Retrospectives - "Who are those guys?"(Part 3)

Big IT companies are often very siloed environments. It's not uncommon to see everyone segregated by their role: Devs in one corner of the open space, testers in another, DBAs in another floor, SAs in a different building, project owners in another country, etc ... This silos are in my opinion very dangerous for the organisation and sometimes we are not even aware to what extend the environment is siloed. Let me give you an example:

Have you ever noticed how many developers that work in the same floor as you, say hi to you in the corridor while going to the toilet, the coffee machine or even at the street at lunch time? Interestingly, those who you frequently talk to would probably smile, say hi or give you some sort of greeting. But, there are others that when you cross paths, regardless that you work in the same floor as you for years, will look at the ground, at the sealing, at their phone or elsewhere just not at you. This are not people with a different role or rank than yours, this are the exact same people as you. So this little experiment shows to what extend the companies are siloed, If we are unable to say hi to each other when we cross paths, how on earth can we expect from us to be influential and drive change in an organisation?


Regardless of all this things, many recruiters still dare to write in their job specs the word 'Agile'. The obvious question arises: how is it possible for a little naive agile team to have significant impact in the overall organisation? All those cool 'Agile' ideas which could perhaps save millions, create a much better work environment for all, bring innovation ... are at the risk of slowly dying in the minds as time passes and the old school overwhelming corporate traditionalism just keeps on the same line of thought.

The answer to the question it's not brief and neither trivial to present since it's composed of many parts. But for now in this post I will gently scratch the surface of one of those partial answers, which is "Agile Influencing".

There is retrospective format which is actually a reverse organisational engineering exercise, which is specifically designed to help the agile self directed team, to pinpoint key players and elements in the organisation and craft and influencing plan that could help them gain some terrain (and who knows maybe even save some life's ;) ). Let's have a look at it.

Step 1 - Switch on the radar
At the retrospective, the facilitator will draw on the whiteboard, 3 concentric circles that will look like the image below. And will explain the purpose of each circle.

- The most inner circle will represent the areas of direct control by the team(e.g test environments, development tools ...). Of course all this areas will be different for different teams, maybe some team will have total control over their production database, while other team will not have the database under their control.

- The second circle represents the area of direct influence. This is the area where the team cannot directly control, but can influence(e.g line managers, other development teams, etc ...)

- The most outer circle represents what is totally out of reach for the team or even unknown(e.g Companies chain of command, board of directors ...)


Step 2 - Tuning the right frequency
The facilitator, will ask the team to decide on or many goals or topics, they feel they need influence in order to achieve it. And will ask them to stick them in the outer area of the circle.

Step 3 - Scouting
The facilitator will ask everybody to write in post-it notes, names resources(e.g hardware, software, databases, processes, etc ...) and also the names of people(e.g managers, team leaders ...) that could potentially be connected in one way or another, with the topics/goals in the outer area. They participant will put all this elements in any of the 3 circles based in how they consider their influence around them looks like.

Step 4 - Triangulating
In one way or another, either directly or indirectly elements that are on the board will be conected to the goal the team want's to achieve. Ask the members to draw dashed lines for those relationships they are less confident about and solid lines for those relationships they feel more confident about.

Step 5 - Firing
Once you know how things are connected, you can craft a plan for influencing. Don't worry if you don't get it right at the first go or you didn't really pinpoint the right person, this exercise will probably need to be repeated in multiple sessions, until the team discovers how to get to their goal. Every time write the actions you will take and assign them to your team members.

Tips to have in mind when crafting the strategy
- Not everybody equally aligned
People have different characters, priorities, ambitions... It is important to understand that many times the reality is that in the corporate environment people, for whatever reason pull in different directions. Being aware of this and understanding in which direction the influencers are pulling is key to develop a good tactic.

- People might ask for something in exchange
Sadly very few things are free this days, so don't be surprised if you have to often apply the first law of economics in order to get somewhere "If you want to get something, you have to give something away".


- Certain fears can be proven irrational
A well crafted proof of concept, an excellent presentation or maybe an in depth conversation with the right person, can help you win over hearts and minds. Many of the fears that people have when it comes to change are mainly founded in the uncertainty. If you are going to lead for change, you will have to lead by example.

- Where things are more obscure and unknown more light is needed
Don't confuse uncertainty/unknown from conflict of interest. Many influencers that are in a conflict of interest with you or your team will not tell you that directly. They will instead put some excuses such as risk, cost, time ... When in reality the real reason is probably just a self interest on guarding a position or a key resource. There is many of this scenarios, specially among management, make sure that you either bypass those influencers by finding others or ask more and more questions and clarifications when you suspect that their real reasons are not what they are saying they are. No matter how strong they are, never be afraid if your cause is just.

- Sum forces with those who suffer alike in order to gain greater visibility
You and your team are probably not the only ones, summing forces with others like you, no matter if you will have to negotiate certain things or arrange certain favours. The friends of your friends will become your friends and their influence will become your influence.


This article was part of  a series of articles I started writing time ago on retrospectives. Here my previous posts on the topic:


Retrospectives – “Discovering our selves”(Part 1)
Retrospectives – “Lets talk about it”(Part 2)
Meditating about the self directed I.T company
Why big corporations don't like retrospectives?

Why big corporations don't like retrospectives?

Not too long ago, I used to facilitate retrospectives for some of the teams in the department.
But for some strange reason their interest in retrospectives just disappeared.
I thought a lot about it, but I couldn't come up with an answer. Why?

Is it that they don't understand the advantages of retrospectives?
Is it that they have no time for retrospectives?
Or is it that they feel powerless when they do a retrospective?

In this brief text I want to just share my opinion on why I think corporations, have no interest in retrospectives(A bit of an speculative opinion, but just an opinion).

A retrospective is well known Agile practice that aims to improve any aspect of work. During a retrospective a team debates about things that matter for them and for the company: ideas, solutions, process, collaboration, communication, quality, recruitment, salaries, etc...
This are just some topics.

Unfortunately retrospectives are not being taken serious in many companies:
- in some, retrospectives are discouraged and seen as a waste of time
- in others shyly implemented within a constraint environment without visibility or power to
take any action. Just as a way of ventilating frustrations. 

So why is this that they are so unpopular?

The Answer is simple:
Companies fear change but specially, they fear decentralisation and lose of control.

The fact is that well organised regular retrospectives, could easily challenge the stablish organisational structure by making evident and visible its inefficiencies.

Many young technical companies quickly gain terrain to the prehistoric corporates not just because their decentralized and autonomous nature but also because of their eagerness and necessity to communicate and improve. Most of the successful ones often practice retrospectives.

The old school of building software companies has its days counted. What employees have to say about process inefficiencies, technical challenges, etc ... Is as important, if not more than the absolutely false illusion of rush that the corporation sees in the market.

Big corporations are organisations with huge amounts of resources and great potential for making significant impact in industry. Helping them getting rid of their fears is key for building not just good companies but a
healthy industry.

Software is continuous change, so embrace change, embrace retrospectives, embrace the future

Retrospectives – “Discovering our selves”(Part 1)

A retrospective is a well known practice in many Agile development teams. Its goal is to help the team reflect on the previous working weeks, commonly 2 or 3 weeks with the aim of distinguishing ways of improving the way they work.  Retrospectives are also very important for this agile self-organized teams, because since they don’t receive direct commands from managers(see my previous post), it is of extreme importance to have mechanisms that improve increase awareness and prevent from burning out.

What makes a retrospective  a little bit different from other meetings, is that it often follows an organized protocol for interaction. The retrospective's protocol is defined and applied by one or many persons external to the team, known as the facilitators.  The role of the facilitator, is to, in an impartial way facilitate the teams express their concerns and discover actions that can help them address those concerns.

Each facilitator, has its own technique/s for facilitating retrospectives. Different techniques are useful in different circumstances. That is why one of the first things the facilitator will do in order to prepare a good retrospective, will be to have a brief chat with some representatives from the team, to get some idea/highlights of what was going on lately: current work, most notorious blocker, absences, who will attend the retrospective, important events… 

This first mini reconnaissance mission is not a silver bullet but often, it helps the facilitator get a grasp of what type of retrospective format could be used.  Sometimes retrospectives will have a high level of technicalities, other times there will be lots of complaints about blockers, others there will be communication issues, process, etc…

Without going into an specific retrospective format yet(not in Part 1), I would like to just name a list of healthy tips that is useful to hang somewhere on the room for all to see and/or even say them out loudly(the facilitator can even ask for a volunteer/s to read them out) at the retrospective, just before commencing:

·         Don’t blame. We all have been working to the best of our abilities.

·         Don’t monopolize the conversation, be conscious when you should let others participate.

·         Don’t interrupt people when they are speaking.

·         Don’t be afraid of expressing what you think no matter how bad it is.

·         Don’t feel intimidated by anyone because of their position.

·         Do critic and welcome critics(Blame not equal to critic).

·         Do remember that change is always possible.

·         Do remember that your company will be what you want it to be.

Dialogue it’s a dexterity which is not easy to master. The goal of this tips(note that I didn’t say rules) are to just to encourage a healthier debate. Many times will be the case that people feel: shy, impatient, inferior, superior, lazy, pessimistic, etc …

To help break some of those psychological barriers another duty of the facilitator will be to make sure that the environment where the retrospective will be held is comfortable enough. The environment can significantly impact the results of a retrospective.  But of course, It is up to the creativity of each facilitator, how to do so.  In any case here some more tips:

·         A bit of not loud ambient music at the beginning or even during the hold retrospective, can help stimulate people and also reduce the uncomfortable sensation some people claim to have when the group is in silence.

·         Soft drinks and water could help avoid dry mouths when speaking.

·         Coffee and Tea can help give a boost to people if the retrospective has to be held on the last hours of the day.

·         Alcohol is often discouraged specially if it is expected the retrospective to last too long. Some facilitators don’t have nothing against it if when it is in moderation.

·         Sweet and salty snacks are often found in retrospectives, specially chocolate(Apparently there are scientific research that suggest that it can increase peoples happiness).

·         Fruit, it’s a healthy option that many people often appreciate in retrospectives.  

·         Appropriate jokes and even chit-chat are often common at the beginning of retrospectives, it is perfectly fine if the facilitator engages on himself on them briefly or even initiates them while the retrospective is not jet started or is about to start, as a way of icebreaking.

The facilitator should have at the beginning of the retrospective a list of the members of the team and their role, that are expected to attend the retrospective. The reason for this is that in many occasions there are other people external to the team, that also were invited to the retrospective and to make sure that everybody knows who is in the room it may be nice to just make sure that they briefly introduce themselves to all the team if they haven’t done it yet.

Once the retrospective has started and regardless of the format that the facilitator will decide to use, often there will be a round of what is known as “Temperature Read”.  It is not mandatory thing to do it but it is very common in almost every retrospective.  The goal of temperature reading can be different and it also have an specific format depending on what is that we want to get from the team.  It may go from just a simple icebreaker to a puzzle game where everybody is engaged.

Since this is a topic for itself, in this series of blog posts, I will not go deep into it, but next I will just briefly describe one of those exercises.

For example, It might be of interest of the facilitator to discover how often teams need to do a retrospective. The facilitator, will ask everybody to write a number on a post-it note from 1 to 5 where the smaller the number is, means they consider there is not need to have a retrospective right now, and the greater the number is, it means that they are really eager to have a retrospective right now. After the retrospective the facilitator will count the votes and depending on the predominant result, an action suggesting to change the frequency in which the team has retrospectives can be suggested to the team:

·         1 or 2 can appear if the team has retrospectives too often. Sometimes it becomes like a routine for the team and the quality of the retrospective result is not that good.

·         3 or 4 often indicates that the frequency in which the team has retrospectives is probably appropriate, often nice productive retrospectives with good usage of the time, etc…

·         5 may be a sign of the team needing retrospectives more often. It is common that in retrospectives where the predominant temperature was 5, many topics remain undiscussed due to lack of time.

Of course this previous bullet points were just an example and those patterns not necessarily need to apply and can even be interpreted differently by different people. If it is the desire of the team to research on that topic, they can do it and try to discover when is best for them to have a retrospective.

With this I conclude part 1 on this blog post series on retrospective facilitation.
Stay tuned, in the coming posts I will discuss in depth some of the most powerful retrospective formats(each of them for a different purpose), some of them used in many companies, from small start-ups to huge  mega corporations. Remember that the retrospective is a very helpful  thing for the self-organized team.