Category: Teams

How can my team celebrate mistakes (we are big on test and learn, but what happens when we genuinely fail?)

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Over 10 different ideas to help your team learn from failure.

 

Firstly, let’s look at why it’s important to celebrate mistakes – it is becoming more accepted that a growth mindset at work leads to better results.

We take on feedback and challenge ourselves to always do better. But of course this implies that we aren’t perfect, that we will try to do something and not succeed and it is important to create for ourselves the space to fail.

FAILURE WALL

“One of the best ways to create this space is to celebrate failure when it happens.” says Mark Barber, a Project Lead from our Australian office.

Mark explains “We can do this in many ways but it is important to do this openly so that we make it okay for everyone to do so. A few examples may be:

  1. Create a failure wall.
  2. Talk about failures at showcases.
  3. Base retrospectives around what wasn’t successful.

 

Mark says “Most importantly, talk about what you learned from that failure because failing without learning is simply failing.

Some people, especially executives, find the concept of failure hard to digest, but learning, on the other hand, is something we can all get on board with.”

 

USE REAL BUSINESS CASE STUDIES

Caitilin Studdert is a Principal at ADAPTOVATE in Australia.   She suggests four ways your team can ‘lesson the hurt’, and ‘increase the happy’ with failure.

  1. Cost out what would have happened and what it would have cost us long term if we didn’t ‘fail’ now….i.e. we didn’t launch x product on y date because of this bug, but if we did go ahead and launch it would have cost us z in three months time when our accounting didn’t reconcile
  2. Set up a huge sign that says: we didn’t nail it but what did we learn – then facilitate your session so that everyone can contribute – don’t have leadership put forward their reasons for the ‘failure’.
  3. Set up a ‘FIVE WHYS’ session with FOOD galore – using the techniques from Eric Reis Lean Start Up get to the root cause of the problem to figure out why we failed. Information is power and food generates good discussion every time.
  4. Have real business examples of so called ‘failed’ attempts before great success e.g. this weekend’s story in The Australian Business Review re XNet’s global success after many ‘failed’ attempts

For more short articles from ADAPTOVATE please visit our blog page.

TEACH IT!

Rachna Verma, a consultant in Australia believes the old adage that the best way to get good at something is to teach it.

Known as ‘The Protégé Effect, the website effectiviology says it’s a “a psychological phenomenon where teaching, pretending to teach, or preparing to teach information to others helps a person learn that information.

For example, a student who is studying for an exam could benefit from the protégé effect and improve their understanding of the relevant material, by teaching that material to their peers.”

So teach your failure.

Rachna explains  “Create a learning example from the experience and share it with your team so that they also learn from the experience and as a team you all grow together.

Some of the biggest learnings come from failure so it is important to capture this. And the best way to get good at something is to teach it!”

 

MEMORIALS AND CLEANUPS

It is important to mark the end of Failure. One advantage of Sprinting is that you time boxes where work is contained and completed. When things fail, it is important to stop working on them, to stop both the activities and behaviours which contributed to them.

Steve Walton, a project lead in Australia has 3 top tips to celebrate failure.

  1. Hold an event to mark the end of the work which failed. This makes it clear that the failure time box is finished to both those inside and outside the team. One team I worked with held a brief memorial service for a piece of code at the end of a showcase to mark they had buried it. Another had a Friday afternoon clean down of their team area, clean walls and freshly washed desks.
  2. Do something to mark that you are working on something fresh. It could be a team building activity like refreshing norms, a social activity like a morning tea or a reorganisation of the team area by changing where people sit or putting up new posters. The idea is to re-form the team physically (without changing team members).
  3. Work with the product owner/sponsor to re-state the team mission to help the team to refocus on their mission. Inclusion of the sponsor helps them to also close out the failure in their mind and focus on what they want the team to achieve next.

 

CARDBOARD CUTOUTS

Malar Singaram from our Singapore consulting team shares this anecdote: “On a previous scrum team, we had a life-sized cardboard cutout of a famous personality. If you broke the build, showed up late to standup, violated the team working agreement — you had to carry the cutout with you (meetings, elevator, etc.) for the remainder of the day or until someone else made a mistake.

It was a light hearted way to accept mistakes but still be encouraged to learn from the experience.” she said.  And we say – why not!  So to make it easy for you – here you go.

Tom Holland Cardboard cutout.  You’re welcome.

Tom Holland (Grey Suit)

 

STOP THE PRESS – SHOULD WE REALLY CELEBRATE MISTAKES?  ISN’T THAT WHAT THIS ARTICLE’S ABOUT?

Ok.  Finally, we know this article is all about how do we celebrate mistakes.   However, we want to clarify that statement.

We all agree that a company where errors are given a place of honor is considered modern and innovative.

Teams should be encouraged to make mistakes. But errors are a means to an end, not the goal.

Teams should be encouraged to make mistakes. But errors are a means to an end, not the goal. Click To Tweet

We shouldn’t celebrate mistakes, but what we learn from them.

Ewelina Winska, is one of our Agile coaches in Europe.   She’s also the MD of Girls in Tech Poland and a PhD Candidate in Computer Science.   So basically , technology failure (and the approach of test and learn) is not foreign to her.

Ewelina believes “To succeed in a fast-changing world, adaptability to uncertainty and experimentation are crucial. Teams that can learn and adapt fast to what the real world throws at them, thrive and grow.”

And that requires making mistakes and learning from them. When you celebrate mistakes, you learn more from the mistakes you make.” She says.

Ewelina provides these steps on how you can “celebrate” mistakes:

  1. Set the Stage: make sure everyone feels safe and is in in the retro
  2. Gather The Data: what happened, make sure everyone has the same picture
  3. Generate Insights: analyze the data to find root causes
  4. Decide What To Do: what are experiments that could help us to improve
  5. Closing: don’t just walk away but close the retro with an activity Introduce blameless culture
  6. Make it transparent. Write it on a flipchart and place it in your team room.
  7. Work it out. When the time comes together with the team you can cross out a mistake from the list.
  8. Go and grab some icecreams – you can celebrate now!

Ewelina leaves us with this inspiring quote from SarVesh Jain – India’s youngest philosopher.

“Admitting your mistakes makes you humble. But not repeating your mistakes makes you clever.” 

 

The editor would like to thank the fantastic contributions for this article from the following ADAPTOVATORS:

Mark Barber

Malar Singaram

Caitilin Studdert

Rachna Verma

Steve Walton

Ewelina Winska

 

 

This Consulting Life. Six Ways to Re-energise for the New Year.

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In  our new occasional blog series “THIS CONSULTING LIFE”, we sit down with some of the team across the world at ADAPTOVATE.  We ask them some behind the scenes techniques and tips on their consulting practices.   

If you are a consultant – these articles may help re-affirm or help kickstart new ways of thinking.  If you are thinking of changing careers to be a consultant (and we hope you are!), we trust these articles may help answer some questions you have.

To kick things off and given we have just dived into 2020, we asked the team their techniques on how to re-energise for the new year.

At ADAPTOVATE we recognise that when you work in a profession like consulting, and coach or consult in an industry like Agile, that teams need to keep motivated and inspired.  It’s important when working with client’s day to day that no matter what is going on behind the scenes, at work or home, it’s ‘game face on’ when with a client.

We’re not going to pretend that sometimes the last thing consultants want to do is head to a new client, new people, new faces and new challenges.   (it’s also one of the things that drives consultants – it’s a consulting paradox – but that’s for another article).

ADAPTOVATE team pride themselves on a client first ethic and never put themselves ‘into the story’ so to speak.    Our team travels the world on a weekly if not daily basis.  They will be in Asia one day, then back to Los Angeles the next.   Or asked to head over to New York from Singapore for three months for a client tenure.

So, we thought it may be interesting for you to hear what techniques and approaches they will be adopting this year to ensure they are re-energised for 2020.

1.RESTATE PURPOSE AND OUTCOMES

To kick things off our co-founder at ADAPTOVATE, Doug Ross suggests “Restate the purpose for the year, and break it down into achievable outcomes each quarter.”

He continues “Make sure your team is aligned, then get out of bed running at that goal, and watch your team follow you.”

We use OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) at ADAPTOVATE as a company.   They work for us because they connect company, team and personal objectives.   You or your organisation may use something else to help drive your objectives to reality.

2.CELEBRATE OFTEN

Doug also believe it’s crucial to celebrate.   He says, “Change what you celebrate often, and celebrate teaming, and the right things – transparency, engagement, trust in each other, rapid testing and learning in the market.”

Which reminds us of this great Nelson Mandela quote “remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead.”

remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead. Nelson Mandela. Click To Tweet

3.SYSTEMS VS GOALS and WEEKLY PRACTICE

One of our team in Sydney, Shilen Modi, has committed to a weekly practice.  “At the start of every week” he says “I am going to be setting myself a professional goal and a personal goal. However, by doing certain things, the goals will be achievable and won’t be unacceptable”.

That second part is important.  It will be the systems that Shilen puts in place (he’s already thinking that, because he knows they will be achievable) that will see him succeed.

Understanding that winners and losers have the same goal, unlocks this idea.   It’s the systems that winners put in place that make the difference.    It’s a bit trite, but it’s an important distinction when setting your weekly practice.

Editor: If you are interested in learning more about Systems and Goals – James Clear is the man.  Head over here.

4.SELF-ORGANIZING

One of the 12 key principles that define “be Agile” in the Agile Manifesto, states “the best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.”

Kayla Cartwright from our Los Angeles office said “Coming to agile teams from a more “traditional” directive organization, “I see the value in letting teams self-organize and know that I can grow my skill in releasing control to allow for that to occur.”

Which is why Kayla has resolved to “enable the agile practice of “self-organizing” to occur even more often” this year.

I see the value in letting teams self-organize and know that I can grow my skill in releasing control to allow for that to occur. Kayla Cartwright Click To Tweet

5.HIRE DIVERSE TALENT

In our Los Angeles office, we have been building solid partnerships with local universities. It’s one of the tips for hiring diverse talent.  Nathan Nelson – our MD in the US said this year “I’m focused on removing constraints and setting big goals. And bringing people together with diverse experiences and perspectives to better achieve those goals.”

Last year in a Think with Google piece,  David Slocum suggested these three tips for hiring and retaining diverse talent.

6.REFLECTION

“I enjoy beginning the year by reflecting on the things which I enjoyed the year before.” Said Steve Walton from our Melbourne office.

He explains “As I return to work at the start of the new year, I talk with lots of people about what they are doing. This helps get my own creative juices flowing about the types of experiences I look forward to in the new year.

As I return to work at the start of the new year, I talk with lots of people about what they are doing. Steve Walton Click To Tweet

My approach to reenergising this year is to channel the positive experiences of last year into this year. Keep the fun challenges coming!”

Using Agile in Reflection.

Likewise, Slawek Koziol from our European head office in Warsaw says “New Year is a great opportunity to review priorities and set targets. I make sure to dedicate some time to do an honest personal retrospective and plan the new work year.”

And Slawek incorporates Agile Methodology into this reflection. “Some of the tools and techniques I find most effective come from the Design Sprint approach – I set a long-term goal, map my challenges and pick the things than can be effectively done in a given period.”

“I’ll always make sure to get some feedback from the people that are close to me and test whether the direction is correct.

I believe these techniques are as effective for individual challenges as they as they are for teams.” Slawek says.

With reflection in mind – we also liked these four questions (from FAST COMPANY here)  to assist you conduct a career audit for the past year.   It may help you make a change.

  1. Does your work matter?
  2. Have you kept up with how technology is impacting your field?
  3. What is your career trajectory?
  4. Is your financial well-being where it needs to be?

OUR SIX TIPS

So that’s it.  Here they are again – Six ways to re-energise for the new year, as recommended by some of ADAPTOVATE team.

  1. RESTATE PURPOSE AND OUTCOMES
  2. CELEBRATE OFTEN
  3. SYSTEMS VS GOALS and WEEKLY PRACTICE
  4. SELF-ORGANIZING
  5. HIRE DIVERSE TALENT
  6. REFLECTION

Editor would like to thank the ADAPTOVATE team who kindly contributed to this article. Please feel free to reach out to any of them via LINKEDIN.

Doug Ross

Shilen Modi

Kayla Cartwright

Nate Nelson

Steve Walton

Slawek Koziol

 

We are doing all the Agile CEREMONIES; However, our output has not changed, what is going wrong?

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Steve Walton – taking our Adaptovate team through some drills.

3 IMMEDIATE WAYS TO GET THE TEAM BACK ON TRACK

Each ceremony should serve a specific purpose and when done correctly, helps the team to be more collaborative and effective.

First up! – This short article is designed to: – Help you understand what may be going wrong with your Agile Ceremonies.

What this article is not about.  –  Understanding what Agile Ceremonies are.

By that we mean, if you are reading this you – we are kind of assuming you are giving Agile or new ways of working a genuine go.  You have initiated all the ceremonies you believe are required as part of the Agile process.   You’re having Sprint Planning meetings.  And You’re having Daily Scrums, (or ‘stand-up’s’).  You’re conducting Sprint Reviews.  You’re holding Sprint Retros.

So, if you are confused by any of that – you need to understand them first. Or more importantly, you need to do some genuine research into what an Agile way of working is.

(A quick handy tool– The team at The Digital Project Manager – produced a great comparison chart – to guide you through those ceremonies quickly.  You can download that here. )

Our company Adaptovate is also happy to answer any questions, and help you get started.  That’s what we do.    However, this is not a sales pitch.  In this article, we want to help you understand what you may be doing wrong in your ceremonies if they aren’t working.

OK -So on to our 3 simple tricks to get back on track.

Be Agile and Not Just Do Agile Click To Tweet

  1. BE AGILE AND NOT JUST DO AGILE

“Agile ceremonies exist to create discipline around certain practices, such as time boxing, continuous improvement and customer feedback.” says Mark Barber our project lead in Melbourne.  “However,”, he continues, “conducting ceremonies without considering why we do them leads to what we call cargo culting – following a process or instructions without understanding them.”

Mark says, “Be clear on why you have ceremonies in place and continuously inspect and adapt them to make them more effective.”

“It is also important to know that practices alone do not make you agile. You need to understand and embrace the mindset, values and principles so that you can BE agile and not just DO agile.”

 

  1. OUTCOMES VS OUTPUTS

Outcomes instead of outputs should be ultimately what we are measuring.  Tiong Yeow Tan, one of our team in Singapore, says “Outputs are a means to achieving the outcomes. For example,  delivering a user-friendly online application submission functionality is a means to reduce application drop-out rate. Hence what’s critical is that we achieved the planned outcomes.”

“So, if our outcomes have not improved with all the Agile ceremonies, we need to reassess the way that we are doing the ceremonies.

Steve Walton agrees.  “Agile ceremonies are not people’s work, they are a vehicle to align and synchronise.” He says, “It is about ensuring they are doing the right work effectively.”

“This means that it is possible to create less output, however had more of the right output – the output which is relevant and valuable” Steve says.

  1. THE RIGHT PEOPLE IN THE ROOM

Often, one of the common reasons for Agile ceremonies being not helpful is that the right people are not attending the relevant ceremonies (e.g. how can we expect to confirm the sprint backlog without inputs from the Product Owner?).   So, we would suggest you ensure the right people are in the room.

“Agile ceremonies are not people’s work; they are a vehicle to align and synchronise.” Steve Walton says.  “It is about ensuring they are doing the right work effectively.”

He continues “Participation in Agile ceremonies however does not guarantee improvements, however. The ceremonies provide an opportunity for people to engage though targeted interpersonal exchanges.”

To be useful, these ceremonies need to learn how to extract value from them – this happens with practice. They also need to have the right people. Ceremonies where people turn up and ‘go through the motions’ may be uninformative and inconclusive. This may result in people not being clear on what they are doing and producing little useful output” he concludes.

How can leaders support the agile journey?

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7 WAYS LEADERS CAN SUPPORT THE AGILE JOURNEY
Click here  to download the poster for this article

According to Jerome Parisse-Brassens in a recent article from InsideHr,  “The number one challenge facing a leader in an agile culture is letting go of fears related to losing control and not being needed”.

So, before we get to the list,  let’s set the scene.

This letting go of control and fully embracing the mindset of trust,  is where leaders can go from hindrance to hero very quickly in an Agile organisation.

At Adaptovate, one of our co-founders – Doug Ross believes leaders can support the agile journey “By communicating clear goals for the organisation, and publicly rewarding teams and people that deliver testable outcomes that illustrate progress towards that goal.”

WE SEE IT, DAY IN DAY OUT.  What works, and what doesn’t.

Steve Walton – a consultant in our New York office,  says that “When leaders adopt a mindset which focuses on concepts like responding to change rather than enduring it and empowering over directing, they create a culture where people are more able to confidently talk about what is important rather than what has always been done. Their actions create the context in which people operate.”

We asked some of the Adaptovate’s consultants on their thoughts about how leaders can support the agile journey.   Our global consultants, see every day the world over,  how teams in organisations, big and small, cope on their own agile journey’s.

So we’ve developed a list for leaders, to assist their teams on their organisation’s agile journey.

7 WAYS LEADERS CAN SUPPORT THE AGILE JOURNEY

  1. EMPOWERING THE TEAM

Laura Scott , a senior consultant in our Sydney office , unequivocally believes, it’s this simple

“By empowering their team!!! If the leaders buy into the journey and empower their team to make decisions agile will be successful!”.

However as Slawek Koziol from our Poland office says “Leaders and the way they shape company culture are the most significant enablers of agile journey. They should discipline themselves to adopt new creative and collaborative mindsets in order to support their teams along the journey.”   He continues “Only then will they be able to empower and coach diverse teams and allow people who have a clear view of the customers to make their own day-to-day decisions.”

“By giving the team the latitude to determine the “How””, believes our Principle and Managing Director of our Singapore office, Charles Tan .

 

  1. CLEAR VISION

Steve says that leaders should “set a clear vision of what the organization is trying to achieve, and ensuring that teams have a prioritized backlog of work to move focus on. “

Charles  agrees “Leaders need to ensure the team understands the vision, then give them the space to work out how to deliver the vision”

 

  1. BEING TRANSPARENT AND OPEN

“Leaders can support the agile journey by being open, transparent and showing vulnerability at times.” Says Chelsea Bates, our principle in the Melbourne office of Adaptovate.  “Showing the team they don’t always have all the answers and being able to make decisions on what information is available”.

 

  1. BEING WILLING TO CHANGE DIRECTION

Chelsea also states that it’s also important being able to acknowledge when new information shows a change in direction is needed and deciding to change direction instead of waiting another month or two.

Charles agrees.  He says “By being open to review sacred institutional processes, I.e. strategy develop occurs only once every three years, corporate budgeting and project funding review only occurs annually etc.”

 

  1. DISCIPLINED PLANNING AND PRIORITISATION

Slawek believes that some of the key leadership behaviors supporting the agile journey should include a disciplined planning and prioritization approach.  Although he explains “This must be supported with informal rapport as well as prioritizing steady cadence of work over perfection.

Allowing for failures might seem like something utterly unnatural for a leader to do but is critical to building strong agile teams.”

 

  1. SHOWING INTEREST.

Charles Tan believes that leaders can support the agile journey by showing interest in what their Agile teams are doing. He says “Being Agile involves not just teams behaving in an Agile manner, but management engaging with the team in an Agile manner as well”

“Leaders can support the agile journey by cascading down the benefits of agile to their teams.” Believes Rachna Verma – a consultant in our Sydney office.  She continues “If the message does not come from top down then staff are not empowered to deliver and there is a misalignment between expectations.”

Shilen Modi, as associate in our Sydney office, says enthusiastically “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey and if a company/team wants to achieve agile, they need a leader to drive them there.

He continues  “The best thing a leader can be is show their thirst for transitioning into agile. If it is something they really want then they need to be able to convey this back to the team by being enthusiastic about Agile.”

 

  1. ENSURE THE ORGANISATIONAL HYGIENE FACTORS ARE DONE

Steve says “From an Agile perspective, leaders should ensure organizational hygiene factors.  Such as stable funding, appropriate workplace/tools to do get the job done.  And mechanisms to enable the team to work with other parts of the organization.

So try these steps if you are a leader, working with an organisation setting out on their Agile journey. Or perhaps your organisation is struggling with the agile journey.  By following these 7 points  will ensure  you’ll be pleasantly surprised how quickly things will fall in to place.

 

How will smart spaces impact your workspace?

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We live in a world of multi-offices, multi-city teams and flexible work scenarios.  For example, Adaptovate has offices all over the world, and consultants travelling to far corners of the globe at a moment’s notice.

When recently looking for new offices in our Sydney and Melbourne cities, what became apparent was how smart spaces are impacting not just our hospitals, our connected homes and shopping centres, but also our workspaces.

The best designed co-working space should be a smart space.

Importantly, a smart workspace will include, interactivity and connectiveness to each other and allow us to be efficient in how we conduct the basics like videoconferences and workshops.  For example, The IoT should be almost invisible to the worker.   That is, The space needs to be smart and feel human.

4 strategies for companies to run like a greyhound

In an article he wrote earlier this year,  Paul McNamara (Adaptovate’s co-founder) said, “Large organizations are geographically distributed, which makes co-location extremely difficult. The economics of having teams 100% dedicated to a single project can be unrealistic.”    In the piece he shares four strategies that enable large companies to strive in this environment.

  1. Redesign the work
  2. Build Personal Connections
  3. Use Video
  4. Support a Remote-first culture

So, in our quest to find the perfect shared co-working smart space we wanted to ensure that our own company was set up to enable the above strategies to thrive.     Having the right smart space, with fast wi-fi, the right connectivity and room to shut yourself away when required, will lead to our better wellbeing and happy consultants.

Employee wellbeing

As Bob Fox says in his article 2019 Workplace Trend Predictions  “Employee wellbeing is becoming one of the important considerations in workplace planning and design. Companies are widening the tent for planning and design teams to include HR and wellness program stakeholders, and research is proving that a well workplace is a healthy workplace.”

Importantly, the ‘Curated Communities’ that companies like WeWork are establishing around the world, provides the right environment for our downtime, as well as our work time.   Several companies are now including bars and cafes as part of the space.

Recently WeWork published an article on the science behind smart office design stating

“Humans have always used spaces for the same instinctive tasks, like safety, sleep, and community.”  In fact, they continue “Combining subjective and objective data is the only way to design spaces in which all kinds of people can feel comfortable.”

The Must Haves

Closer to home one of Australian consultant’s Rachna Verma says “Smart spaces will force us to think really hard about what we value and what we “must have” in our lives.  How many things do you really need to have in your backpack?  What purpose do ornamental objects provide? How can you repurpose your carry-on and luggage to still meet your requirements and be lighter and less cumbersome?”

In the US one of our team Steve Walton, says “ Smart spaces provide the potential to customize our environments to be better in tune to our needs and moods. There are possibilities to unlock our thinking by tuning them to stimulate our creativity, help us slow down by being more relaxing and having increased functionality to be more productive.”

There are concerns though.   As Steve points out “They also have the potential to be problematic if they fail to live up to the hype through lack of integration, poorly designed interfaces or inadequate hardware.”

Screenless worlds

Finally, we’ll leave you with this seed.  One of the interesting themes that may be emerging for smart spaces is the recurring concept of screenless.    The now ubiquitous ‘Voice tech’ is the biggest out of this broad trend.  But there will be more.  As Jenna Van Schoor reminded us “Google Design strategist Golden Krishna wrote a book called The Best Interface is No Interface”      – This could be the future of our smart spaces.   No screens, no interfaces.  Just human interaction and invisible technology.

What does your smart work space look like?   Do you have one, want one – of in fact need one?