CONSCIRES AGILE PRACTICES

It’s always amazing when a group of people pleasantly surprises and inspires us in the most unexpected ways. A couple of days ago, I was listening in on the weekly Review and Retrospective Meeting that the Conscires team conducts at the end of each Sprint (yes, we do practice what we stand for and promote!). My intention was to find a bunch of things that I could coach the team on (in this particular case, ‘coaching’ was a nicer way my mind looked at the evil intention of telling people how they can do better – in other words, how I could ‘fix’ them!)

Anyways, I was on this call while I was waiting for my flight and the team started with the review. I could hear one person talking about another’s task. I jotted down, “Why is Indu updating everyone on what someone else had done?” Right after that, she said, “I don’t know about this item and will need to wait for Deepa.” So Mr.Coach in me had to erase his comments, for Indu was only speaking on behalf of an absent member of the team. Soon, I could hear the others talking about their own tasks. Thank God I did not speak out of turn and state something to that effect in the meeting. As the meeting proceeded, I was amazed how self-organized, happy and collaborative this team is and, mind you, this is a distributed team – no one sits in the same room during this meeting (some of them are located on opposite sides of the globe), no one has met more than half of the team members; in fact, I doubt if anyone has actually met more than 6 people in the team. As I continued to listen, I was delighted at how much the team has achieved, and to see that they also take accountability for what they couldn’t finish.

The meeting, facilitated by Lisa, moved on from reviewing the work done in the previous sprint to retrospective, in which everyone spoke about how they felt regarding the way we were working. Even though I was about to board the flight, I wanted to listen in with the urge that hopefully there will be more coachable moments. The team started the retrospective with a “Perfection Game”, with each team member rating the sprint on a scale of 1 to 10, and capturing what could have made it a 10. It was encouraging to hear honest shares on how people felt and what they believe will get them to a number 10. It was so cool to see the team encouraging one of the members to move from a 9 to 10, as she couldn’t really come up with a reason as to why the sprint deserved only a 9!

Lisa then asked the team whether they wanted to do a “Start – Stop – Continue” activity or just do Shout-outs for each other and Jeena suggested Shout-outs. The “continual improvement” side of Mr.Coach wrote down, How do we improve if we don’t look at Start – Stop – Continue? Well, since the announcements were going on at the airport, I couldn’t seize what I thought was a coaching movement and come up with a question like “What action items would come out of this meeting?”

The team captured the shout-outs, applauding each other for doing a great job and acknowledging each person’s efforts in supporting others. It was amazing to feel the positive energy those conversations created. It reminded me of a discussion I had over lunch about how we lack positive feedback at workplaces and its negative impact, and also the dearth of feedback when things are going right.

I felt fortunate to see a team do so well, and was a little annoyed with myself that I would have spoiled those meaningful conversations with my coaching tips – thank God Southwest did a rather loud announcement for boarding!

Here are my takeaways from the meeting:

1. Be happy to be wrong: Keep your judgments away while you are coaching, be patient and observe what the team is up to.

2. Meaningful conversation vrs action items: What we need in workplaces is a safe environment for more meaningful conversations, instead of action-oriented meeting minutes.

3. Learn from your team: Remind yourself that learning comes from unexpected quarters, be open to learning when others expect you to teach.

4. “Management by leaving the room” is important, especially when you feel responsible for running a company or managing a team.

5. Re-invent your job as a manager: It is not that managers are evil, we sometimes put ourselves in such situations. The only solution I see is to have everyone take responsibility and manage, so essentially Quit your job as a manager.

6. Accept the greatness of the team. The team would do quite well just the way they are, without requiring anyone to fix things for them. They just need opportunities to communicate and share.

7. Love your team members: I know Lisa really meant it when she told me the other day “Everyone loves Indu,” it was evident from the Retro meeting. I would even take it further to say, everyone in the team loves each other, or am I taking that too far – ?

And yeah… we don’t always have to do START – STOP and CONTINUE to be on a path of growth, just do Shout-outs and bring on that Positive Energy!