In this article, we dive into a transformative topic that could redefine the way you approach leadership—asking questions. Inspired by the leadership insights shared by transformation coach Kim Antelo, we’ll explore the power of leading with questions, unlocking your team’s potential, and creating an environment that fosters collaboration, innovation, and personal growth.
In a world that’s constantly evolving, where business decisions need to be made swiftly and decisively, the idea of leaders asking questions might seem counterintuitive. However, as Kim brilliantly outlines, this approach holds the key to unleashing two times the team’s capability, improving engagement, and boosting profitability. Let’s break down the key takeaways from the video and explore some practical improvement ideas for implementing this approach in your own leadership journey.
Ah, the virtual world of remote work, where Zoom and Microsoft Teams are our modern-day conference rooms, and turning on your camera has become the equivalent of facing the right way at a physical table. But why, oh why, do so many participants choose to sit there with their chairs turned away?
In this blog post, we’ll recognize why people keep their cameras off and make a case for the importance of flipping the virtual chair around and turning that camera on.
I recently had the pleasure of having a conversation with Pam Ashby, a strategist at the Agile Business Consortium, to explore the world of Business Agility.
Business Agility is a topic that’s been gaining momentum and for a good reason. In our fast-paced, ever-changing world, organizations must be able to adapt and, stay customer-centric to thrive.
Below are key takeaways from our discussion. See our 16-minute convo for more context and information.
I recently had the opportunity to listen in during a LinkedIn/YouTube Live conversation between my fellow AV Transformation Coach Colleen Johnson and Roger Turnau, both seasoned Lean-Agile practitioners. Their discussion touched on various facets of Lean-Agile coaching methodologies, including visualizing working on Kanban boards and the challenges of scaling Agile in larger organizations.
As they discussed the frameworks and their respective principles, one intriguing question emerged in my mind: “Could Kanban and SAFe® actually be BFFs?”
As the pace of change continues to accelerate, embracing agility – the ability to turn on a dime for a dime – has become a key to ongoing success for many organizations. Agile practices, like Scrum and Kanban, initially developed for software development, are now being embraced across all departments and functional areas including marketing, finance, and human resources. However, when companies launch Agile Transformations in hybrid environments, it can introduce a new set of challenges.
What do we mean by hybrid: Do some teams operate remotely, and some in-house? Are teams globally dispersed across multiple time zones? Is there a mix of permanent staff and contractors? All fit our definition of hybrid. When combined with an Agile Transformation, all require an intricate balance of strategies.
The Sprint Review, just like the Retrospective, is an important feedback loop in a Scrum team’s toolbox.
Why is the Review so important? Because it ensures that the team members and their stakeholders are in sync on the priorities, the work being done, and the value being created.
From The Scrum Guide, the purpose of the Sprint Review is to “inspect the increment and adapt the backlog as needed.”
Let’s Unpack Things
During the Review, the team and their stakeholders discuss what was worked on during the Sprint. Generally steering clear of recaps of technical details, a good review will be a collaborative event, eliciting customer and stakeholder feedback. Some of the work will be potentially shippable, other work will already be live, and some work will not yet be complete (gasp) but in a state where feedback can be obtained.
If the team stops there they will have covered only the inspect aspect of things. And the event is “just a demo.” However, if they keep going, they gain information that can be used to inform the delivery of value via the upcoming Backlog Refinement and Sprint Planning events. That’s the adapt piece.
One of the best ways to make the Sprint Review much more than a demo is to make sure the team tells a good story.
Tell a Good Story
Start by reiterating what the goal of the Sprint was. (The goal was defined during Sprint Planning, and kept forefront during the entire Sprint, right?) Then during the review, maintain a focus on what’s in it for the customers, stakeholders, or system users.
If the team is using personas, go as far as “bringing the end-user” into the review. Demonstrate a feature using the persona’s name, profession, context, and their concerns.
A successful storyline focuses on value and strategy, elicits feedback, as well lays the groundwork for “what’s next” might look like this:
“Here’s what we did and why.” Include one of the following statements:
“This benefits our (customers, stakeholders, or system users) in the following ways: ____________________.”
“Our (customers, stakeholders, or system users) experience of this will be _____________.”
“Here’s how we approached it and the results… showing the functionality from the (customers, stakeholders, or system users) perspective (again, not from the code level…)
Trailers for what is “coming soon”…. Acknowledge the plan will be continually reviewed and adjusted…
Here’s how we’re tracking on the balance of the Product Backlog items related to this Feature/Epic/Idea.
Then an open ended question: “What do you think?” (See “An Example Sprint Review Agenda” below for additional inviting questions.)
Stay away from a dead-end technical-focused Sprint Review and move towards one that breathes life into the event.
Guidance for Attendees
Sprint Reviews are an opportunity for stakeholders to listen and learn from team collaboration regarding Sprint execution. It’s an inclusive space to celebrate wins, provide feedback that helps inform team backlogs, and focus on the storyline, not solutioning. The event informs and orients the group to continuously iterate for the strategic impact of what’s next!
Additional Plot Lines
It is recommended that teams review what they committed to, what they completed, and discuss the delta. What were the challenges the team faced, overcame, etc?
What were some of the key improvements experiments from previous retrospectives that were implemented to help achieve the Sprint Goal or remove some viscosity the team has been dealing with? What future actions are planned? What amount of team capacity would the team like to devote to those activities. The team generally shouldn’t go into great detail here – a mention to highlight continual improvement should suffice.
Full transparency builds trust.
Practice Pragmatism, Not Dogma
There are some common discussions Agile Velocity Coaches have when supporting team leadership roles. Themes and antipatterns we address while helping accelerate the adoption of Agile practices and enabling team ownership include:
“All stories completed must be demo’d” – To paraphrase Voltaire: The surest way to be boring is to leave nothing out. Focus instead on the stories that have high value to the customer as well as those that the team could benefit from receiving potentially valuable feedback on.
“Only completed stories can be demo’d” – If an incomplete story is at a point where feedback could be obtained, go for it. Just acknowledge it’s not Done.
The Product Owner is seeing the completed stories for the first time – mini waterfall anyone? Product Owner feedback should have already been obtained within the team’s Sprint.
“Stakeholder should sign-off at demo” – Ah, danger, Will Robinson. Typically, a team is working thru a number of “small” stories in an Sprint, not one big one… Those stories all have clear a Definition of Done / Acceptance Criteria, and the Product Owner has seen “something” prior to the demo, right? The demo should not be a time of judgment. Any changes that emerge from stakeholder feedback go into the backlog to be prioritized during planning…not holding up the release and learning obtained from putting things into use…
“The entire team must be at demo” – Daily Stand-ups mean the team knows what’s going on the entire Sprint. While they are all welcome to attend the review event, they all don’t need to be there. That said, ideally, the whole team is there to hear feedback first hand (ear?) and be more informed about their customers’ needs.
“Do we have to prepare a great deal of stuff in advance?!” – It’s a good idea to prepare a bit so the review runs smoothly, making sure there are sufficient test accounts and such. The time spent preparing for a demo should be as little as possible. Focus on connecting the dots between the Sprint goals and a cohesive demonstration of the business value created.
An Example Sprint Review Agenda
Team’s Product Owner (PO) opens, acknowledges, and welcomes stakeholders and guests (Warm-up, set the stage, all aligned to the team’s core values… be they serious or playful)
PO presents high-level initiatives/priorities the team is working on, including why these are priorities. (This is both to align the stakeholders and to reinforce the big picture to the team.)
PO or a team member presents the Sprint Goal(s) (and ideally, how they connect to the big picture.)
Team members then present work completed during the sprint, inviting questions, comments, and conversation
Note that this is a feedback loop, not an acceptance meeting. You can completely change the energy of the meeting for good by asking inviting questions like: – “What did you expect to see, but don’t?” – “What do you love on this page right now?” – “What is the first thing that would catch a customer’s eye?”
Optional – PO or team members briefly present stats on non-planned work completed, eg. number of support tickets closed, support turn-around time. (This is to increase system visibility of all the team’s work.)
PO then facilitates a discussion to support the prioritization of upcoming work for the team. This is the most important part of the Review and it is Stakeholder-centric: “Comments on what you saw and your POV of what you think should be next?” (If there’s a pattern that after most Sprint Reviews your backlog is not changed from what it was coming in, you are probably not having impactful Sprint Reviews.)
Wrapping Up
Go into the review just as if you were doing a focus group with the end-users (customers, stakeholders, or system users)
Include work-in-progress if it is in a state where you can get feedback.
Show the value the team has created during the Sprint.
And finally, look forward to refining the team backlog with what everyone has learned from the awesome review!
Comment below if you have any tips on how to encourage others to provide feedback during Sprint Reviews.
If you need help making your Sprint Reviews more successful, our Team Agility Accelerator Service is for you. Contact us for more details about how we can address your specific needs.
After reading the Gallup Group’s article “Remote Agile: Sustain Performance While Working Remotely” a few things floated up in my mind. To keep those things from bouncing around too much, I thought I’d write them down and share them out.
In case you haven’t read the article, here are Gallup’s key points and recommendations for sustaining performance for remote and distributed teams at a glance:
The need for remote Agile happened overnight amid the pandemic
Build trust through relationships to combat anxiety in agile remote teams
Focus on four key actions to bolster a successful new way of working:
Maximize the use of virtual collaboration tools for remote teams
Replicate agile rituals while working remotely
Build trust in a remote work environment
Get closer to your customers
The Elephant in the Room
While there are some interesting (and debatable) points in the article, I think Gallup has missed a larger and more significant issue.
The issue is not about performance through tools and rituals. It is about building and sustaining organizational resilience–at individual, team, system and organizational layers–in the face of a VUCA* world, cranked up to eleven.
We’d wager most people think of coaches in the context of sports – Vince Lombardi, Phil Jackson and Pat Summit. These are some of the greatest coaches in the history of sports, but coaches exist in every profession. Simply put, a coach (in any context) helps people, teams, and organizations perform better.
The same is true for Agile Velocity (AV) Coaches. AV Agile coaches help organizations by accelerating their adoption of Agile methods in order to better achieve their business objectives. Coaches use Path To Agility® to prioritize the business outcomes, identify, and coach to build the capabilities necessary to enable those results.
Agile Coaching to Levels
Building new capabilities is hard. It takes time and it will be met with resistance. Having a consistent, repeatable, proven approach is how AV Agile Coaches are able to get results. The Path to Agility® breaks down a business into three levels, each of which has a set of capabilities to master in order to achieve the targeted business outcomes. They are responsible for working with leaders, teams, and individuals at all three levels to instill the desired capabilities. They focus on business results, not just process change.
Following are the three business levels along with the key results our coaches are working towards:
Organization – Leadership develops a modern mindset, increases visibility throughout the organization, and creates alignment around vision, goals, and measured success for sustainable organizational change.
System – Networks of teams are coordinating and collaborating to address dependencies and reduce the time to market.
Team – Teams successfully take on new roles, establish Agile team practices, increase engagement, learn faster, and can predictably produce value.
Agile Coaching For Growth and Results
Although the primary goal of an Agile coach is singular, to improve performance, there are many functions a coach performs on an engagement. The following highlights a handful of these. (For a deeper dive, see 7 Roles of an Agile Coach – Besides Agile Coach.)
Observer
Teacher
Partner
Facilitator
Advisor/Mentor
Coach
As you can tell, AV Coaches aren’t just expected to be expert Agilists, they’re also expected to be well-rounded, growth-minded leaders. Our Agile Coaches are leaders that can have hard, honest conversations as well as listen with compassion. Leaders that can share knowledge and impart wisdom from their experience. Leaders, at their core, that want to help others improve, because they are coaches.
Ready to Improve?
At Agile Velocity, each of our coaches’ job is to work themselves out of a job. They do this by establishing core capabilities at all levels of an organization — making the organization self-sufficient and resilient. Our approach greatly improves the likelihood of long-term success.
When you’re ready to improve your organization’s performance by focusing on business outcomes like increased revenue, customer satisfaction, and speed of delivery, our coaches will be prepared with a solution tailored to your unique needs and desired business results.
A free, 1-hour webinar on the Path to Agility® – Introducing a simple yet powerful way to profoundly better outcomes
See firsthand how Path to Agility makes sense of Agile transformations
Get specific answers to your chronic transformation challenges
See potential impediments that have been stealing your momentum
Uncover capabilities to accelerate your progress
Business leaders have seen enough to believe that agility is the path to better business results. An empirical model that builds in continual improvement and consistent measures? That’s a powerful promise and explains why Agile is attractive. So attractive, in fact, that it’s hard to find a company today that doesn’t claim it’s agile or going agile.
Our experience and research have shown that the vast majority of organizations who take on an Agile transformation will either experience “superficial agility” which usually results in failure and reverting back to old, ineffective behaviors, or “pocket agility,” where some things may improve, but falls short of the true organizational improvements needed to be more resilient. Companies are stuck in transformation with no way out.
This is why we created the Path to Agility — a proven framework designed to help guide organizations through their Agile transformation journey. It helps by providing a clear approach for identifying the capabilities necessary to move forward and the visibility needed to resolve obstacles along the way.
The Path to Agility is designed for change agents and leaders who need to improve transformation consistency, quality, and results. For example:
Scrum Masters who are serving teams adopting agility
Coaches and consultants supporting Agile transformations
Leaders and executives who are guiding their organizations through transformation
Companies who demand predictable and measurable business outcomes
Why Business Outcomes Matter
Using business outcomes as a “north star,” the Path to Agility helps both teams and organizations evaluate where they are on the journey to business agility and map out what they should focus on next. It equips organizations with a simple yet powerful roadmap to profoundly better business outcomes.
Is your organization well underway implementing DevOps? Or maybe you’re just getting started with a DevOps initiative? Did you know you can maximize your chances of achieving desired business outcomes by combining DevOps with an Agile Transformation?
You Keep Using Those Words…
When you hear “Business Outcomes,” “DevOps,” and/or Agile Transformation” – what comes to mind?
We’ll share our definitions. (If you disagree with our interpretations, contact us…we love a good exchange of ideas!)
Business Outcomes
It’s more than outputs.
These are the highest-level objectives of your organization. The big WHY. They are key inputs for your business and technology discussions around WHAT to work on. They are measurable outcomes – goal posts – that provide feedback on HOW your initiatives are doing.
DevOps
It’s more than continuous delivery.
DevOps is the practice of software development (Dev) engineers and of IT operations (Ops) working together during a product’s entire lifecycle, from design through development to production support, in order to shorten the total lead time (from concept to cash) and to provide predictable delivery of high-quality products.
Agile
It’s more than “Scrum.”
Agile is an iterative approach that focuses on collaboration, customer feedback, and small, rapid releases in order to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of value. While the Agile movement originated in software development, it has been applied to much more: from medical devices to spacecraft, as well as engineering, marketing, and education.
Agile Transformation
It’s more than “Training, Titles, Ceremonies, and Tools.”
It doesn’t come in a box (or inside a cloud). It ain’t a silver bullet.
An Agile Transformation is a rethinking and reworking of how your organization engages technology, people, and processes to achieve specific business outcomes. It is the relentless pursuit of continuous improvement.
What’s the Pay Off?
Agile Transformations and DevOps initiatives are complementary. Can you have one without the other? Sure. However, if you put the two together you have the opportunity to align the tech side of the house with the business side. This combination will enable your enterprise to gain faster feedback, reduce risks while also obtaining meaningful business outcomes.
We’ve identified nine common business outcomes, all of which are positively influenced by Agile+DevOps. (Reference: Harvard Business Review Analytic Services Survey, Sept 2018).
In our experience leadership tends to “Want them all, equally. And NOW” Sorry. If everything is important, you know the saying, nothing is. Prioritization of the organization’s highest-level objectives, to avoid whiplash and to create focus, should narrow the field down to no more than three.
Employees are more satisfied in their work, willing to go the extra mile, passionate about the purpose of their jobs, and committed to the organization.
Customer Satisfaction
Customers are satisfied with the experience, benefits, and outcomes when using your product or service.
Quality
The product or service meets the expectations of the market for usability, reliability, etc.
Speed
The time it takes to deliver an idea into the market.
Predictability
Teams maintain a predictable cadence of delivery enabling the business to make informed business decisions.
Innovation
New ideas, creative thoughts, or novel imaginations provide better solutions to meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or known market needs.
Market Responsiveness
The ability of the organization to pivot quickly to respond to ever-changing market demands.
Productivity
Increase the business value realized while maintaining or reducing costs.
Continuous Improvement
The ability of the organization to relentlessly pursue optimizations in all aspects of business functions.
It will be challenging as there are many potential impediments that could derail the transformation without the right support.
From organizational silos to legacy technology. From the need to ensure security and compliance, to the lack of the right skills and even the right mindsets among employees.
The good news is that there’s a path through. For over a decade, Agile Velocity has been helping enterprises chart and benchmark their progress during change initiatives. We’ve observed patterns of change, learning, and growth that move through five different stages, each building on the learnings from the previous stage. The Align stage is the first stage of the journey while Adapt requires a significant amount of agile maturity.
Align
Align the initiative with measurable business outcomes and define a clear transformation roadmap.
Learn
Establish foundational practices and a culture of learning by empowering teams to take ownership of their work and process.
Predict
Maintain a predictable cadence of delivery, enabling organizations to make informed business decisions.
Accelerate
Optimize the full value stream and shorten the time-to-market.
Adapt
Embrace organization-wide adaptability in order to quickly respond to market demands.
For software powered organizations (we could make the argument that 99% of all businesses fit this description), DevOps can significantly improve their ability to progress through the latter stages of Predict, Accelerate and Adapt.
Science has proven that introducing change into any system will result in a period of chaos until a new status quo is achieved. When adopting DevOps practices or undergoing an Agile Transformation, organizations will experience a temporary decrease in performance before integrating new practices enables a new, more performant, status quo.
Many leaders don’t acknowledge or plan for the “dip” that accompanies the learning stage – adding more change, producing more chaos, resulting in failed initiatives. Any organizational change must have leadership support along the entire journey or it will be short-lived or fail outright. With leadership support and by using the stages as a guide, time spent in “chaos” can be reduced.
Like the authors, we believe that “Leadership really does have a powerful impact on results. . . . A good leader affects a team’s ability to deliver … how the team manages its work and develops products. All of these have a measurable impact on an organization’s profitability, productivity, and market share. These also have an impact on customer satisfaction, efficiency, and the ability to achieve organizational goals.”
Some of the key transformation elements which require leadership involvement include:
Sense of Urgency
Identifying and communicating the compelling reason(s) why the organization should change
Ensuring alignment around the compelling purpose has been achieved at all levels
Roll Out Strategy
Defining an initial transformation roadmap, one that takes into account organization structure demands, top risks, and incremental rollouts
Aligning teams to value
Enabling Action
Facilitating change to support the overall transformation
Resolving organizational obstacles and impediments with urgency
Continuing to communicate the change vision (rinse and repeat)
Cultural Shifts
All transformations require shifts in culture and mindset. How big? The standard answer: “It depends!” Some situational variables are current organizational levels of
Many organizations attempt transformations with disappointing results. If you perceive a gap between where your organization is and where you want it to be, we can help. Our client roster is filled with Fortune 500 companies and growing businesses alike – all of whom have benefited from our expertise.
We’ll help you shorten your feedback loops – so you can build the right thing, the right way, for the right people, at just the right time.