Team Member Training Manual

From OpenAgile

S - Team member manual to be used in the OA Cert./Capacity building process

M - <100 printed pages, same formatting as OA Primer - Material based on test questions - Material generates more test questions

A - Use references: OATM slides, "Wisdom of Teams", "Textbook of Wisdom", etc. - Use people who have knowledge and writing ability -achievability is related to the test

R - reader of manual advances understanding and knowledge of OA, Team Member Role (see outline)

T - v.1.0 completed by 2010.04.12

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Deeper Foundations 2.1 Foundation One: Truthfulness 2.1.1 Basic Honesty 2.1.2 Strategies to use when you don't feel / want to be honest 2.1.3 Integrity 2.1.4 Self-knowledge 2.2 Foundation Two: Consultative Decision-Making 2.2.1 Behaviors 2.2.2 Rules (dos/don'ts) 2.2.3 Tools to assist Consultative Decision Making 2.2.4 Discussion 2.2.5 Robert's Rules of Order 2.2.6 Debate 2.2.7 Consensus 2.2.8 Peer Review 2.3 Foundation Three: The Learning Circle 2.3.1 Reflection 2.3.2 Learning 2.3.3 Planning 2.3.4 Action 2.3.5 The Learning Circle and other models 2.3.5.1 Boyd’s OODA Cycle 2.3.6 Inspect and Adapt 2.3.6.1 The Scientific Method 3 OpenAgile Processes, Tools and Practices for Teams 3.1 Visible Cycle Plan 3.1.1 Wall of Post-Its 3.1.2 Big Visible Charts 3.1.3 Calendar Events 3.2 Repetitive Activities – Team Standards 3.2.1 Identifying basic repetitive activities 3.2.2 Taking a learned skill or process and making it visible as a Repetitive Activity 3.2.3 Habits and Repetitive Activities 3.2.4 Work standards, the definition of “done” 3.2.5 Team Standards 3.3 Guidelines for Completing Tasks 3.3.1 Self-organizing and volunteering 3.3.2 Challenges to volunteering and executing 3.3.3 Asking for help 3.3.4 Working in pairs 3.3.5 Taking a physical break 3.3.6 Mental and emotional readiness 3.3.7 Attitude of service 3.4 Effective Reflection in the Engagement Meeting 4 Teamwork and Teams in OpenAgile 4.1 Teamwork Skills 4.1.1 Eight Team Must Haves 4.1.2 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team 4.2 Team Self-Organization 4.3 Team Development 4.3.1 Four Stages of Development 4.3.2 Pitfalls of storming 4.3.3 Pitfalls of norming 4.3.4 Crisis and victory 4.4 High Performance Teams 4.4.1 Six prerequisites 4.4.2 The Goal and Cycle Plans 4.4.3 Commitment vs. Estimation 4.5 Creativity 4.5.1 The arts 4.5.2 Problem solving 4.5.3 Logic and intuition 4.5.4 Attraction to beauty 4.6 Practical Matters 4.6.1 team size, skills, evaluation, organizations 5 Summary 6 Conclusion 7 Acknowledgements 8 Further Information 8.1 Recommended Reading 8.2 Helpful Materials 9 Glossary

Introduction

This manual is designed to help guide you and your teammates in developing the basic capabilities—qualities, skills, habits and attitudes—of an OpenAgile Team Member. Towards this objective, we will examine more closely the practical applications and implications of most of the basic concepts outlined in the OpenAgile Primer. OpenAgile Team Member Certification is the second level of OpenAgile certification; the requirements are as follows:

-OpenAgile Readiness Certificate (first level of certification)

-Passing an online test based on this manual

-Accompanied through one Cycle by Certified OpenAgile Mentor

-Endorsement from 2 people

-Signed agreement to code of ethics, applicable for lifetime

-Plus participation in a 2-day OpenAgile Team Member Training seminar

The background for this manual includes the combined experience of many consultants, coaches and trainers working for many years with many teams from various industries and disciplines. Some of the resources that have contributed a great deal to the learning behind OpenAgile and referenced in this manual include The Wisdom of Teams by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith, An Introduction to General Systems Thinking by Gerald M. Weinberg, Beyond the Culture of Contest by Michael Karlberg, Agile Software Development by Alister Cockburn, Toyota Talent by Liker Meier, as well as some of the curriculum of the Ruhi Institute and FUNDAEC (Foundation para la Aplicación y Enseña de las Ciencias).

This manual is designed to function more as a living document that allows the learning of those who engage with its contents to interact—at least to the extent possible given obvious constraints—with the learning of those who have developed it, rather than as a definitive technical recipe of best practices. OpenAgile is an evolving conceptual framework for doing work and those who strive to rigorously implement it as a framework and learn to adopt its principles, concepts and practices into their own work will—through their own insights—invariably generate new knowledge that will contribute to the further evolution of OpenAgile as a methodology.

Lastly, a word about your learning: OpenAgile assumes that all individuals who engage in learning with us have taken full responsibility for their own learning and are willing to tolerate certain ambiguities inherent in a system of learning that consciously avoids presenting itself as having all the solutions and knowing all the answers. Therefore, patience with ourselves as learners and with the learning process in general will ensure that we are advancing in our understanding and capabilities associated with the core concepts and foundational principles of OpenAgile.

We look forward to learning with you!

Deeper Foundations

Why go deeper? Understanding various aspects of the OpenAgile foundations—truthfulness, consultative decision-making and The Learning Circle—will empower the team, individually and as an entity. As the team appreciates these bedrocks, through discovery and practice, the closer it will advance towards delivering work of value to the organization it belongs. The foundations are like the concrete walls that hold the frame of a beautifully architected house. But without strong support at the base, the building will collapse as it is ravaged by the climate. And this is equally true about a team and, if it comes to light, that it is not functioning as expected, a closer examination of the implementation of these foundations may help.

Foundation One: Truthfulness

As we learned in the OpenAgile Primer, Truthfulness is one of the essential foundations of the OpenAgile system. Truthfulness has a number of components. In this manual, we will examine Truthfulness to understand it at a deeper level.

Basic Honesty

Honesty is the practice of telling the truth as you know it. Honesty is about how we speak - it is a speech behaviour. It's not just an attitude. We are honest when we respond to the best of our abilities to questions that others ask of us. Telling a deliberate lie is not honesty. But what about answering a question incorrectly? Is it a lie when you make a mistake? Our underlying motivations are an important part of honesty. If we sincerely believe what we are saying to be true, then it is simply an honest mistake, not a lie.

Imagine you are on a team with five other people. Your manager has given you all a clear goal, and as a team you are all excited about reaching this goal. After six months of working hard towards this goal your team is nearly done. One day, you are talking with a good friend and co-worker in another team. She tells you that the goal you have been working towards is not actually the real goal. She says that it's just been to keep you all busy so that upper management doesn't lay you off. She knows this because her boss confided in her. She wants you to leave the team you are on before the work is done, and go work with her on something “real”. How would you feel about learning this? At the very least you would be disappointed. If you haven't already, you might also lose trust in your management. You might even be inclined to start looking for a job at another organization, hoping for a little more sanity. This lack of Honesty has harmed the organization, and it's harmed you – you've wasted six months of your life and are probably more cynical than you were before the phone call.

Everyone in a team, in an organization and in a community have a duty to be honest with each other. Lack of honesty ultimately destroys trust and leads to waste, bad feelings, and failure.

Strategies to use when you don't feel / want to be honest

There are a few of strategies to use that may help being honest come a little easier. The first strategy is to be honest early, and the second is to be honest with yourself, and the third is to encourage a no-blame environment. These strategies are often effective in ensuring ongoing honesty amongst team members.

Being honest early makes things easier by enabling the team to deal with difficulties and issues prior to them becoming more disruptive issues or conflicts amongst team members. If a mistake is made it is invariably more effective to be honest by telling the team as soon as the error is made or detected, rather than covering things up or be dishonest through not communicating important details. Admitting errors early allows the team greater opportunity to rectify the mistake before team efforts are wasted or additional rework is required. Additionally, it is better to identify irritants or disruptive behaviour early rather than being ignored until anger and conflict boil over and detract from team performance.

Another strategy is to be honest with yourself. This is effective as it makes one more open to constructive criticism by acknowledging that one is not perfect. Additionally, poor performance or disruptive behaviour may be self-corrected if individuals are honest with themselves when reflecting on their own performance. It is also preferable to be honest with yourself regarding skills and competencies and ask for assistance where appropriate rather than producing poor quality work that will require team effort to rectify. Even difficulties in coping with team activities or stress is important to communicate honestly. Teams are often able to assist individuals with difficulties without negatively affecting overall performance by redeploying resources or schedules as needed. Without the knowledge however, a team cannot respond.

A no-blame environment is crucial to the promotion of team and individual honesty. Team members will tend to withhold information regarding errors due to an unwillingness to be disciplined or punished. An assumption must be noted and reinforced often at team gatherings or team rooms that indicates that states clearly that team members are assumed to intend to make the best possible decisions with the information that they have at the time. As time goes on, decisions may be proven wrong, but the assumption allows the team to recognize the error as an unintended consequence and proceed to resolve it expeditiously rather than spend wasted time determining precisely who and why the decision was made.

All this being said, making a team commitment to honesty can be one of the most challenging things to maintain. The three strategies noted will assist in creating an environment where honesty is encouraged, supported, and demanded. Without an honest environment many teams will struggle with developing the capacity to self-organize effectively. This is why truthfulness is a key foundation of OpenAgile.

Integrity

At the beginning of every cycle, the team commits itself to deliver working items from the value drivers, followed by tasks breakdown and members volunteering to do the work. Ideally, the team should hit the target as promised. Practically, it should come closer and closer with time. What if it does not achieve the cycle goals consistently? In evaluating the root cause of the problem, the team must be careful not to slide into blaming and shaming, rather one approach would be to get a deeper understanding of truthfulness.

Why keep a commitment? Without it, the team will quickly loose the trust of its stakeholders. How to avoid it? When it comes time to start a work period, each member, before volunteering for tasks, has to reflect on making an accurate assessment of one’s capacity, availability of time or any other factors that may hinder the delivery. Therefore, the team must guard itself against behaviours that erode integrity and some of them are unreliability, lateness and hypocrisy.

Self-knowledge

Self-evaluation that leads to self-knowledge starts at an early stage of our human development. For example, a toddler, who just learned to take a few steps, leaps out into a run, and falls, discovers her body strength and balance. Hopefully she will master the capacity of walking before running. Though gaining self-knowledge of members is an essential process of OpenAgile, it discourages timidity, because a team’s success in delivering quality work consistently depends on building and assessing capacity. How this can take place in way that does not single out any one particular person. One has to take a wholesome and balanced approach by always keeping in mind all the foundations.

The following are some of the methods of self-knowledge.

Action. Let us say a young programmer, who is eager to know more, volunteers for a task at the beginning of cycle but is unable to deliver the work, which seems to be as a result of lack of skill. This missed step will reveal her programming deficiency. However, during reflection the team must first praise her for being courageous, perhaps help her on how to acquire new skill, but not embarrass her in any way. On the other hand, let us say she took the task without knowing the complexities, yet was able to accomplish the task on time and in doing so she was able to enhance her capacities. She was not dishonest as she did not know what would be required to do the work.

Collaboration. OpenAgile teams, composed of members with skills of varying degrees, thrive on high interaction. Given the strength of the other two foundations--consultative decision-making and The Learning Circle—it provides a safe environment to understand one’s own knowledge compared to others. Pairing and sharing is a common practice.

Team. Not many of us have the courage to acknowledge one’s lack of capacity. With time, this fear dissipates as the success of the team overrides any personal preferences. To ensure that the team makes its commitments, it must rely heavily on accurate self-assessment of each member. And with time, when it gets better at understanding its strength and weakness, a collective knowledge will emerge, giving the team a better chance of meeting commitments. One must also consider that factors other than team capacity can delay delivery.

Foundation Two: Consultative Decision-Making

"None of us are as smart as all of us." -Japanese Proverb

This simple statement goes right to the heart of the second foundation of OpenAgile processes, Consultative Decision-Making. One of the key advantages of working in teams is the diversity of viewpoints, skills, and knowledge bases that comes together. This provides a team of individuals a vastly larger pool of ideas and experiences to draw from than an individual, or group of individuals has access to.

So what is Consultative Decision-Making? It is making decisions in a manner that the views of all team members are actively sought and have an impact on all decisions made. There are three main components to this. The first component is to seek the views of team members. The second component is to listen to those viewpoints , and the third component is that something is done with the information, or that it is considered in some way. If one of these components is missing, consultative decision-making is not taking place.

Consultative Decision-Making is crucial to the OpenAgile team as it results in unified action. The outcome of the process of discussing, debating, and planning with all members of the team in a consultative fashion is that all team members will support the decisions at which they arrive. Even if a particular team member doesn't agree completely with elements in the cycle plan, as long as the team member had the opportunity to present his or her views, and that the viewpoints were considered and weighed, then their support for the final plan is much more likely. Also it may be that the person's ideas were included in other elements of the plan.

Consultative decision-making requires each individual to seek the truth in all things, to strive to transcend their respective points of view in order to function as members of a single entity with its own interests and goals. The atmosphere should be characterized by both candor and courtesy and every team member should always try to keep in mind that ideas belong to the team as a whole and not to the individual to whom they occur during the discussion. Since the team as whole owns all the ideas, it can take up, discard or revise them as seems to best serve the goal pursued. In order for consultation to be considered successful, each individual team member must fully support the decisions arrived at, regardless of the individual opinions that they brought to the discussion in the first place.

Behaviors

OpenAgile methodology requires of the team member a certain mode of behaviour. This is not unreasonable considering the fact that we do vary our attitudes and actions to suit certain occasions. For example, the outbursts of fans clapping, shouting and booing are acceptable at a game but the same conduct would be out of place at a funeral, theater or wedding.

When bringing together talented individuals with different degrees of experience, capacity and knowledge, it can be a challenge working as a group when all of these are mixed with the various personal characteristics. Certain actions at a meeting can influence the outcome in both positive and negative ways. Equally important is that decisions are whole-heartedly supported by everyone as one of the basic principles of consultative decision-making, which may not necessarily happen because of certain action. During a meeting, by paying attention to actions and reactions, a team can reduce the pain of working together. The following is a list of some good and bad behaviours.

Good behaviours.

• Act with patience.

• Careful presentation of ideas, to avoid repetition.

• Understand opinions of others by asking questions and not making incorrect assumptions

• Be very enthusiastic and always think of ways to build on others' ideas.

• Keep in mind the fundamental principles such as Truthfulness cannot be compromised. You are willing to firmly say “no” if you think an idea violates such a fundamental principle.

• Recognize that every idea has a kernel of truth in it. You constantly seek to find these truths in the ideas of others and bring them out.

• Encourage others by constantly asking them for their contributions. Even for your own ideas, you offer them in a way that is designed to encourage the others on your team.

Bad behaviours.

• Assert your position.

• Demand attention because you thinking you have the best ideas.

• Constantly interrupting the discussion flow.

• Influence others to be on one side of the consultation.

• Make snide and sarcastic remarks about the things your team members are saying or doing.

• Vigorous hand waving because you want to change the subject.

• Impose your knowledge by always pointing out when someone is wrong.

• Exhibit fear of rejection.

• Name calling.

• Verbal abuse.

Rules (dos/don'ts)

Consultative decision-making is based on the following simple rules:

• Everyone is encouraged to contribute to the discussion; a diversity of views is welcomed

• No idea is owned by any individual and therefore it is okay to change your own mind

• Offence should never be given nor taken

• Personal attacks are absolutely forbidden; Aggressive interruption is considered bad behaviour

• Everyone should be able to fully express themselves in a frank, amicable, and courteous manner

Tools to assist Consultative Decision Making

Brainstorming is a tool that is used to generate ideas. In a brainstorming session, individuals are called upon to share any idea no matter how odd, trivial, or unexpected. Individuals are asked to turn off their filters and let everything come out into to the discussion. This approach must also include a commitment by all participants to avoid any criticism of the ideas of others until after the brainstorming session is complete.

• Yes and...

Six Thinking Hats (De Bono)

• Red: Emotional
• Blue: Overview, process
• White: Data
• Green: Visionary, dreamer, creative thinker
• Yellow: Optimist
• Black: Manager type

Lateral Thinking

The Core Protocols The Core (http://www.mccarthyshow.com, goto Learn for Free) is a set of 11 commitments and 11 protocols to help teams become great by increasing the quality of communication.

• Commitment 1: I will personally support the best idea
• Commitment 2: Seek to perceive more than to be perceived
• Investigate protocol
• Decider protocol
• Shared Vision

7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Think win/win

Appreciative Inquiry

Fist-to-Five Consensus Building Citation: Fletcher, A. (2002). FireStarter Youth Power Curriculum: Participant Guidebook. Olympia, WA: Freechild Project. http://freechild.org/Firestarter/Fist2Five.htm

Discussion

Consultative decision making is not the same thing as a group discussion. In decision-making of course there is some identification of pros and cons of various courses of action, and some identification of why certain activities may be more appropriate than others, which are common in many discussions. The main difference, however, is in the establishment of team structure or timeboxes around the decision making. The intent of consultative decision making is to arrive at a decision, and not to discuss ideas, activities and concepts indefinitely. In an engagement meeting decisions regarding courses of action are set to occur within set timeframes established by the group. Decisions without timeframes have a tendency to drag on until all possible avenues are fully researched, dicussed, and communicated. By timeboxing team engagement meetings it puts the focus on the delivery of value based on knowledge gathered to date. A decision may be made to assemble more information during the next cycle if that is determined as adding value, and consultative decision making in OpenAgile ensures that action occurs during each cycle with value creation in mind. The process produces value based on learning, and not just learning, learning, learning until the opportunity for value creation has passed.

Another factor to consider is that group discussions do not have any specific rules as does OpenAgile especially when it comes to behaviour and processes. It is fair to recognize that discussions can produce good results for an organization. However, for lack of specific guidance of conduct, they can easily turn chaotic with name calling, emotional flare ups and disappointment.

Robert's Rules of Order

Robert's Rules of Order is one of the most commonly used set of procedural rules for group discussions. There are several issues that arise when Robert's Rules of Order is used in a collaborative team environment. One key thing to remember when looking at using Robert's Rules of Order is to realize that the tools presented are not primarily intended to support collaborative environments as defined by OpenAgile processes. Robert's Rules of Order were developed to ensure a delicate balance between the power of a chairperson and the power of a particular group. The results of the application of the rules results in a situation where the majority of group members are favoured over the power of any individual member. Robert's Rules will result in the supporting of a majority wins environment and creates the ability of the majority to limit or exclude a minority of group members from influencing the group debate. This does not allow a group to develop a truly collaborative environment, but only one that is supported by a majority of its members.

Additionally, the many rules are difficult to learn and enforce in a team environment. The rules are contained in many voluminous works of process and creates advantages for those that know the rules and can use them to their advantage over those that do not. The process is largely used in political or legislative processes to prevent a minority of interests from controlling debate and regulation. It also creates winners and losers and supports the creation of adversarial relationships.

In OpenAgile it is desirable to ensure that all members of the team have the ability to influence outcomes. There are not winners and losers, or a majority and a minority, there is only the team. As a self-organizing entity, the team will develop tools and techniques for making controversial decisions that do not require a manual or extensive training to use them appropriately. A consensus model is required to ensure that all team members are engaged and support planned priorities and activities. This may result in having some lively team discussions as the group finds its way to agreement. In the end it is better to have these discussions and work to solutions that all team members can support rather than to create potentially divisive groupings within the team that may create additional and more damaging consequences later on.

Debate

The concept of a debate is also evoked when discussing communication tools used to evaluate courses of action. Debate however, implies an adversarial relationship. It assumes that there are two sides, one in favour and one opposed, and that individuals fall on one side or the other. A debate is used to answer the question of which is the right answer, not what is the best answer. It is not conducive to collaborative solutions, or promote the integration of proposed solutions.

Rhetorical tools are also typically used as debating tactics. Emotional arguments, political arguments, and humorous statements are often used to make one solution sound better than the alternative. The advantage in a debate typically goes to the individual that is more charismatic and personally engaging rather than who may present the most likely solutions. The purpose of consultative decision making is to arrive at the best decision using input from all team members and not to promote situations that lead to more verbose colleagues consistently determining priorities and activities based on their communications ability alone.

An OpenAgile meeting can sometimes turn into a debate. Let’s say, a team has to move to a new location. The choice comes down to two places and the team is divided, forming two camps, each arguing, presenting facts and reasons to support one over the other. Obviously this is not OpenAgile. What to do? Once recognized that the team has moved away from the fundamentals, it is time to take a break. Before the consultation resumes, it is best to review the foundations, in particular, the processes of consultation and try again.

Consensus

Consensus is defined as a “general agreement” or “group solidarity in sentiment and belief.” Consensus decision-making is a decision-making process that not only seeks the agreement of most participants, but also to resolve or mitigate the objections of the minority to achieve the most agreeable decision. http://www.ebbf.org/309.html

Peer Review

Referees submit their opinions individually and there is not a strong effort to reach a group opinion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review

Foundation Three: The Learning Circle

"Don't let your learning lead to knowledge. Let your learning lead to action." — Jim Rohn

In many workplaces, learning is minimal or constrained to very narrow aspects of the environment. Expectations are typically that career development focuses on a person's specialization and that all learning is focused on that. In some more progressive organizations, staff are even supported in learning outside their specialization. This individualistic approach to learning is rooted in our schooling culture. The Learning Circle is a model for learning that takes us far beyond this traditional limited approach.

In OpenAgile learning is a foundational concept and informs all the activities and processes that are part of OpenAgile. The Learning Circle, as a foundation, is the heart that pumps spirit of progress at three different levels: team member, team and organizations. In the rhythm of heart beats, the team cycles through four steps: reflection, learning, planning and action. Each step is followed after another, over and over again, in each a specific capacity required to ensure that the team produces the best result. What is the learning about? It could be in any type of work, for example, designing a new spacecraft arm, building an aircraft from a kit, developing a writer’s website or constructing a deck. The built-in mechanism of potentially producing information, knowledge, insight that lead to planning and action makes this system practical and effective. Based on this foundation, of course in harmony with the other two, the team is equipped to deliver value work.

Let’s look at these four steps, keeping in mind that each requires a specific capacity.

Reflection

During this step the team is engaged in collecting data, impressions, histories, stories, and any other observations about the work being done.

The required capacity is detachment. To understand this quality, let’s examine the opposite. We are attached to places, ideas, food, people and many others things which give us a sense of belonging and are crucial to our development. For example a child becomes attached to parents, siblings and toys to which this young person makes emotional connections. However, this attachment becomes unhealthy for growth of this person, when it becomes a barrier in exploring a wider environment than home.

When team members come together for reflection, detachment means letting go of the emotional connection to certain ideas, principles, theories, and practices and be open to something new. For example, let's say someone is totally convinced of a flat earth and is not open to new ideas on this subject. How good will this person be in a group consultation about global warming?

When team members go into the reflection step of an engagement meeting, detachment means being open to new ideas, which should not be mistaken as being gullible. The use of all the faculties, such as memory, intellect and reasoning must still be used when assessing new ways of finding most effective solutions. Again the truthfulness plays an important role as well as the rules of consultation must not be forgotten during a deliberation. Detachment precludes being fanatical. During the reflection, it may be that you are not convinced of a certain idea, which is the right of every individual, however, if it is part of the final decision, one must wholehearted follow. This can be a challenge for a member. Detachment, like any capacity grows with time, understanding, wisdom and practice.

Learning

Immediately following reflection is the step of learning, where the team analyzes everything collected in the previous step. It’s the stage where “discovery” of new knowledge takes place. The form and nature could be many, depending on where the project is at. It could be insights into skills, relations, structures, obstacles and failures that can enhance the work flow. A team going through the Learning Circle will look for patterns and principles that are visible as a result of the reflection.

In this step, search is the capacity needed, with which everyone is endowed to some degree. As in life search for a better way of doing thing is also true at workplace but in OpenAgile, it takes a new meaning. When the spirit of search is combined with detachment, then the team finds freedom at looking “outside the box”, and has the possibility of come up with the best possible insight at any give cycle. It is free to explore principles, habits, practices or anything else that the team deem necessary.

Planning

In planning, the team takes the discoveries of the previous step and make a concrete plan of action. The new ways of doing things are directly based on the learning of principles and insight acquired in the previous step.

In this step love is the prerequisite capacity. This is a very vast subject and in the context of OpenAgile, it is the passion that one has for the work that the team is currently given to accomplish. It is assumed that during the formation of the team, in addition to technical skills, each member is assessed and invited to participate for the love or passion of learning. Why is love important? If we examine life's great artists, scientists, carvers, carpenters, teachers, writers and managers, you will notice there one is one common element in all of them. It is the creativity that they derive from their work and they excel because of the passion of learning in their fields of interest. Therefore, planning and learning go hand in hand.

It is easy to understand love in the context of its opposite: hate. If an individual hates their own work, then the work results are going to be poor, that person will be resistant to learning and improvement, and in particular the receptivity to guidance is greatly diminished.

Action

At this stage, the team is ready to execute the plan previously devised. Though individual members volunteer to do tasks based on their own abilities, each is accountable to the team. The team is accountable to the stakeholders. Some tasks may be repetitive yet others may be plunging into the unknown.

The required capacity is courage. Why? Firstly, we have the tendency to fear the unknown and in order to fulfill one's commitment, mental strength is required to overcome such an obstacle. Secondly, let’s say, some action was taken, but it is contrary to what you think should happen. According to principle of consultative decision-making, you have to follow the decision of the team. This is a challenge for many and it should not be underestimated. To resolve this internal conflict, courage will be needed to go along, with detachment of the final outcome, whether the team was right or wrong.

In conclusion The Circle of Learning is wholesome and comprehensive as it operates at three levels namely individual, team and organizations. It has well defined steps to collect and analyze data, formulate clear plans and plunge into action. Learning how to best deliver value takes place in every cycle of work. Also built into this model is capacity building and guidance.

The Learning Circle and other models

Change is inevitable yet it is feared and avoided. External forces of economic cycles, competitions and natural disasters can influence a project plan. Or changes local to an organization, such as restructuring, introduction of a new product or downsizing can disrupt workflow. Changes do not have to be negative, they can be positive. Yet they can be challenging. OpenAgile’s reflection-learning-planning-action closed-loop system is designed to adapt to change which is essential for the sustainability of any organization. In nature, species that adapt well, survive the longest. The following is a brief comparison between the Learning Circle and two adaptive models.

Boyd’s OODA Cycle

The OODA loop is an important concept used in military and companies. It consists of observe-orient-decide-act cycles in rapid successions. Observing and reacting to changes as events unfold, if the team or individual can process them quickly, is to have an advantage over the enemy by influencing decisions on the other side. The strategy of defeating the opponent and survival is to operate at faster tempo, generating activities that give the impression of confusion and disorder to the adversary. The disorder can cause the other side to over-react or under-react to situations that seem ambiguous, uncertain and incomprehensible.

OpenAgile’s reflection-learning-planning-action steps map directly with observe-orient-decide-act. The success of both is based on learning. The OODA loop assumes a command and control structure while OpenAgile team is self-organizing, clearly two incompatible systems. The success of Boyd’s method depends on rapid OODA loops which is different from collaborative decision making, happening at a pace comfortable to the team. In OpenAgile, no one thinks in terms “winners and losers” of a battle field, team members spend their effort in delivering quality work to their shareholders and becoming positive catalysts of change in the organization.

Inspect and Adapt

The Inspect and Adapt methodology, developed by Ken Schwaber, is well known among agile software practitioners. Simply, the objective of inspection is find any defects in the software before it is delivered and the adapt part is to make changes in software development practices in the hope improving quality.

When comparing to OpenAgile, inspect corresponds to reflection and adapt to action. However, OpenAgile has the added benefits of learning and planning steps. Both give the team the advantage of using and implementing the discoveries of insight, skills, and relationships during reflection immediately while planning of the next cycle.

The Scientific Method

The scientific method is a well known technique that consists of measuring and learning fields of observation, such as physics, chemistry and space and deriving certain knowledge. The first step is to gather data, which must be observable, empirical and measurable, on a subject. The procedures may vary from one field of science to another, but they all follow the basic principle of reasoning. The collected data is then formulated into hypotheses that explain the target field of observation or phenomena. The end result is to acquire new knowledge, correct existing knowledge, or integrate with previous knowledge. Another essential component of this method is that the hypotheses must be testable. This is a nutshell description of the method which can be translated into three distinct steps: Do, measure and learn.

In mapping the scientific method to The Learning Circle, the steps of the former, do, measure and learn, are similar to action, reflection and learning of the latter.

The duration of each step in these two methods differs vastly. In OpenAgile’s learning circle, every step is timeboxed. Reflection, learning, and planning take between one quarter to one half of the engagement meeting, which is proportional to the cycle duration. A cycle is typically from one week to one month long. This is a rule of OpenAgile. In steps other than doing work, this restriction is imposed to avoid endless discussion with little or no value to the team. However, in the scientific method there is no strict guidance on how long each step must last. One single step such as data collection could last months and years depending on the field of observation.

Another difference between the two is the demonstrable result. In OpenAgile the team delivers work of value at the end of each cycle. Also, there is a possibility that during the course of a project the team decides not to do certain work because it has no value to the organization. Science projects are usually funded by universities, government and companies and before an initiative is approved, it must meet certain criteria of justification. However, it is also generally understood that the gathered data may not lead to any understanding of a target. Only one cycle is done per project. Unlike OpenAgile methodology, there is no built-in mechanism for frequent assessment during the project and abort it if no value is perceived.

OpenAgile Processes, Tools and Practices for Teams

Team members, especially at the early stages of adopting OpenAgile, face many challenges, which are understandable, given that this is true with any methodology. This section gives some helpful ideas on how to make the transition easier. One of the greatest hurdles facing newcomers is that the team take precedence over personal preferences, a concept that may take time to understand and embrace wholeheartedly. As humans, not as robots, we do experience mental fatigues, require quiet time for personal reflection or have our creativity numbed by routine work. The following processes, tools and practices are ways to help team members' work easier.

Visible Cycle Plan

A practice that results in realizing some key efficiencies through OpenAgile is to use visual tools to develop and present the team's Cycle Plan. This allows all team members to become almost instantly aware of: 1. The completion of tasks; 2. Required changes to the cycle plan in process; 3. Whether or not activities are progressing as estimated; and 4. What they should be working on.

Additional benefits accrue when other project stakeholders have access to the visible Cycle Plan. Truly effective Cycle Plan display boards will inform everyone who views them significant details regarding the plan without having to ask anyone or require documentation to explain. The purpose of the Visible Cycle Plan is not only to document and plan activities and tasks, but to quickly communicate it to those that see it.

In many cases it may not be possible to post the Visible Cycle Plan in an area where all stakeholders can easily or regularly come into contact with it. In some cases it may become desirable to use a digital or electronic version of the Visible Cycle Plan that all team members have access to. In OpenAgile the vastly preferred approach is to use an actual physically-posted Cycle Plan whenever and wherever possible, with the less optimal but sometimes necessary electronic version used when necessary.

Wall of Post-Its

One tool that is used by many types of OpenAgile teams is the wall of sticky notes. A key part of the visible plan is to make it simple, easy to maintain, easy to understand, and easy to modify. There are few tools that meet all of these requirements as effectively as a number of coloured sticky notes. There are a number of methods of using these notes in effective ways to promote the communication of the cycle plan in its current status. One tool that has been developed is the concept of the OpenAgile Task Wall, which is a design for a wall of sticky notes that presents an easy to understand method of communicating a cycle plan, its value drivers, the types of activities, the specific activities, and reports progress.

FIGURE OF TASK WALL SHOULD BE PLACED HERE IN TEXT.

Big Visible Charts

The “Information Radiators” sometimes referred to as Big Visible Charts is used by many agile teams to communicate information about a project. It is a large display of information that the team is tracking. In case of OpenAgile, it could be cycle plan, its value drivers, types of activities, the specific activities, and reports progress. One important aspect of this technique that any member is free to update the information radiator and it is located in a spot where the team can see it constantly.

Whiteboards, flip charts, poster boards and electronic screens have been used as display media for information radiators. A team is free to choose an appropriate medium, including coloured sticky notes or index cards and push pins. Regardless of the choice of medium, critical to its effectiveness is how well it provides critical information to the team and stakeholders. Equally important is the ease of tracking and updating categories of information important to the team such as value drivers, cycle task progress, remaining obstacles, repetitive activities and metrics.

Calendar Events

Calendar events is a category of tasks that are scheduled based on date or time. Some examples of these items are meeting with clients, a trade show, phone call follow-ups, employee birthdays, a company picnic or team lunch. However this list does not include OpenAgile meetings, such as the Engagement Meeting. The team must have a venue for adding and updating such events that happen during the course of weeks and months. A large calendar posted on a wall, clearly visible to the members, and adjusted with ease as required would suffice. During the planning period of the Engagement Meeting, this calendar is checked for any items that need to be scheduled during the current cycle. Visibility and ease of use would be the criteria in choosing a tool to keep track of calendar events without missing anyone of them.

Repetitive Activities – Team Standards

Repetitive Activities as the name suggests are routine tasks to the point of becoming brainless work. Once started, these day-to-day operations do provide opportunities for improvements by creating new standards.

Identifying basic repetitive activities

There are two kinds of repetitive activities: time base and event base. Time base category items occur on a regular basis, such as daily sales summary report, weekly database backup, bi-weekly cheque printing, monthly office cleanups and yearly preparation of government documents. Some of these activities are required to be done by the team and others, like office cleanups, are usually taken care of by external crews but the team needs to know in case it is required to do a minimal amount of work. The event base activities happen as a result of a calendar event. For example, a trade show would be classified as a schedule activity which can generate follow up work, such as phone calls and potential client visit. An employee birthday celebration is considered a calendar event but the actions, such as finding a venue, buying a gifts and making an invitee list, taken to make that event happen belong to the repetitive activity category.

The team finds a way of how to manage these activities and incorporate them during a cycle planning. Again visibility and ease of management would be the criteria in choosing a method.

Taking a learned skill or process and making it visible as a Repetitive Activity

The VP of sales in a wireless phone company needed a daily summary report delivered to his office every morning for a ten o’clock meeting. To fulfill this request, the IT maintenance department split this request into 7 tasks among three team members accord to required skills. Daily the tasks were executed in the following ways.

DBA: 1. Check the storage capacity of the data warehouse and top it up if needed. 2. Load into the database the previous day sales information and transform it into company standard format. 3. Check for any failure, if none found, inform the developer.

Developer: 4. Run the computer job to generate the daily sales snapshot report. 5. Deliver the report to a BA.

BA. 6. Check the report for integrity and correctness. 7. Deliver the report to the VP’s office.

In a traditional environment where roles and tasks are highly correlated changing these processes would not be easy. In OpenAgile and especially if all three workers were in one team, this structure would beg for a review. The first five items can easily be done by one person, possibly some training would be needed. Therefore, examination of processes and skills is an ongoing activity.

Habits and Repetitive Activities

The activities that we do which have developed into habits are special. They are often things we do very efficiently but also "mindlessly" - our minds can be occupied with other things rather than concentrating on the activity at hand. As a result, habits can develop such that we have blind spots. As an example, we (hopefully) all brush our teeth daily. And when we brush our teeth we probably do it pretty much the same way every time. If we have developed a brushing habit that misses a spot, we won't be aware of it. We probably won't know until we go to the dentist and discover that there is a cavity developing in that spot. The habit is efficient, but it is imperfect. By making the habit visible as a Repetitive Activity (going to the dentist), we can evaluate how we are doing the habit, and possibly correct it.

Work standards, the definition of “done”

Work standards are a definition of how to do a piece of work. They are set out by the team members and should not come from an external source. It does not need to be perfect initially. For example, in writing a piece of software would just mean 1. Writing the code. 2. Checking it into a repository. These two steps define what this developer considers “done”. Once created, it must be examined regularly for improvements. After a few cycles, it may be decided by the team to expand the definition of “done” by adding one more step such as unit testing. This process of analysis and improvement continues until the end of the project.

Team Standards

Fundamental to the OpenAgile framework is that a team exists for the purpose of delivering work of value. During the life of a team, as it moves cycle by cycle towards the final goal, learning how to improve this delivery is at the heart of all activities. The team defines and refines processes, skills, modes of behaviour, and knowledge. As result a culture emerges as soon as the start button is pushed. They become the standards by which future work is measured. How to document and make them visible so none get ignored? For Post-It lovers, one method would be to write them down and post them on a wall for clear visibility.

Guidelines for Completing Tasks

Sometimes, as we are working, we become "stuck". Our brains dis-engage; we are sleepy after a heavy lunch; we aren't motivated by the tasks in the Cycle Plan. When this happens there are a few things that we can do to overcome this mini-obstacle. The following are some simple tactics you can use to help you get back to a productive state.

Self-organizing and volunteering

Teams are self-organizing in the sense that they may change their own rules and methods and team members may choose their own roles and tasks. The team members volunteer for roles and tasks based on experience, desire to build capacity, or a sense of connection to specific tasks that the team has prioritized. As the team learns, the team members increase their capacity to accomplish tasks and to make appropriate commitments. Self organization also allows for adjustments in the OpenAgile model; however, it is desirable to first gain experience with the model and adjust only after other approaches are proving more effective for building the capacity of the team and it's members.

Challenges to volunteering and executing

At times team members may volunteer for tasks requiring skills or experience they don't currently possess and, as such, may have difficulty executing the tasks. While the tasks are viewed from the perspective of learning, in a work environment, they also represent actions and commitments which must be accomplished. Team members are encouraged to take on only those activities which they feel they can achieve during a cycle, but are also encouraged to get help when needed either from other team members or any one else who may have the expertise to accomplish the task, being mindful of external limitations (e.g. budgets, schedules and commitments of others). Challenges with the executing of specific tasks should be brought to progress reviews.

Asking for help

Volunteering for a task does not mean agreeing to complete it before the end of the cycle. It is simply an attempt. During the course of action, there are many situations that could prevent you from getting the task done. Lack of skill, inadequate time, or mental or emotional readiness could be some of the reasons. Once discovered, asking for help from team mates would be an appropriate action. However, it should not be taken as a failure because in any collaborative engagement helping one another is essential to the well-being and progress of the group. The most appropriate time to bring such an issue to the attention of everyone is during a progress meeting.

Working in pairs

The concept of Guidance is an effective way to build capacities. One strategy to facilitate Guidance is to pair team members, which can be part of the planning. How often do we hear the tutors expand their understanding of a subject while sharing their knowledge and experience with a junior. The same happens in the other direction -- the less skilled person learns the tricks of the trade from a senior member of the team. This is a win-win situation for the team. Also true is when two persons of the same level of skill work together -- learning takes place. A brilliant moment can happen by just explaining your idea to someone.

Taking a physical break

One effect that OpenAgile has is that the expenditure of effort of the team is very efficient. A major benefit of developing the Cycle Plan is that the required activities and their priority have already been determined. This results in much less time spent between tasks determining what to work on next. This reduces transition time between tasks and can have the effect of making people feel rushed or pushed from one task to the next with few natural breaks.

One fundamental concept behind OpenAgile is the steady and sustainable production of value. Sustainability can only be achieved by establishing a pace of work that can be maintained from one cycle to the next. The goal of OpenAgile is not to start and finish work tasks as fast as possible with little or no time for physical breaks. The goal is to produce regular and reliable production of value during each Cycle Plan. Regular physical breaks are very effective at energizing team members to enable improved productivity throughout the workday.

Mental and emotional readiness

Statistics reveal that new teams usually experience many crisis during the first few cycles. This challenging period is normal and is one of the basic stages of team development which are discussed in detail in the next section. However, as comforting as this knowledge may be, members will experience stress which can undermine their emotional and mental capacities. The challenge is to recognize crisis as they happen so as to address obstacles before they become serious impediments. There are two ways to become aware of this situation. It is easier with self-knowledge, which is one of the cornerstones of truthfulness and crucial to understanding one’s own capacity. Another method is have all team members be watchful for emotional and mental stress. One way to recover from this setback is to take a physical break. Another strategy is to shift from one type of work to another, for example, from demanding work to routine activities or from boring work to challenging work.

Attitude of service

The attitude of service can become a mini-obstacle. How we approach work can differ from one person to another and also from one team to another. Since an OpenAgile team’s primary aim is to provide quality work of high value to the organization, let’s look at some of the incompatible attitudes in such an environment. Comments like “I have to do it”, “It’s just work,” “Have to get it done to satisfy the boss,” and “I need a job to live on” will not agree with the principles of OpenAgile. In this methodology, teams are collaborative, oriented towards excellence, consider love of learning as one of the cornerstones of their success and appreciate the honest contributions of all team members. New members may require mental shifts towards these attitudes of service that the team strives for.

Another aspect to keep in mind is the symbiotic relationship that exists at the levels of team, organization and community. A team serves the need of capacity growth of its members and the members serve the team towards fulfilling its goals; the team serves the organization by delivering work of value and the organization serves the team through financial and other supports; and the organization provides goods and services that the community needs.

Effective Reflection in the Engagement Meeting

If The Learning Circle is the heart of OpenAgile, then reflections are its arteries. The results of the analysis of the previous cycle have a profound effect on subsequent steps in the current cycle and beyond. As seen in the previous section, the team develops a culture of learning and problem solving which emerges gradually. Reflections start with a demonstration of work that was just completed. Understanding the full range of shareholder reactions is a way of gauging the value of the work. At this point, the team must have enough questions to fathom the satisfaction of the team’s client. Some of the queries would be regarding the technical integrity of the product, the specification of the product, the quality, communication between the team and stakeholders, and interpersonal skills. But also, there are many non-verbal communications that take place at these meetings, such as looks of satisfaction, the tones of worry and language of mistrust, which should also be noted.

Next, only the team members examine the completed tasks of the Cycle Plan of the prior cycle by simply asking what went well and what needs to be improved. If this section is effective, then it will provide the right input to the learning step, which will flow through planning and action. It will provide the right amount of oxygen to the rest of the cycle and keep the pulse regular and healthy. The proof is in the pudding.

What if things are not going well? If the team discovers that it is not functioning as well as it should, then there are a few actions it can take. First and foremost among action items is to review the three foundations, in terms of understanding and applications. Setting aside time for some deepening would be a good idea. Without resorting to blaming and shaming, are the team members adequately equipped for capacity self-evaluation? Is self-knowledge happening? Is the team being truthful about their understanding of the value drivers? Is the customer participation adequate? Is there a need for mentoring? When it comes to consultative decision-making, is anyone dominating the meetings? What capacity needs to be built for the team, individually and collectively? These are some of the questions that can be asked to improve to effectiveness of Reflection in an Engagement Meeting.

There are also a few practical steps which can enhance gathering data, history, stories and other impressions -- these may lead to better insights in the team’s work delivery. One such step is mind mapping. Take the ideas, concepts, insights, capacities, and learning of the previous cycle and write them down on a blank sheet of paper. After some reflection, draw lines between them. It tells the story of what happened.

Another method of evaluating work done is to ask each member to write down two things that went well and two items that will need improvement on Post-It notes. After all of them are posted on the wall where everyone can see, ask the team to group them in categories. What will emerge are ideas that can be the basis for more exploration.

Another way is a calendar review. Post all the tasks on the wall, gather the team around them and do an inspection of what has been done, what went well, what went less well, and adapt so that the team do things better next time.

Teamwork and Teams in OpenAgile

Teamwork Skills

Team Members need to be able to work with a team. The skills to do so are referred to as Teamwork skills. Teamwork skills include a broad range of soft skills as well as a few skills that are more concrete. It is critical that team members have and develop teamwork skills, however, just throwing a bunch of people with these skills together does not make an OpenAgile team.

The soft skills include:

Active Listening: Active listening is a skill that allows a person to completely focus on the communication of another person including both verbal and non-verbal aspects. Active listening requires the ability to not think of our own responses until after a person has finished speaking. One simple way of doing this is to echo what a person is saying in our silent internal voice. When someone says “I think we should build a new gimbal on the widget”, we are saying exactly the same thing in our own mind. Active listening also requires that we request clarification, often by rephrasing what a person has said and asking if we have understood correctly.

Questioning: Being able to frame and express questions effectively helps us understand and integrate knowledge into our own mental model of the world, or even to modify our mental model. Asking questions is easy. Asking good questions is much harder. We need to use an appropriate set of words and tone of voice so that we do not alienate or offend the recipient of the question. For example, asking “why did you do that?” will often put people on the defensive since they will assume that we mean we disagree with their actions. Instead, saying “I do not understand the reason you did that. Could you please explain it to me?” can be a much more gentle way of getting to the same information.

Logical Argument: When presenting an idea or position, being able to logically support it is important to exploring the truth of it. This includes being able to share our assumptions or axioms, the data we are basing our argument upon, and the logical sequence of reasoning to reach our conclusion. Being able to avoid fallacious logical methods is also important.

Respecting: Showing respect includes acknowledging the fundamental human value of the existence of our teammates, and being able to step back from our own understanding of the world to acknowledge the legitimate nature of the perspective that other people have. This does not mean that you have to let teammates get away with inappropriate behaviour. In fact, respect for our teammates will allow us to support them in behaving in ways that are in alignment with their fundamental nobility as human beings.

Helping: Offering help and actually following through with real assistance are aspects of helping. When we suspect that a team member is struggling with something, we offer to help both verbally and with our actions. This can take the form of offering information, offering emotional support, offering to assist with problem-solving, or actually taking action to do an activity together. When we help someone, we share their burden.

Sharing: Sharing our knowledge, time, skills or physical resources are all aspects of sharing. Sharing among team members is focused on those things which will help a team reach its goals. This is similar to helping except that it tends to be more of a transaction than an ongoing activity. The transaction is that we give a gift and then the other person uses that gift to meet their needs. Sharing does not require reciprocity. If we share something with another person, we should not expect that that person will return the gift at any time in the future.

Participating: It’s probably obvious, but in order to effectively be on a team, we need to participate! Participation itself is mostly obvious: do work with the other team members. However, there are also some less obvious aspects of it. We are not participating when the team is having a discussion, we find it boring, so we check our email. We are not participating when the team makes a decision and we abstain from helping to execute the decision because we disagree. We are not participating in a work team when we are mentally checked out because of a crisis at home.

Eight Team Must Haves

This will be reviewed by your OpenAgile instructor, process facilitator, growth facilitator or your coach or mentor.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

From the book "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni"

According to the book, the five dysfunctions are:

• Absence of Trust
• Fear of Conflict
• Lack of Commitment
• Avoidance of Accountability
• Inattention to Results

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Dysfunctions_of_a_Team

Team Self-Organization

OpenAgile is most often used with teams. A good team size is anywhere from about five people to twelve people. OpenAgile can of course be used for goals where many fewer or many more people are involved. No matter how many people are Team Members, there is a very important principle in OpenAgile: teams must self-organize.

Self-organizing is not something that is easy to do, and yet we do it all the time. Self-organizing is about making individual choices on how to contribute to the overall goal. Most of the time in our work environments we are doing this. We decide how much to focus. We decide when to take breaks. We decide on many of the details of how we accomplish a task. We decide if we will ask for help from our co-workers. We decide if we will try to do things more efficiently. But what we don't usually do is decide which tasks to take on – often these are assigned or defined by our work role.

Self-organizing in OpenAgile means going that extra little bit to volunteer for tasks instead of having to be told by a boss or manager. There is no boss in OpenAgile. The Cycle Plan is created by the team, and every member of the team is responsible for completing the whole Cycle Plan. Sometimes, as we explained earlier, that means taking a Task that we might not be totally comfortable with.

Even in OpenAgile there are limits to self-organization. The Learning Circle tells us that we need guidance. Since guidance often comes from authorities, we know that there may be cases where an authority knows best and we should follow their guidance. Sometimes, a team will give up some authority to self-organize in order to have a strong Process Facilitator or Growth Facilitator. Of course, when using OpenAgile for an individual project where you are the only person working, then you must be completely self-organizing!

A self-organizing team has some important characteristics. There must be diversity or differences between team members. As an example, suppose your organization was merging with another. Then a team to guide this merger would ideally have members from both organizations so that the diverse cultures and skills are represented. As well, a self-organizing team needs a boundary, a way of defining who is part of the team. Usually this is through the members of the team committing to a common goal. To continue with the merger example, this could be the goal of creating a healthy new organization that takes the best of the two previous organizations. Finally, a self-organizing team needs to allow all members of the team to have valuable exchanges with any other team member. There should not be a single person who acts as a communication gatekeeper. Again, with our example, a team member from one of the merging organizations should be able to communicate with a team member from the other organization without always having to get permission or “go up the ladder”.

Team Development

Four Stages of Development

Groups of people working together as a team can anticipate going through four stages of development. These stages are usually referred to as Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. In Forming, a team is coming to grips with a basic understanding of the collective goal of the team, and usually team members are very open to learning about their new environment and each other. Forming is a stage that is characterized by feelings of enthusiasm, excitement, optimism, and fun. After Forming, a team will move into the stage of Storming. A team is Storming when personality conflicts arise, when the team members become discouraged by the effort needed to reach their goal, or when they realize they don't have the resources they need to easily reach the goal. Feelings of anger, pessimism, low morale, and exhaustion are common when a team is Storming.

Pitfalls of storming

OpenAgile increases the interaction between team members through regular engagment meetings, status meetings, and consultative methods. This can impact the storming phase in two ways. Firstly, more direct communication and interaction can highlight personality differences amongst team members and accelerate the onset of the storming phase. This phase is experienced by all teams in some form or other. OpenAgile does not eliminate this phase but instead ensures that it occurs sooner to enable moving to more productive phases more quickly.

Secondly, OpenAgile methods provide the tools for the team to appropriately deal with the challenges presented during the storming phase. Honest communication, consultative decision making, and an environment supporting capacity building, will not only accelerate the onset of the storming phase but ensure it passes quickly and allows the team to move to the norming phase of team development.

Pitfalls of norming

Arriving at the norming stage is indeed a great milestone, which is a cause for celebration. The team has already crossed the dangerous waters of the storming period. The commitments are on target every cycle. The pace, after much learning, is not too low or too high, but just right. By now many habits and standards have become normal practices and most of all the members are enjoying the rewards of delivering work of value to the customers.

However, even at this stage there are many risks of sliding backwards. Complacency is one to carefully watch for as it can sneak in unnoticed. If habits, principles, modes of conduct, focus on quality, consultative process, and honesty have not been solidly internalized to the point that they are team culture, then lack of any one or combination of few can cause the team to regress. The members have to be vigilant in guarding the learning that had taken place thus far and not lose it through bad practices. As mentioned before, team standards must be recorded, be visible, and be reviewed regularly and improved.

Another pitfall is to gear up to high-performance level too soon. Over confidence may tempt the team to over commit consistently over many cycles, which can cause conflicts, stress, and too many defects.

At this stage management may pay more attention to the team more than previous phases. Supervisors participate more often at meetings, which is an asset, except when they interfere with the decisions of the team. The team members might interpret it as a clue to take on more responsibilities after it has reached a new level of maturity. They would resist the pressure and revert to storming again.

Self-knowledge, highly encouraged in OpenAgile, can also become a challenge if it is not tempered with humility. Individuals with new-found capacities may be tempted to lead decision-making processes at the expense of collaboration and consultative spirit. Bahaviours become strong and stifles unity.

When membership changes the team automatically reverts back to forming. There are many ways, to automatically throw the team into a forming or storming stage. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect re-norming to take place a few times until the team is ready for the perfoming stage.

Crisis and victory

In traditional waterfall projects, crisis happens at the end. A team at a bank was given the task to process transaction returns caused by non-sufficient funds, closed account or any other failures, among banks electronically. This system interfaced with many existing applications used at the bank. After one year and going through normal phases of analysis, design, construction, testing, the project was rolled out into production. On the first day, it blew up. Return-item processing halted throughout the system costing the bank millions daily and not to mention its reputation among financial institutions and customers. It was such a crisis of such a great proportion that the team had to work eighteen hours a day, management held meetings every morning and afternoon and VP’s of many departments demanded progress status frequently until the problem was solved. It turned out that the account field in one of the in-house systems was expanded and all the in-house programs were changed and tested accordingly except in one of the vendors' software. After this crisis was over there were other minor ones such as GL accounts did not balance and printer outputs did not satisfy customer requirements.

An OpenAgile team is not immune from crisis but the serious one happens at the beginning of its life, usually in the first few cycles. This is rarely the case when the team has already worked in a project together before and the members are well versed in the foundations and practices. For a team new to OpenAgile framework, the challenges are many considering the membership of diverse technical capacities, interpersonal skills and OpenAgile experience. The deficiencies of the team will show up in two practical ways: the team not meeting its commitments from one cycle to another and the delivered product is plagued with too many defects. To address these two common issues in early stages the team must carefully examine many aspects of working in a dynamic environment, such as clear understanding of value drives, honest assessment of capacity, effective reflection, translating learning into planning and action, and so on. To avoid crisis, use The Learning Circle as a tool which can increase the understanding of how to deliver work of value in your organization.

After the initial stages, can the team be free from crisis? No, it is not as we saw in the previous section. Going forward and backward through the development stages is what happens. It is normal to slide back to storming or forming from norming. But if the team is experiencing repeated crisis, it means either learning is not happening or learning is not being effectively translated into planning and action.

High Performance Teams

By crossing into the performing stage, a team has already realized that it is not just a group of people working together. It is a real team with a small number of people with complementary skills, committed to delivering work of value to the organization with common goals and working approaches. The members are held together in a coherent manner by being faithful to the principles embedded in the three foundations, by being passionate about learning and skill development and by developing mutual respect and accountability. When a team has reached this stage, it is flying with new characteristics like a butterfly after it has been transformed from being a caterpillar.

Six prerequisites

The prerequisites of a high-performing team are as follows:

1. The team has a disciplined approach to self-management such that it operates as a unit and not as individuals held together in a group.
2. It meets its commitments smoothly and effectively without conflict or need for external supervision.
3. Team members are highly interdependent and collaborative in finding the most appropriate solutions.
4. The team is motivated and knowledgeable in specific lines of business.
5. It has the right mix of technical, decision-making and interpersonal skills without any need for external help.
6. It knows how to adapt to changes.

The Goal and Cycle Plans

During planning, a high-performance team starts to coalesce around challenging aspirations and, by this stage, it is wise enough not to slide into a lower stage. What would be some of these goals? The most common is to shoot for quality. One specific goal would be to reduce defects by 50% every cycle until the work is defect-free. Once this goal is achieved it might take quality to a higher notch by daily reducing number of defects to zero. For a team not to falter, it must have already developed methods of tracking defects, recording and making team standards visible at every Engagement Meeting, finding the right technical solutions to increase product quality and making learning as a guide. Therefore during the performing stage, the team is more concerned about how the members deliver work during a cycle rather than the quantity.

Another characteristic that stands out in a high-performance team is effective communication among members and with the organization. Transparency and the right flow of information build trust in working relationships.

Commitment vs. Estimation

Estimation is a best guess based on a given set of information of how long it will take to complete a task. A commitment is what a member or team will do, for example, during a day or cycle. Hitting a measurable high mark of commitment, say over 90% at every cycle is also what high-performance teams aim for, which increases the meaning of purposefulness for members. Achieving such a goal requires constant examination of processes, techniques, and learning. Invariably, the team discovers better ways. For example, a software team decides to implement test-driven development to improve quality. In an accounting department, perhaps cross-training is needed to mail all the invoices to the customers on time.

Creativity

Creativity is a mental process to discover new ideas or concepts or to make new associations of the existing ideas or concepts, enabled by conscious or unconscious insights. It is the aha-moment that happens in a group or individually. How many times have we had that brilliant moment while doing routine chores or during sleep? However, creativity so vital to an organization is often stifled and it is found that such companies have built many procedures which considers thinking “outside the box” both risky and impossible. For example, a mining company had a unique problem of controlling a sump pump remotely. There were three main challenges, 1. The pump had to be controlled from anywhere in the world, 2. It could used in any pit and 3. Any failure had to be detected immediately and action taken to prevent rising water level to cause mine to collapse, especially when miners are working underground. Many engineering firms attempted but did not come up with workable solutions because they were thinking in terms of existing practices. The one that was successful had to think outside the technologies currently used in process control and they used wireless internet and specially-made devices.

Creativity is needed in all the OpenAgile foundations but the most crucial one is in consultative decision-making, which is also considered a method of discovery. It does not mean an individual has to surrender all the creative activities to the team. Rather, finding the most effective solutions works at two levels, individually and collectively, by allowing free-flow of ideas and being completely open to where the solutions may lie. For complex and difficult problems, many sessions are required. But the team must also have the skill to adjourn a consultative session when needed. The break allows individuals to reflect and search for the right answer to a specific problem. This may take several iterations. In OpenAgile, the members with the attitude of humility realize that solutions always belong to the team and not to one or a few individuals.

The arts

Creativity is popularly associated with the arts. Managers, scientists and engineers have to be as innovative as any artist and writer in coming up with new ideas. In fact the mental process in arriving at cutting-edge insights is the same for anyone and the satisfaction derived from each is also a universal experience.

Problem solving

Lateral thinking, a term coined by Edward de Bono in his book New Think: The Use of Lateral Thinking, refers to solving problems through an indirect and creative approach. Lateral thinking is about reasoning that is not immediately obvious and about ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic.

We are entering an age of management when creativity is extremely important for the survival of any company, which ties in nicely with The Learning Circle. A high-performance team builds enough capacities to become the company’s lead-problem solvers and creativity plays a crucial role in reaching this stage. At this level the OpenAgile team is not saddled with rules, practices and customs, often found in traditional teams, rather it is willing to explore new and innovative ideas.

Logic and intuition

Creativity is also associated with intuition, which is acquiring of knowledge without using reason. It is attributed to divine intervention and cognitive process. Intuition means knowledge coming from somewhere external. Opposite to intuition is logic, an intellectual activity of discovery or analysis through specific steps. Though different in mental processes, when they are combined together, the most advanced knowledge is achieved. A woman with throat cancer, after going through many remedies, both from medical care givers and herbalists, came to the end of her road of finding a cure. One day, intuitively she knew that a combination of herbs will eliminate her health problem, but, at that moment, she did not know how. Being an engineer, she set out on a path of studying many herbs in a logical and step-by-step process. After months of analyzing herbs from many parts of the world and gaining knowledge of the properties of each, she found a handful that could be the recipe of the cure. She came up with a powder composed of the selected herbs and tried it on herself. She found the cure for cancer.

In OpenAgile intuition and logic are human capacities to be fully used in finding the most appropriate solution.

Attraction to beauty

Humans are attracted to beauty, for example, we are drawn to a panoramic view, gorgeous face, exquisite jewel, and intense colours. Our admiration does not stop at the physical level, we go beyond by admiring poetry, movies, stories, art and many abstract ideas that give us exhilarations. Also, there is a third level: inner beauty, a concept used to describe the positive aspects of something that is not physically observable. They are qualities including love, courage, detachment, kindness, sensitivity, tenderness or compassion, creativity and intelligence have been said to be desirable. Do two persons appreciate beauty in the same way? No. For example, someone who is passionate about poetry may not necessarily enjoy listening to rock'n roll music or vice-versa. Each one of us appreciates beauty through the lenses of one’s inner capacities. An OpenAgile team is very interactive; therefore, appreciation of beauty in self and others promotes unity of purpose.

Practical Matters

team size, skills, evaluation, organizations

A few practical points about teams are in order to wrap up this manual.

1. Team Size: Ideal team size is in the range of five to nine people. Smaller and larger teams are possible. The larger the team beyond nine, the more difficult it is for that team to get into a high-performance mode. Team size in reality is a tension between several factors including budget, time, skill sets, and personalities.
2. Skills: Ideally the team is composed so that when you "add up" all the skills of the individual members, you have a team that can accomplish the goal without requiring external help. In practice, there are gaps in the skill set. The team is responsible for finding ways to fill those gaps as they move through the cycles. Clearly, learning new skills is an important component of this. However, it may also be expedient to ask for temporary help from people outside the team.
3. Evaluation: Evaluating the performance of a team is relatively simple in concept. The evaluation should be based on how well the team is delivering value towards the goal. However, it is important to understand that evaluation and motivation of team members are linked together in sometimes complicated and unexpected ways. Review of appropriate literature (e.g. "Drive" by Daniel Pink) will help in making effective evaluation decisions.
4. Organizations: Many organizations use the term "team" in a fashion that is different than as is used in the OpenAgile approach. For example, a group of one hundred people that work on a factory floor might be referred to as a "team" by management. Organizations may have to change the use of their language as they adopt OpenAgile. As a Team Member, you can help with this by being precise and using the word "team" only to refer to an OpenAgile team and using other words like "group", "cohort", or "community" to apply to larger non-team collections of people.

As a team member yourself, you may not have direct control over these items, but being aware of them can help you influence the direction, composition and effectiveness of your team.

Summary

This manual is designed to help guide you and your teammates in developing the basic capabilities—qualities, skills, habits and attitudes—of an OpenAgile Team Member. Towards this objective, practical applications and implications of most of the basic concepts are outlined in the OpenAgile Primer.

• A deeper understanding of the three foundations empowers the team
• Honesty builds trust among team members and between the team and stakeholders
• Self-knowledge is needed to accurately assess team's capacity
• Consultative decision-making requires candor, courtesy, honesty, humility, patience, creativity and collaboration
• A decision must be whole-heartedly followed by the whole team, regardless of how it was reached
• Learning, when translated into planning and action, is the key to team's success in delivering work of value
• Visibility tools, when properly used, are effective in making Cycle Plans
• Team standard, when recorded and improved regularly, enhances commitment and creates a culture of learning
• Team members are encourage to ask for help and take physical or emotional breaks when needed
• The team is collaborative, oriented towards excellence, considers love of learning as one’s of its cornerstones and honest contribution by members crucial to its success
• The team looks for ways to make effective reflection in Engagement Meetings
• OpenAgile must have eight characteristics
• Team progresses and regresses through stages of forming, storming, norming and performing
• A high-performing team, the ultimate stage, holds its members held together in a coherent manner by being faithful to the principles embedded in the three foundations, by being passionate about learning and skill development and by developing mutual respect and accountability.
• Practical considerations, such as team size, skills, evaluation and organization, are essential in a well-functioning team

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Contributors: Mishkin Berteig, Mitra Gopaul, Paul Heidema, David Parker, David Sabine, Mike Caspar, and many others. Thank you all.

Further Information

• www.openagile.com: The official site for OpenAgile which includes presentations, updates of this e-book, certification, training, coaching.
• www.berteigconsulting.com: We can help you with your adoption of OpenAgile principles and practices, regardless of the type of work you do! Contact us at sales@berteigconsulting.com.
• www.agileadvice.com: A multi-author blog that covers all things related to agile methods.

Recommended Reading

• The Wisdom of Teams
• Getting Things Done
• Textbook of Wisdom

Helpful Materials

• Forming a New OpenAgile Team: A reusable presentation which may assist in the introduction of OpenAgile with new teams. The document can be helpful to new/adopting teams as they proceed through the initial phases of the OpenAgile system: Levels 1 (Formed), 2 (Launched) and 3 (Stable).
• Understanding Team Dynamics, Potential Dysfunctions, and Development: This presentation can help teams understand their capacity for growth and/or potential regression. When a team begins (or returns to) storming, it may be helpful to review this material to remind team members of OpenAgile's Three Foundations: Truthfulness, Consultative Decision-Making, and the Learning Circle.
• Reflections from Team Member training participants

Glossary