Presentation from Kansas City Developers Conference 2014.

1. Creating and Enabling
High Performing Teams
KCDC 2014
May 15, 2014

2. Titanium Sponsors
Platinum Sponsors
Gold Sponsors

3. Who are we?
 Susan Smith
 Director, IT Program Management
 Agile Coach
 Tami Flowers
 Senior IT Project Manager
 PMI-PMP, PMI-ACP, and Certified Scrum Master
We helped take an organization from waterfall to Agile.

4. Why do we focus on Teamwork?
“Hey, let’s bring Agile into our organization.
It will be GREAT!
Let’s get started!”

5. Today
 A few minutes on the topic
 An “experience”
 Debrief/Reflection

6. Experience: Ice Breaker

7. What is a high performing team?
 They are self-organizing rather than role or title based
 They are empowered to make decisions
 They believe that as a team they can solve any problem
 They are committed to team success vs. personal success
 The team owns its decisions and commitments
 Trust, vs. fear or anger, motivates them
 They are consensus-driven
 They live in a world of constant constructive disagreement

8. Stages of team formation and development
FORMING
A working group that is
learning about each other
STORMING
A pseudo team that is
challenging each other
and developing into a
potential team
NORMING
A potential team that is
working with each other
and developing into a real
team
PERFORMING
A real team that is working
as one and becomes a
high performing team

9. Situational leadership model
FORMING
Team Members
Low competence, high commitment
Leader
High directive, low supportive behavior
STORMING
Team Members
Low/some competence, low
commitment
Leader
High directive, high supportive behavior
NORMING
Team Members
Moderate/high competence, variable
commitment
Leader
Low directive, low supportive behavior
PERFORMING
Team Members
High competence, high commitment
Leader
Low directive, low supportive behavior
Directing
Coaching
Supporting
Delegating

10. Stage 1: Forming
 What it may look like:
 New kid on the block
 Questioning and withholding
 Low accomplishment of tasks or goals
 Steep learning curve
 Suspicion, fear or anxiety about the project
 What you can do:
 Ice breakers, lunches, ways to learn about each other
 Understand personalities
 Ensure team understands end goals
 Iteration Retrospectives
 Working Agreements
FORMING
Team Members:
Low competence, high commitment
Leader:
High directive, low supportive behavior
Nuggets of Goodness:
• Crucial Conversations
• Crucial Confrontations
• Agile Retrospectives: Making
Good Teams Great

11. Personalities and Impacts on the Team
 Soft skills!
 Interpersonal and general analytic abilities such as
 Teamwork
 Empathy
 Leadership
 Negotiation
 Adaptability
 Problem solving

12. Personality Tests
 Extraversion and Introversion
 Distinguishing between the two worlds in which all of us live; where we get our energy
 When we are dealing with the world outside of ourself, we are "extraverting".
 When we are inside our own minds, we are "introverting".
 Sensing and INtuition
 How we gather information
 The "Sensing" preference absorbs data in a literal, concrete fashion.
 The "Intuitive" preference generates abstract possibilities from information that is gathered.
 Thinking and Feeling
 When someone makes a decision that is based on logic and reason, they are operating in Thinking mode.
 When someone makes a decision that is based on their value system, or what they believe to be right, they
are operating in Feeling mode.
 Judging and Perceiving
 our attitude towards the external world, and how we live our lives on a day-to-day basis
 People with the Judging preference want things to be neat, orderly and established. Judgers want things
settled.
 The Perceiving preference wants things to be flexible and spontaneous. Perceivers want thing open-ended.

13. Personality Tests
 Myers-Briggs
 The Big Five: extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness
and openness to experience
 Jung Typology Profiler for Workplace (JPTW): Power, Assurance, Visionary,
Rationality, etc.
 DiSC: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness

14. Experience: Personality Types
 Congratulations! You’ve been invited to speak at a conference in Hawaii!!
 Work with your team to put together a plan for the trip and presentation.

15. Stage 2: Storming
 What it may look like:
 Adolescence
 Power/control/trust issues
 Air differences of opinion, arguments, disagreements
 Competition for formal and informal leadership roles on the team
 Team beginning to understand each other
 What you can do:
 Give and Receive Feedback
 Temperature Reading
 Celebrate Small Team Achievements
 Socialize
FORMING
Team Members:
Low competence, high commitment
Leader:
High directive, low supportive behavior
Nuggets of Goodness:
• Crucial Conversations
• Crucial Confrontations
• Agile Retrospectives: Making
Good Teams Great

16. Giving and Receiving Feedback
 Make sure your feedback is constructive
 Give feedback with caring and respect
 What do I want for me?
 What do I want for the other person?
 What do I want for our relationship?
 No praise, no blame
 Be direct
 Don’t sandwich it between compliments or complaints
 Don’t sugar coat it
 Don’t say things such as “Others think…” “The perception is…” : Own it “I
saw/heard/observed..”
 Give positive feedback too…but not at the same time as constructive feedback

17. How to Give Feedback
 Create an opening.
“Can we talk? Julie, I’d like to tell you about one specific thing that you did that was
a problem for me.”
 Describe the behavior or results.
“When I saw/heard/learned that you (describe the behavior you want to
discourage), …”
 State the impact.
“I felt ___ because (describe the impact).”
 Make the request.
“What I would prefer to happen is (state what you would like to happen instead).
Can you do this next time?”

18. How to Receive Feedback
 Remember that feedback is a gift.
 Breathe.
 Listen carefully. Don’t interrupt or discourage the person giving you
feedback.
 Ask for specific examples, get clarity.
 Take time to think about what you heard.
 Keep what you can use.
 Consider if you are willing to make a change and let the person know.

19. Experience: Giving and Receiving
Feedback
 Partner with someone you do not know.
 Take turns delivering the feedback on the cards to each other.

20. Stage 3: Norming
 What it may look like:
 Cohesive group
 Significant progress made on task goals
 Conflicts are more substantial
 Team members face their issues, accept feedback and act on it
 What you can do:
 Encourage problem identification and problem solving
 Beware of Group Think; encourage Devil’s Advocate
 Celebrate team accomplishments
 Release retrospectives
 Model and teach conflict management
FORMING
Team Members:
Low competence, high commitment
Leader:
High directive, low supportive behavior
Nuggets of Goodness:
• Teamwork is an Individual Skill

21. Experience: Teamwork
 52 card pickup
 The rules:
 2 minute iterations
 Only 1 card in each hand
 Sort cards in order

22. Teamwork and Responsibility
 Accountability vs. Responsibility
 Accountability – others hold you accountable
 Responsibility – you choose responsibility. Your ability to respond.
 Responsibility is not
 Denial
 Lay Blame
 Justification
 Shame
 Obligation
 Quit

23. Experience: Non musical chairs
 Do not let facilitator sit in a chair
 No moving chairs
 If you stand up, you must sit in the empty chair and you cannot sit back in
your chair
 No calls to HR: no touching or pushing the facilitator

24. Team Dysfunction
 As you evaluate where teams are in terms of maturity and what you can
do to help, also consider these (hard) questions:
 Is the system in place in your organization causing team issues?
 Is the company or department causing team issues?
 Are you causing team issues?
 Are the wrong people on the team?

25. Conflict
 Conflict is going to happen.
 Conflict can be constructive or destructive.
 Conflict can be good, helpful and healthy.
 Conflict can escalate and create a negative team environment.
 Before rushing in to fix conflict, observe the situation to get a better view of
the issues. Listen to the language and see if the team can resolve the
conflict on their own.

26. Conflict – a framework
Level Name Characteristic Language Type Environment
1 Problem to Solve Information sharing
and collaboration
Open and fact-based  People have differing opinions
 Conflicting goals or values
 Not comfortable but not emotionally charged
2 Disagreement Personal protection
trumps resolving the
conflict
Guarded and open to
interpretation
 Self-protection becomes important
 Team members distance themselves from the
debate
 Discussions occur off-line
 Good natured joking moves to half joking barbs
3 Contest Winning trumps
resolving the conflict
Includes personal
attacks
 The aim is to win
 People take sides
 Blaming flourishes
4 Crusade Protecting one’s own
group becomes the
focus
Ideological  Resolving the situation is not good enough
 Team members believe that members “on the
other side” won’t change and need removed
5 World War Destroy the other! Little or non-existent  “Destroy!” is the battle cry
 The combatants must be separated
 No constructive outcome can be had
Framework from Speed B. Leas

27. Stage 4: Performing
 What it may look like:
 Highly productive and high morale
 Satisfaction at team progress
 Trust that each team member will do his or her part
 Commitment
 Close attachment to team; team is like a clique
 Conflicts resolved
 What you can do:
 Mentoring
 Focus on continuous improvement
 Manage transitions out of the team
 Retrospectives
 Keep celebrating
FORMING
Team Members:
Low competence, high commitment
Leader:
High directive, low supportive behavior
Nuggets of Goodness
• The Human Side of Agile
• Five Dysfunctions of a Team

28. Experience: The Chair Exercise
 Rules
 3 teams
 Select a team lead for your team
 NO TALKING
 NO mouthing of words
 NO trips to the ER
 NO calls to HR

29. Temperature Reading
 Appreciations
 New Information
 Puzzles
 Complaints with Recommendations
 Hopes and Wishes

30. Stage 5: Adjourning/Mourning
 What it may look like:
 Team members may move to different teams
 Sadness or sense of loss
 What you can do:
 Don’t ignore it!
 Help bring closure
 CELEBRATE!
Nuggets of Goodness:
• C

31. Nuggets of Goodness
 Crucial Conversations, Kerry Patterson
 Crucial Confrontations, Kerry Patterson
 Crucial Accountability
 Influencer
 Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great, Esther Derby and Diana
Larsen
 The Deadline: A Novel about Project Management, Tom DeMarco
 Teamwork is an Individual Skill, Christopher Avery
 Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management, Johanna Rothman and
Esther Derby
 Johanna Rothman books: http://www.jrothman.com/books/
 The Human Side of Agile, Gil Groza

32. Nuggets of Goodness
 Free Myers Briggs test http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
 Problem Solving Leadership workshop:
http://www.estherderby.com/problem-solving-leadership-psl
 Coaching Beyond the Team: http://www.estherderby.com/coaching-
beyond-the-team-influencing-the-organization
 Manager Tools

33. Appreciation cards
 Have each member put their name and date on the card
 Pass the card to the right and have everybody write one thing they
appreciate or want to thank the person for during the <sprint> <release>
<project>

34. Experience: Switching Costs
 Each team selects someone who knows the following
 How to count to 10
 First 10 letters of the alphabet
 First 10 Roman Numerals
 Each team selects a time keeper

35. Thank you!
 Twitter: @tamilflowers
 LinkedIn: Tami Flowers
 Slideshare: www.slideshare.nettamiflowers
 LinkedIn: Susan Smith