The key impediments that prevent many organizations from ever realizing the promise of agile and lean aren’t rooted in processes or tools. The impediments stem from the organization’s leaders. Sharing an interdisciplinary overview of the most compelling science and research in the aspects of team performance, Michael DePaoli shows that it is largely ignored. Michael presents a holistic model for building lean/agile teams that combines what science knows enables teams to achieve that elusive state of “flow.” He describes the key external forces—safety for learning, team formation, team tasking, the motivational system, and leadership style—that affect an agile team’s ability to achieve flow. Learn the basics of this model and how Michael is applying it with clients today. Use this model to build your teams and drive agile at scale while evolving the broader organization to harness the promise of agile and lean product development.

1.
AW9
Session
6/5/2013 3:45 PM
"Building Hyper-Productive Agile
Teams: Levering What Science
Knows"
Presented by:
Michael DePaoli
VersionOne
Brought to you by:
340 Corporate Way, Suite 300, Orange Park, FL 32073
888‐268‐8770 ∙ 904‐278‐0524 ∙ sqeinfo@sqe.com ∙ www.sqe.com

2. Michael DePaoli
Version One
A contributor to the IT community for twenty-seven years, Michael DePaoli has been practicing
agile and lean approaches to software development since 1996. Michael gained his experience
working in roles from programmer to product manager to CTO in companies including Adobe
Systems, American Express, Sprint, and VersionOne. His area of expertise is helping
organizations craft agile transformation approaches that establish agile and lean values,
principles, and practices to begin an agile/lean transformation while crafting a strategy for the
change needed to successfully scale and integrate agile within an organization. Michael has a
keen interest in applying systematic thinking with an interdisciplinary studies approach to his
work.

3. 6/4/2013
Building High Performing
Agile Teams: Leveraging
What Science Knows
Michael DePaoli
DePaoli & Associates
2013 Better Software & Agile Development West
Conference Las Vegas, NV - June 5th , 2013
Your Presenter
Michael DePaoli
Sr. Lean-Agile Coach, cPrime
13 Years Agile and Lean experience
26 Years in software industry – roles from
developer to CTO, Product Owner,
Management Consultant
Experience gained at American Express, Adobe
Systems, AOL, Deloitte Consulting, Sapient and
NetApp
Specializing in helping companies craft
strategies for Lean-Agile transformation and
context specific tactics leveraging systems &
interdisciplinary thinking
mikedep01@gmail.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mdepaoli
@AgileMike
1

4. 6/4/2013
Your Frame of Mind For This Talk
Framework for High Performance
Lean-Agile Organizations
© 2013, all rights reserved Michael DePaoli - Used with permission
2

5. 6/4/2013
Lean-Agile Orgs – Organic and Co-Evolving
Infertile Environments for Human Systems Cause
Lack of Success In Agile Transformations
Falling
Performance
Quality
Transparency
Learning
Improvement
3

6. 6/4/2013
Ingredients to Achieve Team Lean-Agility
Commitment to
Continuous
Improvement
Agile
Requirements
Management
Technical
Excellence
Lean-Agile
Competence
Value Centric
Pull-Based
Planning &
Execution
Collaboration
and
Transparency
Disciplined
Approach to
Frequent Value
Delivery
© 2013, all rights reserved Michael DePaoli - Used with permission
Framework for High Performance LeanAgile Organizations
Focus of
our Time
Today
© 2013, all rights reserved Michael DePaoli - Used with permission
4

7. 6/4/2013
ServantServant-Leadership
“You must be the change you want to see
in the world.” -Mahatma Gandhi
Image Source: http://cloudsforscience.blogspot.com/
5

8. 6/4/2013
Competent Change Management
Illustration by Michael Erickson,
based on the Virginia Satir change model
Incompetent Change Management
“The Silver Bullet Jump”
Illustration by Michael Erickson,
based on the Virginia Satir change model
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9. 6/4/2013
Quality Focus
Alignment
to Quality
Balancing Demand
with Capacity
What Really Matters?
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10. 6/4/2013
Motivation 3.0 - Motivation for a New Era
Source: Dan H. Pink and Thought Leaders
Learning Institute
Autonomy
“The desire to direct our work
and our lives”
Task
Time
Technique
Team
8

11. 6/4/2013
Autonomy Audit
With 10 being the IDEAL level of autonomy that would allow you to produce the best set of results and be
optimally engaged… Please rate your current level of autonomy:
Task: How much autonomy do you have over your tasks at work; your main responsibilities and what you do in a given day?
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2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Time: How much autonomy do you have over your time at work; when you arrive, leave and how you allocate your hours each day?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Technique : How much autonomy do you have over your technique at work; how you actually perform the main responsibilities of your
job?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Team : How much autonomy do you have over your team at work? To what extent are your able to choose the people with whom you
typically collaborate?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Autonomy Audit
9

12. 6/4/2013
Mastery
“Making progress at something that matters”
Flow
Goal Clarity
Performance Feedback
Mindset
Pain
Asymptote
Three Laws of Mastery
Mastery is a Mindset.
This means:
We have to believe we are capable of getting better
(Incremental vs. entity). What people believe shapes what
people achieve.
Mastery is a Pain.
This means:
When we exert effort and grit the work has more meaning.
Mastery involves working and working and showing
perhaps only incremental improvement
Mastery is an Asymptote .
This means:
While we can never actually achieve it - that fact makes it
more alluring. Mastery is an asymptote because you can
never quite attain it, you will get close but perfection is not
possible to fully attain.
10

13. 6/4/2013
Mindset is the Key to a High Performing
Lean-Agile Team
Fixed Mindset
Growth Mindset
Wants to prove intelligence or talent.
Wants to improve intelligence or talent.
Avoids challenges for fear of failure.
Engages challenges to improve.
Gives up in the face of tough obstacles.
Persists in overcoming obstacles.
Avoids hard labor.
Sees labor as the path to success.
Treats criticism as an attack.
Treats criticism as an opportunity.
Feels threatened by others’ success.
Feels inspired by others’ success.
Adapted from
‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success’ by Carol Dweck
So Which Do You Want To Be?
11

14. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Some rights reserved by evalottchen
Flow – 8 Components
of Enjoyment
Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Some rights reserved by evalottchen
Visual Overview of Flow
6/4/2013
12

15. 6/4/2013
Purpose
“The yearning to do something in
service of something larger than
ourselves”
Individual Purpose
Organizational Purpose
Aligning Purpose
Environment for High Performance
Lean-Agile Teams
Focus has been
here but don’t
forget the rest
© 2013, all rights reserved Michael DePaoli - Used with permission
13

16. 6/4/2013
Considerations for Going Forward
• Must have a Systemic View to build high
performing teams that result in a high performing
organization
• Make no mistake, this framework covers what is a
complex system
• Holistic perspective needed enable identification
and understanding potential cause and effect of
changes in sub-systems to the whole
• How to measure the different components of the
framework?
• Much of what needs to be measured is subjective
• Such systems are ever evolving and needs to be tuned
“It had long since come to my attention
that people of accomplishment rarely sat
back and let things happen to them. They
went out and happened to things.”
- Leonardo Da Vinci
Be Happening…
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17. 6/4/2013
References
• ‘Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work,
Home, and School’ by John Medina
• ‘Drive’ – Dan Pink
• ‘Flow’ by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• ‘Kanban’ – David Anderson
• ‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success’ by Carol Dweck
• ‘Predictably Irrational’ by Dan Ariel
• ‘Satir Change Model’ – Virginia Satir
• ‘Switch’ by Chip and Dan Heath
• 'The Servant as Leader' by Robert K. Greenleaf
• ‘eXtreme Programming Explained’ by Kent Beck
• ‘Your Brain at Work’ by David Rock
Gauging Autonomy
TIME
TEAM
TASK
TECHNIQUE
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