Five techniques that can make our teamwork and our teams dramatically more effective. Nonetheless, they're nuances I almost never see teams doing (and that have made my own teams much more effective). I'm an engineering-team and engineering-organization fire-jumper. This is stuff that works for me. I've not only seen these techniques work with my teams, but... I'm also the co-author of the Study of Product Team Performance, in which correlations from the thousands of respondents on product teams all over the world have validated the universality of the nuances of two of these techniques. I've been teaching and coaching managers and teams in all five for 15 years. It's time they get wider visibility, and a wider swath of teams and managers get a shot at leveraging them. Presenter Ron Lichty has, for 30-plus years, championed delighting customers. He believes that strong product/engineering collaboration is essential to achieving that goal. Ron co-authored the Addison-Wesley book Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams (http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net) and annually coauthors the Study of Product Team Performance (http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html). Ron spent seven years as a programmer, two years as a product manager, and 25 years managing product and development organizations at all levels - at companies ranging in size from tiny startups to Charles Schwab, Stanford and Apple - to VP of engineering, VP of product and CTO.  He now consults across that realm, taking on interim VP Engineering roles, advising executive leaders how to untangle the knots in their product development organizations, training teams in agile, training managers in managing software people and teams, and coaching development teams and executives in making software development hum. (http://www.ronlichty.com) Ron has long been a popular speaker at product, development and agile meetups and conferences. Ron@RonLichty.com

1. Critical Practices
Nuanced Techniques
Ron Lichty
www.ronlichty.com

2. Managing Software People & Teams
2

3. © Ron Lichty 3

4. • Untangling knots in software development
• Making development “hum”
• Interim VP Eng roles
Advise Business & Engineering Leaders
4

5. http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----tools, excerpts, more rules of thumb
* Addison Wesley (Amazon, BarnesandNoble, InformIT.com, Safari)
*
5

6. * Addison Wesley (Amazon, BarnesandNoble, InformIT.com, Safari)
http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----tools, excerpts, more rules of thumb
*
6

7. The Study of Product Team Performance
http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html
7© Ron Lichty

8. Consult:
Untangling the Knots; Making Things Hum
• process
• culture
• communication
• planning
• rigor
© Ron Lichty 8

9. Five Practices that Promise More /
Nuances to Struggle Less
• Don’t just do Agile
• “Done”
• Standups
• Planning
• Estimating
© Ron Lichty 9

10. Don’t just do Agile...
Software development is a team sport!
© Ron Lichty 10

11. Teams
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
11Ron@RonLichty.com
By Michaelblinkpipe (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAn_Abcam_stand_up_meeting_using_BlinkPipe_video_conferencing..png

12. • Think about…
The best team you’ve been on?
The most high performance team?
Think about what were the…
• characteristics
• relationships
• qualities
• ways of being
. . . that made it stand out?
Teams
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
12Ron@RonLichty.com

13. • Characteristics like…
– trust
– psychological safety
– teammates had my back
– shared goals
– mutual respect
Best Teams...
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
13Ron@RonLichty.com

14. Doing Agile: Agile Practices
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
14Ron@RonLichty.com

15. Agile Practices Deliver Value
• Plan Daily
• Plan Weekly (or biweekly or…)
• Plan Publicly & Transparently
• Order Work Based on Customer Value
• Together define “Done”
• Relatively Size Stories
• Deliver Frequently
• Share how we’re doing
• Reflect on how to do better(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
15Ron@RonLichty.com

16. Agile Practices: Data
• Standups
– Standups matter:
– Effective, Daily Standups
--2015 Study of Product Team Performance
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
16Ron@RonLichty.com

17. Agile Practices: Data
• Definitions of Done
– Definitions of Done matter:
– Created within the team
--2016 Study of Product Team Performance
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
17Ron@RonLichty.com

18. Agile Practices Deliver Value
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
18Ron@RonLichty.com

19. Voting Machines Deliver Value, too
19(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come TrueBy Seattle Municipal Archives from Seattle, WA (Voting machine, 1971)
[CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Ron@RonLichty.com

20. Voting Machines Deliver Value, too
• But voting machines don’t make us a
democracy
• Democracy emanates from
– Values
– Principles
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
20Ron@RonLichty.com

21. Similarly…
Agile Practices Don’t Make Us Agile
Agile Practices Only Deliver Better Teams
They Don’t Deliver Great Teams!
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
21Ron@RonLichty.com

22. Agile Values Inspire Great Teams
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
22Ron@RonLichty.com

23. Agile Values Inspire Great Teams
• Build projects around motivated
individuals
• Trust… to get the job done
• Face-to-face conversation
• Self-organizing teams
• The team reflects, …tunes, …adjusts
-- http://agilemanifesto.org/
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
23Ron@RonLichty.com

24. Agile Values Inspire Great Teams
• Build projects around motivated
individuals
• Trust… to get the job done
• Face-to-face conversation
• Self-organizing teams
• The team reflects, …tunes, …adjusts
-- http://agilemanifesto.org/
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
24Ron@RonLichty.com

25. Self-Organizing Teams
• For a team to self-organize,...
– everyone has to participate
– every team member must step up
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
25Ron@RonLichty.com

26. Self-Organizing Teams
• If our self-organizing team were an
acting troupe, …
What kind of acting do we do?
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
26Ron@RonLichty.com

27. Self-Organizing Teams
• If our self-organizing team were an
acting troupe, …
What kind of acting do we do?
• If our self-organizing team were a
music group, …
What kind of music do we perform?
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
27Ron@RonLichty.com

28. Self-Organizing Teams
• If our self-organizing team were an
acting troupe, …
What kind of acting do we do?
• If our self-organizing team were a
music group, …
What kind of music do we perform?
• Who is the leader?
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
28Ron@RonLichty.com

29. Best Teams
• A relationship? between
– Agile Values
• Shared Leadership
• Self-Organizing Teams
– Best Team characteristics
• Trust
• Mutual respect
• Psychological safety
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
29Ron@RonLichty.com

30. Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
30Ron@RonLichty.com

31. Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
• Micromanagement
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
31Ron@RonLichty.com

32. Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
• Micromanagement disrupts Agile
• Micromanagement prevents Best Teams
• Micromanagement prevents Learning
• Micromanaged teams become order-takers
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
32Ron@RonLichty.com

33. Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
• Micromanagement disrupts Agile
• Micromanagement prevents Best Teams
• Micromanagement prevents Learning
• Micromanaged teams become order-takers
• Agile calls for everyone on the team to step up
• Micromanagement causes everyone to step back
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
33Ron@RonLichty.com

34. Shared Leadership… and Managers
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
34Ron@RonLichty.com

35. Agile: “Servant Leaders”
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
35Ron@RonLichty.com

36. • Traditionally, managers:
– run things
– give direction
– tell people what to do
– like being the center of attention
Shared Leadership… and Managers
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
36Ron@RonLichty.com

37. “If you’re the ScrumMaster and everyone is
looking at you, you’re doing it wrong.”
--Marilson Campos, VPE
Shared Leadership… and Managers
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
37Ron@RonLichty.com

38. The Problem for People Managers:
ScrumTeam.jpg (from Exploring Scrum- the Fundamentals, by Dan Rawsthorne & Doug Shimp)
Ron@RonLichty.com (c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
38

39. the Agile Manager Squeeze
youyouyouyou
herehereherehere
areareareare
OrganizationalOrganizationalOrganizationalOrganizational
ChangesChangesChangesChanges
My JobMy JobMy JobMy Job
ChangesChangesChangesChanges
TeamTeamTeamTeam
ChangesChangesChangesChanges
Peer & PartnerPeer & PartnerPeer & PartnerPeer & Partner
ChangesChangesChangesChanges
LeadershipLeadershipLeadershipLeadership
ChangesChangesChangesChanges
Welcome to Agile!
--Agile Learning Labs, Laura Powers
39(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
Ron@RonLichty.com

40. Managers and Agile
• Foster an Agile Culture
• Model, Defend, Evangelize Agile Values
• Empower Self-Organization & Excellence
40(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
Ron@RonLichty.com

41. Managers and Agile
• Foster an Agile Culture
• Model, Defend, Evangelize Agile Values
• Empower Self-Organization & Excellence
• Remove Impediments
41(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
Ron@RonLichty.com

42. Managers and Agile
• Foster an Agile Culture
• Model, Defend, Evangelize Agile Values
• Empower Self-Organization & Excellence
• Remove Impediments
• Counsel, Coach and Mentor
• Scale Scrum
• Hire and Fire
42(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
Ron@RonLichty.com

43. Managers and Agile
• Foster an Agile Culture
• Model, Defend, Evangelize Agile Values
• Empower Self-Organization & Excellence
43(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
Ron@RonLichty.com

44. Fostering an Agile Culture
44(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come TrueManaging the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams , http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net
Ron@RonLichty.com

45. Fostering an Agile Culture
• Theory Y: “enabling”, “empowering”, “developmental",
“continuous improvement” -> Servant Leadership
Douglas McGregor's X-Y Theory
45(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come TrueManaging the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams , http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net
Ron@RonLichty.com

46. Managers and Agile
• Fostering an Agile Culture
Lean-Agile management is the art of leading people, not
managing them... Leading people involves creating the
correct environment, focusing them on the right things,
and trusting them to do their work...
In Lean-Agile, the manager has two primary
responsibilities:
• setting the outcomes or goals expected of the team;
• assisting the doers in creating a better process and
workspace to get their jobs done...
--Alan Shalloway, Net Objectives
46(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
Ron@RonLichty.com

47. Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*
* 300 in the book / more at http://managingtheunmanageable.net/morerulesofthumb.html
47(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
Ron@RonLichty.com

48. Delegation & Empowerment
• Rules of Thumb
Management sets the boundaries of what needs to
be done and says to the team,
I trust you to figure out how to get it done.
--AgileOpen 2012
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
48Ron@RonLichty.com

49. Managers and Agile
• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence
When teams self-organize...
a manager’s job is to engineer the organization
so that teams can do their best work.
--Esther Derby, co-founder, Scrum Alliance
49(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
Ron@RonLichty.com

50. Creating an Agile Culture
• Establishing Culture
50
http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
Ron@RonLichty.com

51. Communicating
• Create a culture of communication
– at every level
– with everyone
• up, down, within and across
• “We have two ears and one mouth. Use them in
this ratio.”
— Kimberly Wiefling
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
51Ron@RonLichty.com

52. Communication
52
You cannot overcommunicate.
-RON LICHTY
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
Ron@RonLichty.com
• “We have two ears and one mouth. Use them in
this ratio.”
— Kimberly Wiefling

53. Communication
53(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
Ron@RonLichty.com
• Google’s Project Aristotle: “psychological safety”
– “equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking”
– mutual respect encourages sharing from everyone
– the opportunity and the safety to speak up

54. Virtual Teams
• There is never enough communication
• Commitment to communicate
• No substitute for face-to-face meetings
54
The more distance between teammates, the more
you have to formalize communication and make it
explicit.
-Ted Young, Guidewire Development Manager
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
Ron@RonLichty.com

55. Managers and Agile
• Model, Defend, Evangelize Agile Values
“Managers are still needed. Not so much for
their planning and controlling ability, but for
the important job of interfacing on the team’s
behalf with the rest of the organization.”
--Diana Larsen, co-author, Agile Retrospectives
55(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
Ron@RonLichty.com

56. Five Practices that Promise More /
Nuances to Struggle Less
• Don’t just do Agile
• “Done”
• Standups
• Planning
• Estimating
© Ron Lichty 56

57. 57
Definitions of Done
© Ron Lichty

58. 58
Definition of Done
2016 Study: Does having a definition of done matter?
© Ron Lichty

59. 59
Definition of Done
2016 Study: Does having a definition of done matter?
We asked: Who creates your definition of done?
© Ron Lichty

60. 60
Definition of Done
© Ron Lichty

61. 61
Definition of Done
7.4%
of product teams
that have no
definition of done
…perform worst.
Having a definition of done matters…
© Ron Lichty

62. 62
Definition of Done
48%
of product teams
that have
definitions of done
handed down by
managers outside the
team were…
average performers
Having a definition of done matters…
© Ron Lichty

63. 63
Definition of Done
45%
of product teams that
rely upon the
team product owner
or the
team collaboratively
to create
the definition of done:
high performance
teams
Having a definition of done created within the team matters most!
© Ron Lichty

64. Study of Product Team Performance
• Definitions of Done
– Definitions of Done matter
– Created within the team matters most
64
more results, and the study itself: http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html
© Ron Lichty

65. Five Practices that Promise More /
Nuances to Struggle Less
• Don’t just do Agile
• “Done”
• Standups
• Planning
• Estimating
© Ron Lichty 65

66. 66
Standups
2015 Study:
How effective are standups in your organization?
© Ron Lichty

67. 67
Standups
© Ron Lichty

68. 68
Standups
Product teams that do not hold standups,
or hold ineffective standups… perform worst.© Ron Lichty

69. 69
Standups
Product teams with standups that are
effective and regular… perform better.© Ron Lichty

70. 70
Standups
Product teams with standups that are
effective and daily… perform best.© Ron Lichty

71. Study of Product Team Performance
• Standups
– Standups matter
– Standups held daily & effectively matter most
71
more results from the study! http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html
© Ron Lichty

72. What Makes for Effective Standups?
© Ron Lichty 72

73. What Makes for Effective Standups?
• The three questions
– tend to be “me”-focused
– tend to make Standups status meetings not planning
© Ron Lichty 73

74. What Makes for Effective Standups?
• The first two questions
– tend to be broken
• “do” and “did”
– What I want to hear:
• “accomplish” and “accomplished”
– the power of the first 2 questions:
• time management principle: commit
• clue my team in to how I’m doing
© Ron Lichty 74

75. What Makes for Effective Standups?
• All three questions: broken for another reason
– tend to be “me”-focused
– tend to make Standups status meetings not planning
• Focus: How are we doing on our Sprint plan?
• Fist-to-Five: daily: our confidence in our plan
– bring focus from “me” to “us”
© Ron Lichty 75

76. Fist to Five:
Are We on Track to Make Our Plan?
no confidence
we’ll make our sprint plan
Totally confident
we are still on track
to make our sprint plan
From
to
© Ron Lichty 76

77. What Makes for Effective Standups?
• The three questions
– tend to be “me”-focused
– tend to make Standups status meetings not planning
• Focus: How are we doing on our Sprint plan?
• Fist-to-Five: daily: our confidence in our plan
– brings focus from “me” to “us”
– 4s and 5s, or conversation to get there
– how will we work together as a self-organizing team
to accomplish the Sprint Goal?
– heads-up (early!) to our Product Owner if we can’t
© Ron Lichty 77

78. Fist to Five?
From
to
• Can help teams work as a team
© Ron Lichty 78

79. Five Practices that Promise More /
Nuances to Struggle Less
• Don’t just do Agile
• “Done”
• Standups
• Planning
• Estimating
© Ron Lichty 79

80. Sprint Planning Meetings
© Ron Lichty 80

81. Sprint Planning Meetings
• All Backlog reordering must be complete!
© Ron Lichty 81

82. Sprint Planning Meetings
• Team pulls cards: from Backlog into Plan
– not assigned by anyone: not SM, not PO
– refine stories: break stories into tasks
• Sprint: a timebox
– Leverage their previous relative sizing story points
– May estimate tasks in days, may write names on
• Can lose sight of our being a team
• Goal: a perfect Sprint Plan for our team
• close with a Fist-to-Five confidence vote
© Ron Lichty 82

83. Fist to Five:
Is This Our Best Sprint Plan?
no confidence
in our sprint plan:
it’s a terrible plan
Totally confident
we’ve identified
a best sprint plan
From
to
© Ron Lichty 83

84. Sprint Planning Meetings
• Team pulls cards: from Backlog into Plan
– not assigned by anyone: not SM, not PO
– refine stories: break stories into tasks
• Sprint: a timebox
– Leverage their previous relative sizing story points
– May estimate tasks in days, may write names on
• Can lose sight of our being a team
• Goal: a perfect Sprint Plan for our team
• close with a Fist-to-Five confidence vote
– again, look for 4s and 5s© Ron Lichty 84

85. Five Practices that Promise More /
Nuances to Struggle Less
• Don’t just do Agile
• “Done”
• Standups
• Planning
• Estimating
© Ron Lichty 85

86. Estimating
• Pointing is for entire backlogs, not sprints
• Pointing an entire backlog should take ½ day
• Pointing is about relative, not absolute sizing
© Ron Lichty 86

87. 150 Epics
& Stories
120 features: 2 hours to “snake”; 1 hour to size
87
3 hours
© Ron Lichty

88. 88
Remote Sizing: RealTimeBoard
Team in 10 different locations, collaborating via both Skype & RealTimeBoard
© Ron Lichty

89. Estimating
• Pointing is for entire backlogs, not sprints
• Pointing an entire backlog should take ½ day
• Pointing is about relative, not absolute sizing
• Once stories are ordered by value as a backlog...
– Estimates ± 20%
• leveraging relative sizing, plus velocity from stable teams
• Two pass relative sizing:
– Steve Bockman: Practical Estimation:
• A Pocket Guide to Making Dependable Project Schedules
• 99 cents on Amazon
© Ron Lichty 89

90. How Do We Foster Being Agile?
• Foster shared leadership & an Agile Culture
• Trust Our People
• Shield Teams from Politics & Distraction
• Remove Impediments
• Empower Self-Organization & Excellence
• Create a Culture of Communication
• Model, Defend, Evangelize Agile Values
(c) Ron Lichty: Teamwork: Making
Your Dream Team Come True
90Ron@RonLichty.com

91. Critical Practices /
Nuanced Techniques
• Standups matter
– Standups held daily & effectively matter most
• Definitions of Done matter
– Created within the team matters most
• Fist-to-Five technique
– can help teams be more effective teams
• every sprint planning meeting, every standup
• Effective pointing leads to effective estimating
© Ron Lichty 91

92. Pre-Order & Save 40%*
informit.com/managing2e
• Use code EARLYMANAGING
• Available as Book and/or eBook
(eBook all-inclusive: PDF, EPUB, and MOBI)
• Free Shipping in the US
Book is also available via booksellers including Amazon and
Barnes & Noble and in O’Reilly’s Online Learning Service.
*Discount code EARLYMANAGING is only good at informit.com
and cannot be used on the already discounted book + eBook
bundle or combined with any other offer. Offer ends December 9,
2019 and is subject to change.
92

93. Ron Lichty Consulting
• Mentoring, coaching, training, consulting:
– http://ronlichty.com, Ron@RonLichty.com
• The book:
Managing the Unmanageable:
Rules, Tools & Insights for Managing Software People & Teams
– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----tools, excerpts, more rules of thumb
• Video training:
LiveLessons: Managing Software People and Teams
– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net/video.html
• The study:
The Study of Product Team Performance
– http://ronlichty.com/study.html
• Training:
The Agile Manager
Managing Software People and Teams
Zero to Agile in Three Days
© Ron Lichty 93

94. Pre-Order & Save 40%*
informit.com/managing2e
• Use code EARLYMANAGING
• Available as Book and/or eBook
(eBook all-inclusive: PDF, EPUB, and MOBI)
• Free Shipping in the US
Book is also available via booksellers including Amazon and
Barnes & Noble and in O’Reilly’s Online Learning Service.
*Discount code EARLYMANAGING is only good at informit.com
and cannot be used on the already discounted book + eBook
bundle or combined with any other offer. Offer ends December 9,
2019 and is subject to change.
94

95. Ron Lichty Consulting
• Mentoring, coaching, training, consulting:
– http://ronlichty.com, Ron@RonLichty.com
• The book:
Managing the Unmanageable:
Rules, Tools & Insights for Managing Software People & Teams
– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----tools, excerpts, more rules of thumb
• Video training:
LiveLessons: Managing Software People and Teams
– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net/video.html
• The study:
The Study of Product Team Performance
– http://ronlichty.com/study.html
• Training:
The Agile Manager
Managing Software People and Teams
Zero to Agile in Three Days
© Ron Lichty 95