You must unlearn what you have learned
By: Josh Bruce
Tags: Product Management, Software Development, Agile

In 2015 I was honored to attend the Agile Bootcamp from the Agile Coaching Institute taught by Lyssa Adkins, Michael Spayd, and Michael Hamman. When I returned to the newly formed user experience team I was working with I asked a fatal question of the team:

Do you mind if I sorta take on the mantle of being the Agile Coach for the team?

The rest of the team seemed to think it would be a good idea.

Later I was discussing Tuckman’s stages of group development (forming, storming, norming, performing) with one of the customers who was on the team. She was fascinated by this concept and could see how it had manifested in her own life. She became even more fascinated when I said:

“I think it’s actually possible to skip the storming bit for the most part. If you facilitate a group discussion with the goal of coming up with the norms. Essentially creating the base culture in which we want to operate.”

“That would be awesome!”

“I would love to facilitate that for us.”

“Let’s make it happen.”

I ran off and started working on my facilitation guide.

Now, if you know me, then you know I don’t plan things. The more I plan, the more the universe seems to like saying, “Really? Let’s see how easily you can adjust.” But, there I was, planning a roughly three hour event (I would probably prefer having it be all day, but I understood where the client was at)…then I got an email from the customer:

“So, how long do you think you’ll need for this?”

“Three hours.”

“How about an hour and a half.”

I thought about it. I had never actually done something like this before, which translated to me thinking I could handle anything. Probably still a bit euphoric from the bootcamp and making progress on an added adventure in my life. So, of course, I replied, “Not preferred, but I think I can make it work. Might need to be a couple of events though.”

The agenda was pretty simple:

< 30 minutes for ice-breakers.

< 30 minutes for what are your passions, dislikes, and hates…as a prioritization game and seeing how we’re similar.

Remaining time focused on actually coming up with the rest of the norms, a constitution for the team…whatever you want to call it.

There would only be about 4 or 5 people in the room; so, chances are we wouldn’t run into communication overload. We agreed on a noon start time to take advantage of lunch. We also agreed to go somewhere we wouldn’t be interrupted…most likely.

I showed up an hour early to set the room up…there were people having a meeting. I had just been shoved a bit.

No matter, I was prepared.

Brought dry erase markers in case the room didn’t have any that worked (totally happens in that building). When I checked to see if the room was empty I scoped out the layout and started thinking how I would adjust the furniture for the activities.

Then I got an email from the customer:

“Hey, just checking in. I invited K to join the party, she’s not technically on our team, but I told her what we were doing and she wanted to join in. I also ordered pizza.”

I replied with a simple, “Okay. Thanks for the heads up.” But inside I was starting to feel very confused and slightly frustrated. This wasn’t a party, per se. It was getting serious work done to help us become a team. The “off-site” was turning into one of those off-sites. (Tuckman might identify this as storming.)

Noon hit and no one was there. The room emptied and I went in. I made space for the pizza on a counter under the presentation monitor. I moved all the chairs on the side of the table nearest the whiteboard so people (mainly me) could easily walk in front of the whiteboard unencumbered.

It started approaching 1230. I emailed the customer:

“Where is everyone? Really eating into our time-box here.”

She replied, “Pizza still hasn’t arrived — I need to be able to pick it up at security. Stuck in a meeting. Can we make the time-box 2 hours? I would like to talk about this other thing.”

I sighed deeply before replying to the email, “Sure.”

My frustration was coming to a head when I decided to close my eyes and take a serious deep breath. If I think the Agile Software Development values and principles are almost universally applicable, then what would that look like?

Back to basics. A Scrum analogy would be most appropriate.