Engaging Team Members and Stakeholders (2021 Update)

Project management is more than just basic decision-making and scheduling. It's leadership.
It's coaching, training, cross-training, and motivating. It requires both self-awareness and
self-regulation, employing your emotional intelligence, or EQ, skills to keep a diverse team
of professionals engaged and working effectively together.
In this course, you'll learn about tools and techniques that project managers can use to engage
team members and stakeholders, including effective decision-making and conflict
management and resolution. You'll also explore how your social skills and empathy can be
employed to keep you team motivated and on point.
Table of Contents
1. Engaging Team Members and Stakeholders (2021 Update)
2. Effective Decision-making
3. Conflict Management and Resolution
4. Emotional Intelligence
5. Assessment Tools
6. Change Management
7. Team Member Skill Sets
8. Agile Team Characteristics
9. Agile Team Spaces and Tools
Engaging Team Members and Stakeholders (2021 Update)
[Video description begins] Topic title: Engaging Team Members and Stakeholders
(2021 Update). Your host for the session is Barb Waters, MBA, PMP. [Video
description ends]

Project management is more than just basic decision making and scheduling, it's
leadership. It's coaching, training, cross-training and motivating, it requires both
self-awareness and self-regulation, employing your emotional intelligence or EQ
skills to keep a diverse team of professionals engaged and working effectively
together. In this course, you'll learn about tools and techniques that project
managers can use to engage team members and stakeholders, including effective
decision making and conflict management and resolution. You'll also explore how
your social skills and empathy can be employed to keep your team motivated and
on point.
In this course, we'll be focusing on the people domain, which contains the
following tasks: build a team, define team ground rules, build a shared
understanding about the project, negotiate project agreements, empower the team
members and stakeholders, ensure team members and stakeholders are adequately
trained, engage and support virtual teams, collaborate with stakeholders, lead a
team, address and remove impediments, obstacles and blockers for the team,
support team performance, manage conflict, mentor relevant stakeholders, and
promote team performance through the application of emotional intelligence. In
this course, we'll focus on several of these areas and specifically on the task
manage conflict.
Within the task manage conflict, the enablers are: interpret the source and stage of
the conflict, analyze the context for the conflict, evaluate, recommend and
reconcile and track effectiveness, identify the root cause of the misunderstandings
and investigate potential misunderstandings.
Effective Decision-making
[Video description begins] Topic title: Effective Decision-making. Your host for the
session is Barbara Waters. [Video description ends]

Effective decision making is key to project success. Agile decisions especially must
be timely. In a rapidly changing environment, there isn't a lot of time to analyze
the situation, and a lack of decision making means that you'll have less of a
chance to leverage opportunities or avoid threats. We use the analogy of constant
white water to describe our Agile projects.

Let's say that you're in a raft heading down the river rapids and you see a large
rock in front of you. You'll need to quickly make a plan of action. Doing nothing is
not an option, and taking too long to decide means that you'll probably hit the
rock. Agile decision making works in much the same way. In action or over
analysis is problematic. You could end up hitting the rock while you're still
discussing your plan of action. All relevant stakeholders should be involved in the
decision making process. This is important for by-in and to ensure that everyone
is aware of the decision and has had a chance to contribute to it.

Decision framing helps to set the stage. You can outline who will make the
decision and what values will be considered. Effective decision making works best
when all opinions are heard and discussed and when everyone supports the
decision, even if they're not in full agreement.
A decision gradient can be used to show the level of support that each team
member feels for a certain decision. It ranges from in favor of to veto, and it
includes various levels of commitment in between. A decision gradient shows the
support expressed by team members along a continuum. The team can use a voting
system and each vote is plotted for discussion. There are five options along this
scale: in favor, in favor but with some concerns, mixed feelings, disagree but will
cooperate, and veto. This is a good starting point for a team discussion in order to
understand where everyone stands on an issue or a decision at the start and then
trying to move toward consensus.
Workshops can help set the stage for decision making. A workshop creates the
necessary time block and tools for a group to meet and to work together to make
decisions. A workshop should have a clear purpose and specific goals. In a
workshop, all attendees participate. No one is there to simply observe. The
workshops should be cross-functional, including individuals with diverse
viewpoints so you can avoid "group think". "Group think" is where everyone
agrees, but maybe you're missing some important points of view from stakeholders
who didn't attend.

Here's an example of a decision making workshop. It involves a local town that's

vulnerable to wildfires. The town hasn't assessed its emergency response and
evacuation plan in a while, so they've decided to conduct a cross-functional
workshop. This workshop should be attended by a variety of stakeholders,
including the town manager, the fire department, local hospital administration, the
police department, employers, residents and more. If you think about everyone
who could be impacted in the case of an evacuation, it's basically everyone in the
town. We know that the workshop needs to have a manageable number of
attendees. So we just make sure that every voice is represented by a participant in
the workshop. Together, this group will work through important considerations and
create an emergency response and evacuation plan that will work best for their
town.
Conflict Management and Resolution
[Video description begins] Topic title: Conflict Management and Resolution. Your
host for the session is Barbara Waters. [Video description ends]

Conflict is inevitable when you're leading a project. So it's a good idea to plan
your conflict management and resolution process in advance. The sources of
conflict can include scarce resources, scheduling priorities, or even personal style.
The types of conflict can be dysfunctional or functional. Dysfunctional conflict
means that it has become personal. Unfortunately, when that happens, it can
damage relationships. Functional conflict means that the team is focusing on the
problem and not on each other. The desired outcomes of conflict are agreement,
stronger relationships and greater productivity.

Here are some suggested strategies to address conflict. Address the conflict early
and in private using a direct and collaborative approach, support team ground
rules and group norms, clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and plan for
communications. There are various roles in conflict resolution. Team members
are initially responsible for resolving their own conflict. Project managers can help
facilitate resolutions for escalated conflict. And as a last resort, if the conflict
involves unprofessional behavior, it may be appropriate to initiate formal
disciplinary procedures.
Now we'll explore the Thomas Kilmann model for handling conflict. This is a
matrix where the X axis is a range from uncooperative to cooperative and the Y
axis is a range from passive to assertive. We'll start with the most assertive and
least cooperative. It's called force and direct or competing. This approach to
handling conflict includes pushing one's viewpoint at the expense of others and
offering only win/loose solutions. It's usually enforced through a power position to
resolve an emergency. It can be appropriate when an unpopular solution must be
implemented or a deadline is near because it's expedient and authoritarian but the
leader has to be cautious because if you're always handling conflict this way, it can
breed resentment.

Next is the most passive and least cooperative approach, which is withdraw or
avoid. This approach includes retreating from an actual or potential conflict
situation or postponing the issue to be better prepared or to be resolved by others.
It's appropriate for trivial issues or when it buys time in an ambiguous situation,
but it shouldn't be used for difficult or worsening problems. Next, we have smooth
or accommodate, which is passive but also on the cooperative side. This approach
emphasizes areas of agreement rather than areas of difference, and it can also mean
conceding your own position to the needs of others in order to maintain harmony
and relationships. It encourages cooperation in the short-term, but it is a temporary
fix.

In the center of all of the approaches we have compromising. This approach

includes searching for solutions that bring some degree of satisfaction to all parties
in order to temporarily or partially resolve the conflict. It's appropriate when
parties have opposite goals and equal power. It's a temporary fix and it can be
unproductive and can stifle problem solving. The best approach for handling
conflict involves a high level of assertiveness and a high level of cooperation. And
that's when you collaborate and problem solve. In this approach, team members
confront the issue and cooperate on a solution. It has the potential for the longest
lasting resolution because the problem is solved and not just the symptoms.
Emotional Intelligence
[Video description begins] Topic title: Emotional Intelligence. Your host for the
session is Barbara Waters. [Video description ends]

In this topic, we'll explore emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence has an

internal aspect which has to do with our own feelings and behaviors, and an
external aspect which has to do with the way we relate to others. We'll start with
the internal aspect: personal skills. Personal skills include self-awareness, self-
regulation and motivation. With self-awareness, you'll recognize your own
emotions, identify the link between your emotions and behaviors, understand
your own strengths and weaknesses, acknowledge blind spots and make decisions
and take risks with self-confidence.

With self-regulation, you'll control your emotions and behaviors, acknowledge

mistakes, maintain a reputation for honesty and credibility, demonstrate conduct
that is moral, deliver on promises, adapt to change and show flexibility and
embrace innovative new approaches. And with motivation, you'll set a high bar
for performance goals, strive to increase skills, make decisions that align to team
goals, go above and beyond, focus on the opportunities, remove barriers and seek
controllable factors for achieving success.
When you're trying to self regulate or control your emotions and behaviors,
sometimes this is easier to say than to do. Why? Because when you're in the
middle of a very stressful or upsetting situation, there are actually changes to your
brain chemistry and your level of control may be compromised. There are entire
studies dedicated to this and it's pretty interesting, so I'll give you a quick
overview.

In early human cultures, when humans lived as hunters and gatherers, it wouldn't
be unusual to have risky encounters, for instance with wild animals. The fight or
flight response is activated by the amygdala, which are two almond-shaped
structures in the brain. The amygdala is associated with a strong and immediate
chemical response where you can react without too much planning or even
thinking. Another structure in the brain, the prefrontal cortex, evolved a bit later in
humans. This area of the brain is responsible for higher thinking, problem solving,
decision-making and our social behavior. You might be wondering what does any
of this have to do with emotional intelligence? Sometimes the amygdala and the
prefrontal cortex are at odds with one another.

When you're confronted with a stressful situation, your amygdala can be triggered,
and when it is, it steals the blood supply away from the prefrontal cortex. So there
goes the problem solving and here comes the fight or flight. The good news is that
if you realize this is happening, you can self-regulate. Here are some of the things
you can do.

Beware of permanent responses to temporary emotions, use techniques to offset

emotions, identify your thoughts, question the negative thoughts, replace negative
thoughts with positive ones, maintain an appropriate level of stress, recognize the
difference between good and bad stress, use techniques to disrupt the amygdala,
strive for an appropriate quantity and quality of sleep, and pursue medical advice
as necessary. The importance of self-regulation can't be overstated. One of my
favorite quotes is "Speak when you're angry and you will make the best speech you
will ever regret" by Ambrose Bierce, writer and poet.
Now that we have covered the internal aspects of emotional intelligence, we'll turn
to the external aspects. They include social skills and empathy. Social skills
includes communicating effectively, protecting the team and colleagues,
collaborating and cooperating, managing conflict, building relationships, leading
and influencing for good and embracing change. We talk about each of these topics
throughout the people domain, but it's helpful to know that they're grouped
together in one category, social skills. You might also hear them called
interpersonal skills.
Empathy is one of the categories of emotional intelligence, and it's about relating
with others in our external environment. There are several elements to empathy,
including political awareness, understanding others, promoting the success of
others, focusing on customer perspective and leveraging diversity. We'll start with
political awareness. You might wonder how does political awareness fit into the
category of empathy?

One of the characteristics of empathy is the ability to read the unspoken messages
of others or to read the room. This includes understanding political truths and
realities of companies, grasping influences that set opinions of clients, customers
and rivals, recognizing critical social systems and correctly interpreting power
connections. Understanding others includes serving others based on needs,
observing emotional cues and listening carefully and displaying tact and
appreciating other's points of view.

Promoting the success of others means recognizing and rewarding associates

achievements, providing helpful criticism and coaching and mentoring. You may
have heard the saying "A rising tide lifts all boats", and this definitely supports the
concept of promoting the success of others. Focusing on the customer perspective
means happily providing proper help, understanding the customer's point of view,
seeking strategies to increase customer satisfaction and recognizing customers
needs. Leveraging diversity means appreciating various perspectives, creating
conditions where all individuals can thrive, showing consideration and respect for
diverse groups, and objecting to discrimination and exclusion.
Assessment Tools
[Video description begins] Topic title: Assessment Tools. Your host for the session
is Barbara Waters. [Video description ends]

In this topic, we will discuss personnel assessment tools. A personal assessment

tool gives you insight into your strengths and weaknesses, and it can help you
manage your team member preferences, understand motivations and how
individuals process information. It also facilitates productive teams. Personnel
assessment tools can include attitudinal surveys, specific assessments, structured
interviews, ability tests and focus groups.
Some popular personality profile assessments include Whole Brain Thinking,
Social Style Model, Theory of Psychological Types, the DiSC Assessment Model,
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI, and True Colors Methodology. We're
going to examine each of these assessments in more detail.
Whole Brain Thinking by Ned Herrmann works on the premise that different tasks
require different mental processes, and different people prefer different kinds of
thinking. According to Herrmann, there are four different modes of thinking.
Analytical thinking is considered logical, critical, fact-based and quantitative.
Experimental thinking is considered holistic, intuitive, integrating and
synthesizing. Relational thinking is considered interpersonal, feeling-based,
kinesthetic and emotional. And practical thinking is considered organized,
sequential, planned and detailed.

Herrmann said that everyone has access to all four quadrants, but not everyone
uses all four. Herrmann studies show that 5% of the population prefers one
quadrant, 58% align with two quadrants, 34% align with three quadrants, and 3%
prefer all four equally. And to quote Herrmann, applying whole brain thinking
means being able to fully leverage one's own preferences, stretch to other
quadrants when necessary, and adapt to and take advantage of the preferences of
those around you to improve performance and results.
Now we'll explore this Social Style model by Tracom. The four social styles are
the analytical style, the driving style, the expressive style and the amiable style.
Each of these unique styles has different ways of using time, ways of interacting
and making decisions. The analytical style is considered thoughtful, reserved and
slow paced. Analytical individuals may be seen as quiet, logical and sometimes
cautious. They may seem distant and tend to only communicate when there is a
specific need to do so. The driving style is considered controlling, decisive and
fast-paced.

Driving style individuals may be seen as direct, forceful and determined. They may
seem extroverted, initiating conversations with others. They focus on their goals
and objectives and may focus other people on achieving their accomplishments as
well. The expressive style is considered enthusiastic and emotional. Expressive
individuals may react impulsively and openly, willing to show both positive and
negative feelings. They're typically described by others as talkative and possibly
opinionated. The amiable style is considered friendly, supportive and relationship
driven.

Amiable individuals are open to sharing their feelings. They tend to be less
demanding, more accommodating and easygoing. Tracom suggests that with the
social styles assessment, you can determine a person's style by observing them, and
you can be versatile with your own behavior adjusting to make that person feel
more comfortable. Tracom offers a social style navigator to help people apply
strategies to real world workplace scenarios.
The Theory of Psychological Types was introduced by Carl Jung in 1921. These
personality types were adopted into the Myers-Briggs 16 personalities only a few
years later. We'll address these theories together with the discussion of the MBTI
or Myers-Briggs type indicator. MBTI operates on the premise that individuals are
either extroverts or introverts, sensors or intuitives, thinkers or feelers and judgers
or perceivers. Let's compare each of these groups, starting with extroverts and
introverts. Extroverts are generally energized by people. They enjoy a fast pace and
they're good at juggling tasks. Introverts generally enjoy being alone. They prefer a
defined scope to their work and prefer to work on one task at a time.

Next, we have the group that includes sensors and intuitive. Sensors are generally
realistic, focused on facts and details, and they use common sense and practical
solutions. Intuitives generally consider the possibilities, notice patterns and
innovate and seek creative solutions. Next, we have thinkers and feelers. Thinkers
generally logically analyze their options, weigh the pros and cons and value
honesty, consistency and fairness. Feelers are generally sensitive and cooperative.
They make decisions based on their own personal values, and they consider the
effect of their actions on others. And finally, we have judgers and perceivers.
Judgers tend to be organized and prepared, plan-driven and rule following.
Perceivers tend to keep their options open, act spontaneously, and they're flexible
with making plans.
The DiSC model of behavior was first proposed in 1928 by William Moulton
Marston, a physiological psychologist. Marston theorized that the behavioral
expression of emotions could be categorized into four primary types based on how
a person perceives themselves and how they relate to their environment. This
model has evolved a bit since it was first proposed, so we'll review the model as it
stands today. There are four quadrants: Dominant, Influential, Steady and
Compliant.

The dominant matrix measures, among other things, directness and your
decisiveness. Some words that might describe the dominant quadrant are direct,
decisive and demanding. The influential personality aspect measures sociability
and the ability to persuade and make connections with others. Some words that
might describe the influential quadrant are inspirational, interactive and impulsive.
The steady aspect refers to being even tempered. Steady individuals are patient and
calm when handling challenges, and they don't typically demonstrate mood
changes or aggressive behaviors. Some words that might describe the steady
quadrant are stable, supportive and sincere.
Finally, the compliant aspect refers to attention to detail or appreciation for
orderliness. Compliant individuals tend to be systematic when it comes to tasks or
objectives, and they don't like a fast-paced environment. Some words that might
describe the compliant quadrant are cautious, careful and conscientious. Once a
person takes the DiSC assessment, they'll receive scores in each quadrant. The
larger scores indicate which quadrants dominate their personality.

The goal of the DiSC profile is to improve self-understanding, learning about

relating to others, and to learn strategies to improve their personal interactions and
performance. The True Colors Methodology by Don Lowry is another model for
understanding yourself and others. This model uses four colors: blue, gold, green
and orange to differentiate the personality styles. Each individual has a
combination of these four true colors, and the two most dominant colors represent
a person's core personality.

The blue personality type is emotionally driven and seeks harmony in groups.
Words that may describe a blue personality include enthusiastic, creative and
sympathetic. The gold personality type is loyalty driven and respects rules and
authority. Words that may describe a gold personality type include responsible,
organized and appreciative Green personality types are logically driven
independent thinkers. Words that may describe a green personality type include
focused, efficient and analytical.

The orange personality type is short-term driven and welcomes change and variety.
Words that may describe an orange personality type include adventurous,
competitive and impulsive. The idea behind true colors is that if we understand the
behaviors and motivations of others relative to our own personality, we may be
able to reduce conflict by recognizing our differences and characteristics.
Change Management
[Video description begins] Topic title: Change Management. Your host for the
session is Barbara Waters. [Video description ends]

In the first course of this curriculum called Exploring Project Management then
and now, we discuss the fact that today's projects are affected by the rapid speed
of change. Some have called it constant state of white water, like navigating a
turbulent river. Adaptation is essential. You can't wait for everything to calm
down, and you can't just be an observer. You have to be an engaged participant in
your environment. Planning too far ahead isn't helpful because you may not know
the changes that are coming and how you'll need to respond.

Teams may need to address what's important now and stay ready to pivot at a
moment's notice. Here are a few things to keep in mind. The best approach for
managing changes depends on stakeholders, organizational structure,
environmental factors and urgency. The project team must have an agreed upon
approach that supports the business objectives. Organizations must be adaptable
and flexible to embrace change for better outcomes. Change management is a
key skill, and leaders must be capable of facilitating change.
The McKinsey's 7S framework is a management model developed by business
consultants Robert H. Waterman Jr. and Tom Peters in the 1980s. This framework
focuses on the skills that will be required by the organization during the process of
organizational change.

The 7S are Strategy Structure, Systems, Staff, Style, Skills, and in the center we
have Shared Values. Strategy includes the purpose of the business and the way it
will leverage its competitive advantage. Structure refers to the division and
coordination of functions and departments. Systems includes processes and
procedures, how resources are allocated and how performance is measured and
rewarded. Staff refers to the organization's human resources, demographic and
other characteristics. Style means the behaviors and culture of managers and other
professionals. Skills refers to the organization's competencies and capabilities.
Placing shared values at the center reflects the crucial nature of the impact of
changes on all of the other elements.
Now we'll discuss Kotter's theory. The 8-step process for leading change was
created by Dr. John Kotter. Dr. Kotter observed leaders and organizations as they
were trying to transform or achieve their goals. He identified some common
success factors and use them to create a methodology which he called the 8-step
process for leading change.

Step 1 is to create urgency. The purpose of this step is to ensure that the whole
organization wants the change and to drive the initial motivation to get started. It's
the reason why this needs to happen either to leverage an opportunity or possibly
mitigate a threat.

Step 2 is to form a powerful coalition. This starts with convincing people that the
change is needed. Change has to be led and supported by the organization. This
requires an active role and it may help to assemble a transition team to help lead
the change. This works very well when the transition team is cross-functional and
includes participants from all levels of the organization.

Step 3 is to create a vision for change. Leading an organization through change is a

project in itself. And one thing project managers know is that we need to establish
a shared vision with all of our stakeholders. Everyone tends to have their own
needs and their own ideas when it comes to a project. Establishing a clear vision is
key. In the course called Deep dive into the project scope, you'll find some great
tools for establishing a shared project vision, such as an elevator statement, a tweet
and more. The important thing is to keep the vision statement short and to the
point.
Step 4 is to communicate the vision. Communication is vital to project success.
Make sure that the vision for organizational change is part of your regular
conversations and not just a meeting agenda item. The change should be integrated
into all processes and activities, and it should be part of the organization's identity,
not just activities that the organization is doing.

Step 5 is to remove obstacles. It's pretty normal to encounter obstacles when going
through organizational changes, and obstacle could be a lack of buy-in and
engagement from certain stakeholders, or it could be your own rules and processes
that are getting in the way. Work with your leadership team to remove obstacles
and help team members who may be struggling with the changes. By removing
these obstacles, you'll be able to increase engagement.

Step 6 is to create short-term wins. When leading organizational change, it helps to

make sure that there are milestones for identifying progress and reward systems in
place to recognize efforts and accomplishments. Try to make the progress as
visible as possible for everyone by creating dashboards or information displays.
The feeling of success is very motivating, and short-term targets that result in little
wins can really motivate everyone to keep moving forward.

Step 7 is to build on the change. This step relies on the concept of Kaizen or small
steps to continuous improvement. It also uses the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle by
quality guru W. Edwards Deming. The idea of building on the change is that while
short-term wins are great, you'll need to link them together and continue to
measure the progress against the overall vision. Also, with each small step, you can
gather lessons learned and use them for the next increment of progress.

Step 8 is to anchor the changes in corporate culture. This change must become
permanent, so it will need to become part of your regular everyday activities.
You'll need to anchor the change into all of your processes, including your new
employee onboarding and even any documents or templates that you use. This will
help to prevent confusion between the old way and the new way of doing things
and to prevent regressing backward in the processes.
Team Member Skill Sets
[Video description begins] Topic title: Team Member Skill Sets. Your host for the
session is Barbara Waters. [Video description ends]

The skill sets of team members can have a direct impact on the flow of work. Let's
explore two different types of skillsets. Specialists tend to have one main skill. It's
deep knowledge in one area, but the skill set is narrow. We sometimes refer to
specialists as I shape, because of this deep, narrow skillset. When there are a lot
of specialists on the team, more handoffs are required.
Generalized specialists have many skills. In addition to deep knowledge in one
area, they may also have a broad skill set across multiple areas. We sometimes
refer to generalize specialists as T shape because of this deep skill set in one area
and the broad skillset across multiple areas. When there are a lot of generalized
specialists on the team, fewer handoffs are required. Team members are also able
to swarm on a task, which means they can help each other until that task is
complete. Swarming shouldn't be confused with multitasking or tasks switching
by the way. Team members still only work on one task at a time.
Let's examine the impact of the specialist skillset on workflow. In a team made
exclusively of specialists, some team members can only design, some only code
and some only test. So if the coders or developers are very productive, there can be
a bottleneck between their skillset and the next one.
Now we'll examine the difference it can make if we cross-train some of our team
members so they're able to both code and test. Now the team members can select a
task from either column and work on it as necessary. This resolves any bottlenecks
and facilitates the flow of work through the system. The product increment is ready
for release earlier, which promotes value driven delivery.
Earlier, I mentioned that team members should only work on one task at a time.
This exercise will demonstrate the inefficiency of task switching or multitasking.
When we task switch, we're actually less efficient. For this exercise, you'll just
need a blank piece of paper and something to write with as well as a stopwatch.
You may have a stopwatch app on your phone. You can post the video and grab
those items and restart it when you're ready.

So in this exercise, what we're going to do is write the numbers 1 through 26 along
the top of the paper and then the letters A through Z along the bottom. You'll do
this as efficiently as possible, completing all of the numbers across the top first and
then all of the letters across the bottom. OK, go ahead and time yourself. How long
did it take you?

Next, you'll turn over the piece of paper and try this again but this time you're
going to task switch. You'll write the number 1 on top and then the letter A on the
bottom, then switch back up to the top and write the number 2 and back to the
bottom and write the letter B, and on and on until you've completed all of the
numbers and all of the letters. Let's determine how long that takes so you can go
ahead and time yourself. Now, compare your two results. How much longer did it
take when you were task switching?

This was a pretty simple task. What do you think the results of task switching
would be if you were performing more complex tasks? So even though it might
feel like we're getting more done because we're touching more work all at the same
time, we aren't actually finishing anything very quickly. Work in progress doesn't
have any value. So it would be better if we can work on one task at a time until the
task is finished and then move on to the next task.
Agile Team Characteristics
[Video description begins] Topic title: Agile Team Characteristics. Your host for the
session is Barbara Waters. [Video description ends]

In this topic, we'll discuss some of the Agile team characteristics. Agile teams
prioritize people over processes, which is one of the four Agile values. The team
decides on its own processes and tools, and high performing teams equals project
success. There's a difference between being Agile versus doing Agile. When a
team is doing Agile, they're just going through the motions. They may have a daily
scrum or stand up, but they may not know why they're doing it. It's because
they've always done it.

Being Agile means embracing before Agile values and 12 Agile principles and
questioning your actions from time to time to make sure that they align with the
values and principles of Agile. For example, if an Agile team has started to create
more and more documentation and plans, they may need to take a step back and
realize that they're straying from the concept of keeping things simple and
lightweight. And they can make course corrections to get back to Agile best
practices.
Now we'll explore a few of the actual values and priorities. Agile value is
measured by the customer and key stakeholders. A few ways that Agile teams can
ensure value include that the product owner prioritizes the product backlog to align
to stakeholder values. The team delivers value early, and the team also
demonstrates the product increment often in order to gather feedback and adapt
accordingly. So stakeholder value is generally measured by the product increment
and the value that it delivers to stakeholders. But there are other values that drive
an Agile team. These are more about the team dynamic.

Two Agile team values include respect and courage. Respect means to welcome
different viewpoints and seek consensus from team members. Courage means to
welcome feedback, even if that feedback isn't what we were hoping to hear. Agile
teams realize that this type of feedback is the most valuable because it means we
can get back on track if we weren't meeting the customer's needs. Agile teams also
practice transparency, which means that we openly demonstrate the product to
stakeholders and share the product vision to ensure that we're all on the same page.
Agile teams and individuals have unique characteristics that you may or may not
find in traditional teams. Agile team characteristics are as follows. Individuals take
ownership of their work. Members are empowered to make their own decisions.
Open and frequent communication is encouraged. And there is a balance between
collaboration and cooperation. An individual on an Agile team tends to be
emotionally intelligent, works with integrity, has a strong sense of responsibility, is
self-confident and comfortable asking for help.
Because Agile teams are often trying to take on innovative projects or develop new
types of products and features, they're bound to encounter problems. A new feature
may not work as expected. A project may not be viable after all and has to be
canceled. Or the team may have missed the mark with a customer requirement. The
word failure has taken on new meaning with Agile projects and teams. It's not a
bad word. Failure can be part of the process.

The most important thing is that the Agile team is supportive of one another,
especially during times of failure. This safe environment exists when team
members are truthful, honest, accountable, respectful, authentic and competent. If
you're interested in learning more about teams that thrive in environments like this,
you might want to check out a TED talk called The Unexpected Benefit of
Celebrating Failure. It reframes the concept of failure and how some teams thrive
in environments where failure is something they encounter regularly as part of their
path to success.
Agile teams utilize lessons learned as part of their processes. Lessons learned can
be gathered from stakeholders, from inspecting the product and from the team
itself. Agile is characterized by being incremental, so drastic improvements don't
happen overnight. By incorporating feedback and lessons learned with each
iteration of work, the team can improve continuously bit by bit.
The COCOMO II Model was developed by Barry W. Boehm. COCOMO stands
for Constructive Cost Model. It's based on thousands of completed projects. The
research looked into the most successful projects and identified correlations
between seven variables and the level of project success. It turns out that the
strongest correlation with project success was people, while processes was ranked
fourth. We might be able to interpret this to mean that while processes are
important, the people are what really matters. If we don't have a strong team, the
processes probably can't save the project, and without the people, the project just
won't be a successful.
Agile Team Spaces and Tools
[Video description begins] Topic title: Agile Team Spaces and Tools. Your host for
the session is Barbara Waters. [Video description ends]

The authors of the Agile Manifesto stated that the richest form of communication
is face to face. While that's not always possible, we'll discuss this concept of
colocation. A co-located team is physically located within about 3 feet or 10
meters of one another. Any further than that and the quality of communication
can start to decline because there's less face to face interaction. When a team
cannot be physically located together, virtual colocation is a way of using tools to
overcome the distance. Virtually co-located teams rely on videoconferencing, live
chat, instant messaging and other Web-based tools and Agile specific software. By
the way, just a little vocabulary here, the opposite of a co-located team is a
distributed team. A distributed team has one or more team members located
outside of the team's physical location.
Agile teams use communication tools that are simple, low tech and high touch
whenever possible. Some examples of the communication tools that an Agile team
might use include information Radiators. Information Radiators are any highly
visible display that's fairly easy to update and referenced by any team member.
These can include task boards and burn charts. Written documentation isn't always
necessary, and Agile teams should only rely on these types of tools as necessary.

You generally won't see an Agile team using detailed documentation that's
password protected or only accessible by certain team members. Instead, the
documentation will be simple and brief, using index cards, sticky notes or white
boards. And finally, Agile teams often use online collaboration tools, particularly if
the team cannot be located in the same physical office. Just a few examples of
these tools include Slack, Jabber, Discord and Microsoft Teams. There are many
more options and best practices and favorite tools are always changing.
For co-located teams, there's a concept called Caves and Common. The common
area is shared team space, which is generally an open space without walls or
barriers, where the team uses the visual and tactile tools that were mentioned
previously. On occasion, a team member may need some alone time. A cave is a
private space where the team member can conduct private calls and personal
conversations or maybe take some time to concentrate on a problem and really
focus without any noise or interruptions. Caves should be considered an exception
and used only temporarily so that the benefits of colocation can be leveraged by the
team.