are running an agile work environment, but many struggle to take the agile manifesto by heart.

If you’ve ever studied the agile manifesto or got the coaching of agile transitions, you probably will not be surprised that this working style can be a challenge.  This manifesto is the disrupter of the traditional status quo which can be uncomfortable for many people. Therefore, many organizations fail to see the kind of results agile promises to deliver, only if properly implemented.

Agile transitioning: a case study

Let’s take an example of Agile transitioning in a well known organizational structure.

The Dutch banking group, ING in 2015, decided to shift from traditional methodology to the Agile Model inspired by the giant market leaders Netflix, Google and Spotify. Fortunately, ING’s new approach boosted their employee engagement, marketing and increased their work progress, clearing out backlogs of tasks and overdue initiatives.

To truly adopt an Agile environment, it takes willingness and commitment to let go of all the conventional method of doing things in the organization. The agile transformation is not just about some fancy jargons and new meeting styles; it’s a whole way of business transformation.

You may immediately want to know how Agile transition works and how the transition from waterfall to agile transformation can work. But before building that agile transformation roadmap, you must know what it is.

What is agile transition?

The agile transition is the transforming act of an organization’s nature or forms progressively to the one that can thrive and embrace a collaborative, self-motivated and flexible fast-paced environment. The agile manifesto principles and values can be exercised and taught in any organization, with agile teams whether small or large. However, the organization needs to understand the agile framework basics and values to get healthy and true agility rewards.

How does an agile transition work?

The agile transition process begins by setting goals, designing a leadership team, and forming an agile transformation roadmap for the team to meet business needs. Organizations create progress check-ins periodically contrary to the planned product roadmap. Then, crucial adjustments/changes are made to keep the project on track while keeping it realistic with these cross-functional teams.

How to transition from waterfall to agile

To make the agile methodology work, the organizations running on the bureaucracy, waterfall project development, or silo management system must embrace the agile transformation roadmap. Employees will need coaching in agile transitions to make the most out of it. They need to understand and embrace the core principles of agile. This requires empowering the employees to work autonomously, to be self-organizing and to be confident in independent decision-making while educating them on rewarding and evaluating the staff in this new business paradigm.

New procedures should be established. New tools must be adopted to facilitate the new work patterns, product management and development process. Each leadership team and employee may need training, ownership and distribution throughout the agile process.

Successful ways to facilitate the transition from waterfall to agile

· Communicate regularly

When you move to agile methods such as scrum training, sprint planning and workflow management methods like Kanban, the teams need to communicate daily. Daily stand-up meetings are a good way to do this. It remains a crucial part of the testing and development activities for agile coaches and teams. Leaders need to understand where the pain points are developing in the team and substitute an environment that makes the best solution to remedy to such issues. In such a growing environment, it’s also vital to be ready for any potential changes. By developing a clear line of knowledge, the development team will keep implementing iterative changes to achieve project deliverables.

· Strengthen the mutual vision for a successful agile transformation

Most organizations are good at making operational and financial goals, but such goals only motivate the upper management or product owners rather than the organization’s average worker. To boost the mutual vision and develop an agile organization, the company needs to reestablish the key performance indicator (KPI) metrics and connect everyone with a more profound sense of purpose. This goal and objective needs to flow top-down, from senior management to those implementing the projects.

Customers and employees are the heart of any business, so step away from the financial projections and charts and ask how your service/product contributes to the world? What would your company’s success mean for employees and customers?  What will it mean to you in retrospective?

· Train staff on the agile rollout

Bringing new practices and ideas to the work members could be a disaster. Many professionals are likely to be accustomed to shifting and working to agile practices without guidance, which fails. To perfectly implement agile approaches in an organization, training sessions should be conducted. Also, organizations can look into the institutions that help the teams understand agile through different resources like blogs, seminars and books.

· Encourage collaboration amongst team members

There is no template overall, but agile transition’s essence is collaboration across each individual team. By communicating effectively and collaborating through different tools, the team becomes solid and buy-in towards agile development is encouraged. Companies can also engage agile approaches when testing to ensure that the functionality and requirements of the project/product developments are up to the standard.

· Give everyone time to adjust to the agile transformation strategy

Like Rome wasn’t made in a day, your company will not transition and make an agile transformation in one day either. Whether C-suite, stakeholders, project managers or support teams, when you move groups of people from a conventional project management based system to a result-based system, it always comes with a learning curve and a potential cultural shift in the company. As an organization, you have already few projects lined up, and it’s best to finish them before agile implementation.  Don’t try to force buy-in right away, or try to convert every business project into an agile project overnight.

Wrapping-up the agile transformation journey

In a nutshell, agile adoption – converting from traditional waterfall methods to agile methodology is not an easy job as a manager or team. This is an essential aspect for any corporation to understand the core’s agile concept and then deliver it to their employees in order to develop an agile mindset. Managers/leaders can play their part by encouraging business agility, in turn motivating the entire organization and its teams to become adaptable to change. However, if implemented correctly with the proven tips and right coaching, this methodology can take the organization above the sky (like the Dutch banking group example) and increase business value in time.

Contact Leadership Tribe to find out more about preparing for Agile Transitions and build your agile transformation roadmap today

Using Fibonacci Series in Story Point Estimates

by Krishna Chodipilli | Aug 19, 2022 | Agile Methodology, Leadership Tribe

Many have asked why Fibonacci series is used for the story point estimates. Though I agree, it is not the only way to estimate based on relative sizing and many of them use different methods, Fibonacci sequence is used frequently.

In this article, I would like to help you to get a better understanding of the fundamentals behind using the Fibonacci series. And you won’t even need a deck of cards for this one.

Example Fibonacci sequence – estimated effort

Let’s take a Fibonacci Scale example where you are asked to hold a weight of 2 Kgs.

If the weight is increased by .02 Kgs (i.e. 2.02 Kgs is the total weight), it would be very negligible to notice the difference by the person who lifts the weight especially when they are unaware that it was increased by 0.02 Kgs.

The same is true when a person is asked to lift the weight of 5 Kgs and then it is increased by 0.05 Kgs without them noticing, the person wouldn’t feel the increase in the weight.
Weber in 1834 realised that there is a particular threshold and the ratio, the background intensity to the incremental threshold, is relatively constant.

In the equation, K is constant.

1Δ⊥̅⊥̅=?

ΔI = IK

Coming back to Fibonacci sequence in this series of numbers, an accurate estimate would be 1, 2, 3, 5, 8,13,21,34,55…

However, this modified Fibonacci sequence in Agile estimation world is 1,2,3,5,8,13,20,40…

Each estimation is modified just for the sake of easiness of use of 20,40,80 and 100.

As you understand from the above sequence of Fibonacci numbers, it is clear that 2 is 2 times bigger than 1. However, the gap between 3 to 5 or even between 5 to 8 is not double. These nonlinear sequences work well in the high-level estimates as they reflect great amount of uncertainty. This will prevent one user story being too close to another.

The user stories that would be worked out in upcoming PI planning, would better to be estimated within one order of magnitude.

Enjoy using the planning poker with the above-mentioned Fibonacci series and get better high-level and accurate story estimates. This estimation method will improve project management.