Overcoming Fears with Collaboration

Since Agile is so team-centric, collaboration between team members and customers is essential for success. However, for some people collaboration isn't an easy thing. There may be some fears that need to be overcome to fully see the benefits of collaboration.

Fears fall into these categories:

1) External Fears - The organization may have fears of being too transparent to their customers, competitors or other outside interests. Sharing too much information could be considered giving away company secrets to your competitor. Having your customers talk with other may uncover issues they have with your organization. Your customer may have information you might not want to hear (but should).

2) Organizational Fears - Executive management is supposed to drive the long term vision and strategy of the company. Operational teams are supposed to implement this strategy. But what if the two groups should clash? What if the operational teams come up with ideas that will cause a need to change the direction of the company? What if strategy is on a "need to know" basis and executive management doesn't give enough information to operational teams? What if management doesn't trust operational teams? What if operational teams don't trust management?

3) Individual Fears - Perhaps the individual hasn't had the education and skills developed that encourage collaboration. Most people grew up going to school where the teacher talks and everybody listens. The teacher gives you the homework and you follow the instruction. No coloring outside the lines. No challenging ideas. Speak when spoken to. Then, that person starts their career where the manager talks and you listen. The manager gives you tasks and you complete them. Same structure, but highly different than a collaborative environment.

So, how do you combat these fears?

1) External Fears - Managers worry about transparency because they think that outsiders don't know what is going on in the company, but in this Information Age the opposite is true. Customers will talk with other customers. Competitors will find out what you are doing. The competitive advantage is no longer how you hold on to information, but how quickly and better you can implement those ideas. Once you understand this, you will be more open to knowing what is out there. The more transparent the organization can be in an collaborative environment, the more accurate you will meet the needs of those "outsiders". The competitor who is most open and both listens and responds to what is being said, the better they will be.

2) Organizational Fears - Collaborative environments have one thing in common - an environment of high trust and respect for each individual. Strategies need to be shared. Everybody may have knowledge on any topic so every topic should be shared. People need to understand the vision. Most of all, everybody in the organization should help influence where the company needs to go. It's not just Executive management's role, but everybody who has a stake in the company.

3) Individual Fears - New people have the most opportunity for collaboration because they come with a fresh and naive perspective. No questions are "dumb" ones. Organizations need to encourage new employees to contribute in any way possible as soon as possible. There needs to be retraining and rethinking about how individuals should contribute. Some people are more comfortable in a verbal discussions. Others need time to digest information then respond. Yet others feel more comfortable in "tweaking" existing ideas instead of coming up with new ideas. Others like to respond in writing. You need to provide an environment that plays to each person's strengths and allows them to participate.

What does it mean to be Lean?

Note: I wrote this post originally on my first blog, Random Thoughts from a CTO, but thought it was good enough to share with the readers here.

Lean can mean different things to different people.

For some, lean can refer to how you maintain your physical shape through dieting and exercise. For those that have been successful in staying lean, they will say that it takes a paradigm shift of how you take care of your body through what you eat and how you exercise. When you start the process of becoming lean, you begin to cut out those things that are unhealthy and make you fat. You begin to eat better. You begin to feel better. You start seeing results in the mirror. You also are constantly monitoring your weight, heartbeat, blood pressure, calories, etc through the process. For some of us, myself included, we get lazy once we reach this point and start falling back to bad habits -- at first, a mistake here and there on what we eat, or missing a workout or two. Then, you stop getting on the scale and recording your results. Then, before you know it you are not lean again!

For others, lean can refer to how you maintain your financial status through budgeting and tracking your expenses. For those that have been successful in saving money and making more through investing, they will say that it takes a paradigm shift of what you do with your money and where it goes. When you start the process of saving money, you begin to determine where your expenses are going and which of those expenses you can eliminate that takes you from your goals. You also look at ways to increase your income with those savings through investments. You also look to remove your debt. You begin to save money. You begin to feel better. You start seeing results in your portfolio. You also are constantly monitoring your income flow, expenses and net worth through the process. For some of us, in this case myself not included, we get lazy once we reach this point and start falling back to bad habits of spending excess money, getting into debt, and eventually not saving money. Then, before you know it you are not financially set again!

In the software engineering industry, lean is now referring to your cycle time - how quickly you get to a working solution for the end customer without losing quality. For those that have been successful with this approach, they will say that it takes a paradigm shift of how you development and manage your software solutions. When you start the process of reducing cycle times, you begin to determine where communication and collaboration need to happen, what activities or processes take away from reducing cycle times, how we do our jobs and the way we interact with other areas. You will begin to see results. You will see the customer is more satisfied. You will find better ways to get your work done. You also are constantly monitoring your estimates, work completed, costs, quality much better. For some of us, myself a little bit, it is very easy to fall back into old habits of traditional and formal processes because you are so familiar with them and may get discouraged early on in not seeing immediate results you are hoping. You then begin to see things slip, take longer and less of a feeling of accomplishment either by the team or the end customer. Then, before you know it you are feeling that things aren't getting done as they should!

There are many other scenarios that this lean approach can take - time management, stress management, strategy, project management, the list goes on and on. What is getting in the way of your goals? How do you improve on those goals? What do you do to maintain those goals? How do you measure the process of those goals?

Focus on the goals and maintain discipline to see it through! This is what lean should mean!

What part does Credibility play?

In both lean and agile cultures, it is important that teams are self-organizing, self-improving, and self-managing. To be able to do that requires a certain amount of autonomy and latitude to "do the right things". This in turn requires a certain amount of trust that the right things will happen and respect that the team and individuals on that team have the right knowledge and skills to accomplish the work. All of this requires establishing credibility.

What is credibility? I see credibility as a track record. Each person can have a good track record or a bad one. A good track record is one where the person says what they are going to do (integrity), their opinions are proven through implementation (knowledgeable), and their actions are in the best interest of the company (commitment). A bad track record is one where one or more of these components are consistently being challenged by others. "Is this person representing the company?" "Do they know what they are doing?" "Will they really follow through and deliver?" If these and other questions continue to happen, this will impact the credibility of not just particular individuals but eventually the team as a whole.

Why all of this talk around credibility? Because if you want good communication between customers and the development team you need credibility. If you want the team to think in Lean concepts and perform in an Agile manner, they must have an appropriate level of credibility at some point. This isn't just an Agile or Lean thing, the same can be said about any employee, department or project team. It's just much more apparent and critical with Lean and Agile since the focus is on teamwork and the role of teams.

Whenever you have your next brainstorming or design session, look around and listen to what people are saying and how others are reacting. If you hear things that are based on little fact, make sure that work is done afterwards to experiment and prove out the theories and assumptions. If you see that others are showing through their words (and more importantly their body language) that they don't believe individuals or even worse the team, talk to those people and coach them on credibility. Make sure they see examples that hurt credibility as well as those that improve it.

As a manager, I am highly sensitive to the reputation of people, teams or the entire department. Typically, credibility and reputation go hand-in-hand. I want individuals to be successful. I want trust and respect established. I want them to have the highest integrity. Each of them should want it just as bad. Many times, they may not know why they aren't getting it. Credibility isn't something that is easily given, it must be earned. It is something that is earned over your lifetime. Think about that for a moment...