Month: April 2019

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Servant Leadership 101: The 4 V’s to Create a Strong Foundation

Servant-leaders must create a strong foundation that helps people feel empowered to take action, enables them to move forward in a common direction despite uncertainty, and to feel inspired and resourceful during challenging times.

The 4 V’s can help you establish this strong foundation:

  • Vision – “What do we want?”
  • Values – “What is important about that?”
  • Value – “What value are we creating? What outcomes indicate we are succeeding?”
  • Validation – “How will we measure valuable outcomes? How will we validate our assumptions about value?”

Read the complete article here: https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/servant-leadership-101-4-vs-create-strong-foundation

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Hoe je zorgt dat je enthousiasme gedeeld wordt

Weet je wat ‘the rule of ⅓’ is?
Het is een principe dat werkt op basis van groepsdynamiek en peer pressure. Als je een derde van een groep weet te overtuigen gaat de rest van de groep altijd mee.

Misschien herken je het wel: Je bent naar een theatervoorstelling geweest. Het was best een leuke voorstelling, maar niet de allerbeste die je ooit gezien hebt. Als de voorstelling is afgelopen begint iedereen te applaudisseren. Op de voorste rij staan zelfs een paar mensen op voor een staande ovatie. Dan volgen er achter hen meer mensen die gaan staan. Links en rechts van je staan ook wat mensen op. Terwijl het klappen doorgaat staan er steeds meer mensen op in de zaal. En dan ineens: sta jij ook op. Hoe kan dat? Wat is er gebeurd?!

Dit is het effect van ‘the rule of ⅓’. Doordat meer dan een derde van de zaal staat, ga jij onbewust ook staan om erbij te horen.

Dit principe kun jij ook inzetten in jouw meetings. Als je zorgt dat je op voorhand al wat mensen hebt geïnformeerd en geënthousiasmeerd over je plannen zul je zien dat je daar profijt van hebt. Als deze mensen met voorkennis hun enthousiasme delen zullen de anderen in de ruimte ook eerder geneigd zijn om enthousiast te reageren.

Hoe zorg je dat je enthousiasme gedeeld wordt?
Heel simpel eigenlijk: Vraag het de mensen. Niet als een random vraag. Maar vraag het heel direct aan een van de mensen van wie je weet wat ze ervan vinden. Na het positieve antwoord vraag je nog eens direct een van de andere positievelingen. Je zult zien dat de vibe nu positief is waardoor het lastiger wordt om de negatieve ideeën te spuien. 
Twijfel je of het werkt? Probeer het maar eens. En… Wees je ervan bewust dat wanneer jij de conversatie niet leidt, iemand anders het wel doet. The rule of ⅓ werkt helaas ook andersom. Als de negatievelingen (die vaak automatisch als eerste hun mond opentrekken, wat is dat toch met hen?!) als eerste hun negatieve opmerkingen delen wordt het lastiger om de vibe positief te krijgen.

Is er dan helemaal geen ruimte voor negativiteit?
Tuurlijk wel! Maar zorg ook dat je dit stuurt: Vraag eerst heel specifiek wat men positief aan het idee of de presentatie vindt. Op deze manier train je de aanwezige breinen om meer positiviteit te zien. Vraag daarna pas naar verbeterpunten. Niet naar slechte punten! Ga uit van het feit dat het een goed idee is (je kunt dit zelfs zo benoemen) en dat je nog zoekt naar punten om het idee nóg beter te maken.

Deze aanpak is zo makkelijk, voor je het weet staat iedereen op voor een staande ovatie. 😉 Het is nou eenmaal leuker om dingen samen te doen. Zo simpel werkt het.

Wil je jouw meetings, sessies en andere interacties nog beter leren vormgeven en anderen om je heen leren activeren, inspireren en motiveren? Schrijf je dan in voor het allereerste digitale live workshop programma van Nederland: ‘AIM: Word een Superfacilitator’. Geef je hier op.

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How to sell your Agile approach to customers: Emphasize change

Selling your Agile projects will be incredibly hard. This blog might lead you to conclude that we know pretty damn well what we are doing at my company. But despite the internal success, we are struggling with this as well. But we are experimenting, because we really, really believe that an Agile approach is the only way to deliver high-quality software in a process that is sensitive to the customer’s needs. And that’s where the key lies; you have to really believe it yourself first. Only then can you convince your customer how their needs are met.

Read the complete article here: https://medium.com/the-liberators/how-to-sell-your-agile-approach-to-customers-emphasize-change-729b05ba3bca

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The problem with ‘5 whys’

The ‘5 whys’ technique is one of the most widely taught approaches to root-cause analysis (RCA) in healthcare. Like most such tools, though, its popularity is not the result of any evidence that it is effective. Instead, it probably owes its place in the curriculum and practice of RCA to a combination of pedigree, simplicity, and pedagogy.

When used carefully, ‘5 whys’ may play a powerful role in the classroom. It can illustrate both the need for depth (as a positive example) and the need for breadth (as a negative example) when analysing complex problems.

As a tool for conducting RCAs, however, especially in the area of patient safety, the use of ‘5 whys’ should be abandoned. As the (apocryphal) quote goes: “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong”. When it comes to accident investigation, ‘5 whys’ is that answer.

Read the complete article here: https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/26/8/671

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A Fun Way of Giving Feedback – The 360 Dinner

How does it work?

#1: Invite your team to a nice dinner: Let colleagues know in advance this will be a special 360 Degree Feedback Dinner.

#2: During the meal you’ll give each other feedback: One person will start and the rest of the team will take a few minutes telling that person both positive and negative things. The feedback must be honest and genuine with the aim of moving people forward, not roasting them or pounding them into the ground. 

#3: The person on the receiving end can answer questions or comments and then thank everyone for their thoughts. Once that person is done move on to the next. This can take a long time so carve out a few hours.

#4: This feedback works best if afterwards each person comes up with a few takeaways/themes based on the feedback they got for what they want to improve. They should then communicate that to the team so that colleagues can hold each other to account and check in every few months to see how they’re progressing. 

Change doesn’t happen in a vacuum, in fact when we tell people we’re trying to change it happens 90 percent faster than if we don’t tell anyone.

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How I Used the Spotify Squad Health Check Model

The ‘Squad Health Check Model’ is an approach that visualises the ‘health’ of a team. It covers areas like teamwork, fun, easy to release, learning, the health of codebase. While discussing the different health indicators, the team builds up self-awareness about what’s working and what’s not. The broad selection of questions helps expand their perspective. Perhaps they were well aware of the code quality issues but hadn’t really thought about the customer value perspective, or how fast they learn. It also provides a balanced perspective, showing the good stuff as well as the pain points.

Read how Barry Overeem usde the Spotify Squad Health Check Model in this article: https://medium.com/the-liberators/how-i-used-the-spotify-squad-health-check-model-f226c6fe0fdb

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The Team Manifesto: the foundation every team needs

Ideally, teams get the chance to select their own members, organize a kickoff and define a strategy to reach the given goal. Most of the time teams are created top-down and there’s no time available for a decent kickoff. Teams just start with the realisation of the project and everything seems to be going smoothly. But when the first serious impediments arise the foundation of the team will be tested. Teams with a solid foundation will also struggle in the beginning but survive and become stronger than before. Teams without this foundation might also survive after a harsh period, but chances are they fall apart and the project is killed and the team dissolved.

The first step in becoming a solid team is establishing a solid foundation. This foundation consists of a shared vision about teamwork and the required quality standards.

For this purpose, creating a team manifesto is the ideal instrument. It is an agreed way of working among the team members that ensures mutual understanding. Years ago I got inspired by this blog post, since then I’ve changed it slightly to fit new insights. With every team I start, creating the team manifest is the first thing I do, success guaranteed!

The steps are:

  1. Set a time box of one hour. Pick a flip over, some sticky notes and markers
  2. Ask the team the question ‘What does team mean to you?’
  3. Let them answer this question in silence and write it down on a sticky note. One answer per sticky note.
  4. Gather all notes and ask the team members to present it to each other
  5. Cluster the ideas and identify and prioritise the themes by voting
  6. Write down ‘Team Manifesto’ on a A3 poster and the 5 most important themes on the left side
  7. Give the team some time to brainstorm about the other extreme of the earlier defined themes. For example: the extreme of ‘fun’ might be ‘boring’.
  8. Write down all the extremes on the right side of the poster with in the center the word ‘above’.
  9. The last important step is to invite everyone to affirm their commitment to the team manifesto by writing down their signature below the poster.
  10. Make sure the team manifesto is well visible in the team area.

The same exercise can be done by posing the team the question ‘what does quality mean to you?’ This creates awareness about the required quality and stimulates craftsmanship.

What are the advantages of creating a team manifesto? Read the full article here: https://medium.com/the-liberators/the-team-manifesto-the-foundation-every-team-needs-c1d72ccfe689