Introductory slides to the XP Manchester workshop on logical conflict resolution at the November 2013 meeting http://xpmanchester.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/nov-14th-courage-in-the-middle-of-conflict/
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Courage in the middle of Conflict
1. C OURAGE
IN THE MIDDLE OF
C ONFLICT
Resolving conflict methodically with the
Conflict Resolution Diagram from Theory of Constraints
Ash Moran
ash.moran@patchspace.co.uk
PatchSpace Ltd @patchspace
2. T HE F IVE XP V ALUES
Simplicity
Courage
Feedback
Communication
Respect
3. C OURAGE
Courage is effective action in the face of fear.
…
Without intending to diminish the kind of physical
courage demonstrated by a soldier, it is certainly
true that people involved in software development
feel fear.
~ Kent Beck
4. F EAR
Physical harm
Loss of security
Damage to ego
Loss of autonomy
+
+
+
Fear
+
+
+
Loss of
effectiveness
Isolation
(not exhaustive)
5. C OMPLEX S YSTEMS
Spend more!
Stop
arguing and
make some f*in
money!
Be bold!
Marketing
Sales
Buy Macs!
Investors
Be cautious!
Software
Legal
Spend less!
Purchasing
Finance
Buy PCs!
IT
HR
8. C ONFLICT S CENARIO :
L IMITED RESOURCES
HoldYourHand Hosting provides managed server hosting to
large and small clients. Recently they’ve been suffering an
unusually large number of outages.
In a number of cases, support staff have handled follow-up
calls badly and upset clients. As a reaction, many managers
have taken to jumping on issues themselves. “Managers
think they know our job best!” and “Support staff are
complete idiots!” and are often heard shouted around.
Support staff are scared to speak to clients,
and managers are overwhelmed with firefighting.
Who should handle the clients, support staff or managers?
12. C OMMON G OAL
Preserve client
relationships
Managers
call clients
Use mgmt time
appropriately
Support staff
call clients
Run a successful
business
13. T HE C ONFLICT
Preserve client
relationships
Managers
call clients
Use mgmt time
appropriately
Support staff
call clients
Run a successful
business
15. R EQUIREMENT 1
Preserve client
relationships
Run a successful
business
We need clients to be successful
We can’t afford to lose clients
We can’t find new clients
16. R EQUIREMENT 2
Management time is scarce
Managers have a specific role to play
in improving the business
Run a successful
business
If managers are distracted, the
long-term health of the business is
compromised
Use mgmt time
appropriately
17. P RE - REQUISITE 1
Preserve client
relationships
Managers
call clients
Managers are better at dealing with clients
than support staff
Clients are going to leave if they get bad service
from support staff
Support staff can’t learn to make good calls
18. P RE - REQUISITE 2
Managers don’t have time to make calls
Support calls are operational work, not
management work
Support staff have useful knowledge
about outages when making calls
Use mgmt time
appropriately
Support staff
call clients
19. T HE C ONFLICT
Managers
call clients
Managers and support staff
can’t both make support calls
Support staff
call clients
21. R EQUIREMENT 1
Preserve client
relationships
Run a successful
business
We need clients to be successful
We can’t afford to lose ONE SINGLE client
We can’t find ANY new clients
22. R EQUIREMENT 2
Management time is scarce
Managers have a specific role to play
in improving the business
Run a successful
business
If managers are distracted AT ALL,
the long-term health of the business is
compromised
Use mgmt time
appropriately
23. P RE - REQUISITE 1
Preserve client
relationships
Managers
call clients
ALL managers are MUCH better at dealing with
clients than support staff
ANY clients will leave if they get JUST ONE
bad call from support staff
Support staff CAN’T POSSIBLY learn to make good calls
24. P RE - REQUISITE 2
Managers don’t have ANY time to make calls
Support calls are operational work, not
management work
ONLY support staff have useful knowledge
about outages when making calls
Use mgmt time
appropriately
Support staff
call clients
25. T HE C ONFLICT
Managers
call clients
EITHER managers OR support staff
must both make ALL support calls
Support staff
call clients
27. R EQUIREMENT 1
Preserve client
relationships
Run a successful
business
We need clients to be successful
❌ We can’t afford to lose ONE SINGLE client
❌ We can’t find ANY new clients
28. R EQUIREMENT 2
Management time is scarce
Managers have a specific role to play
in improving the business
Run a successful
business
❌ If managers are distracted AT ALL,
the long-term health of the business is
compromised
Use mgmt time
appropriately
29. P RE - REQUISITE 1
Preserve client
relationships
Managers
call clients
❌ ALL managers are MUCH better at dealing with
clients than support staff
❌ ANY clients will leave if they get JUST ONE
bad call from support staff
❌ Support staff CAN’T POSSIBLY learn to make good calls
30. P RE - REQUISITE 2
❌ Managers don’t have ANY time to make calls
Support calls are operational work, not
management work
❌ ONLY support staff have useful knowledge
about outages when making calls
Use mgmt time
appropriately
Support staff
call clients
31. T HE C ONFLICT
Managers
call clients
EITHER managers OR support staff
❌ must both make ALL support calls
Support staff
call clients
33. P RE - REQUISITE 1
Preserve client
relationships
Managers
call clients
Target management calls on the most
important situations
(Do we know which these are???)
Train support staff
(Who? How? When?)
34. P RE - REQUISITE 2
Give more information to managers
before calls
(Do we have this???)
Use mgmt time
appropriately
Support staff
call clients
35. T HE C ONFLICT
Call training for staff
Preserve client
relationships
Run a successful
business
Managers
call clients
Target management calls
Highlight information
Use mgmt time
appropriately
Support staff
call clients
37. P RE - REQUISITE 1
Preserve client
relationships
Managers
call clients
Restrict management calls to clients
worth over 5% of business or with
complaints in the last 8 weeks
Allocate 2 hours per week to be spent
on training calls for support staff
38. P RE - REQUISITE 2
Create a system for support staff to
flag significant information to
managers before making calls
Use mgmt time
appropriately
Support staff
call clients
39. T HE C ONFLICT
Call training for staff
Preserve client
relationships
Run a successful
business
Managers
call clients
Target management calls
Highlight information
Use mgmt time
appropriately
Support staff
call clients
40. T HE C ONFLICT
Call training for staff
Preserve client
relationships
Target
management calls
Run a successful
business
Use mgmt time
appropriately
Highlight
information
41. F INAL S TEP OF THE C YCLE
Have courage to commit to the solution:
a solution never implemented is worse than
a solution never promised.
42. D ISCUSSION P OINT
The company experienced a period of long outages to
high-profile clients. Many of the support staff were
junior members with little experience.
Was it reasonable to expect support staff to handle
these calls well? What plausible scenarios might have
caused this situation and in which of them is blaming
the support staff fair?