Sunday, May 11, 2008

The Scary List


In every project, there are issues that that frighten the bejesus out of the team. They are so frightening that no one wants to talk about them publicly. The schedule might be impossible. There might be the lurking suspicion that Management does not believe in the project. More commonly, there is a major technical flaw that no one is handling.

Such problems linger over the team. A handful of people hold hushed conversations in hallways or behind closed doors. Secrecy reigns due to fear. There's fear of upsetting team morale. There's fear of losing face with management. There's fear of forcing the project to be killed.

Fear is contagious
Team members are not stupid. A good development team works hand in hand with one another 8 hours a day. People observe body language. They take note when conversation stops when someone walks in the room. They become suspicious and wary.

Fear becomes contagious. Lack of information breeds rumor mongering as others step up to fill in the blanks with conjecture, often wild, about imagined consequences. Blame is bandied about as frightened people attempt to find comforting answers to imaginary scenarios. All the while, the problems do not go away. Instead, they fester, turning healthy teams into a paranoid self destructive wrecks.

It doesn't have to be this way. Nine times out of ten, the scary issues that cause so much panic are completely solvable. They simply need the harsh bright light of public acknowledgment shone upon them.

The Scary List
Here's a technique that I've used on various agile teams to good effect. Every day, we have our team meeting and on one of the walls is a white board containing the heading 'Scary List'. When someone catches whiff of a problem or rumor that could potentially sink the projects, we jot it on the list.

Sometimes, this is enough. Just publicly acknowledging the issue and giving it a name can clear the air. It becomes okay to talk about it out loud. By naming your problem, it is no longer an amorphous mysterious rumor. Instead the team is faced with a defined problem. The ideas start flowing between team members. People discover the sort of solutions that only appear when everyone puts their heads together. Many times, individuals will quietly grok the issue and adjust course to correct it.

Other times, the problem is pressing and needs to be driven to a conclusion sooner, rather than later. At this point, someone volunteers to drive a solution for it. Every day, at the standup, the champion lets the team know how progress on the problem is coming along. In short order, most problems stop being quite so frightening.

Some problems are extra scary because the team feels like they are out of their control. For example, the team might get axed if some other group fails to deliver a particular component. Have a five minute discussion about what is under your control for a particular issue and what isn't. Again just making the assumptions public does wonders.

Next focus on those issues that you can control. Are there contingencies? Can the team flow like water around immovable obstacles? It's that crazy empowerment thang and it works.

When an issue is no longer scary, remove it from the list. It doesn't need to be complete. It doesn't need to be fully planned out. However, if the team no longer fears the problem, then it should be wiped away and converted into more mundane backlog items or tasks on the board. Otherwise, the list loses its impact. No one likes unnecessary fear mongering, even in the form of a process meant to manage fear.

The scary list is:
  • Simple: It is a hand written list. It takes five minutes to create and manage.
  • Public: The list is displayed in a large format in a public area frequented by the team. You can't miss it.
  • Fresh: Only currently scary items are on the list.
  • Actionable: You are either turning the scary items into less scary problems or you are removing items from the list.
Courage
In the very first Agile book I read, there was a large section on 'Courage'. I must admit that I didn't really understand why it was there. The word 'Courage' seemed like such a fluffy bit of New Age nonsense that didn't belong in the crisp world of software engineering.

The Scary List is a simple technique, but it only works on a team where people have the courage to talk about their fears. You need the right cultural environment for this to occur.
  • No retribution against the person who brings up a sensitive issue.
  • The problem, once raised, becomes the team's problem, not an individuals.
  • The exercise is about solving the problem, not placing blame.
This doesn't happen naturally for most teams. They need to practice. You need to lead by example. If blame starts being thrown about, redirect the conversation to the problem at hand. If people claim that they can't do anything, identify the pieces that they can change. Eventually, people will experience success by using the Scary List. With that success comes the confidence to face the problems that frighten them.

Courage, you see, is also contagious.

take care
Danc.

7 comments:

  1. I couldn't find an email address for you, so I'm posting this here. Feel free to delete it if you take it's advice, or even if you don't.

    I compiled a short list of spelling/grammar errors I encountered while reading this post (which I quite enjoyed!). Hopefully you will think this is a helpful thing for me to have done, and make the changes. Without further ado, the list:

    does believe -> does not believe
    team moral -> team morale
    8-hours -> 8 hours
    Everyday -> every day
    everyone puts their heads are shared -> everyone puts their heads together are shared
    drive a solution for it -> derive a solution for it? solve it?
    The list is display -> The list is displayed

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks personman!

    I fixed the typos you spotted. Very much appreciated.

    take care
    Danc.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It is for thoughtful, relevant posts like this that I subscribe to the RSS feed for Lost Garden. Keep up the great work.

    ReplyDelete
  4. > It is for thoughtful, relevant
    > posts like this that I subscribe
    > to the RSS feed for Lost Garden.

    Me too, and also for the great graphic resources often available for free... and I've added the "Lost Garden" RSS feed to my blog, too.
    Keep up the great work.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dearest Daniel, please move somewhere where the sun shines so I can work with/for you.

    Thanks,
    -Harold

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hello Dan i frequent your sight most days with love for your attitude and abilities as i am a keen home growen games maker the looks up to you and after reading this post it blow me a way i love to use thought to better my shlfe in life as most humans run on fear or from fear with fear.As you will well know the mind don't work as well when its ram is full up with fear so thanks loads for this post i can now show other people the truth as i get hammed for bringing pure realty to light as most live in the dark were its eazyer spending energy on short turm progress.

    The link i added is to some off my art from over the years if you find eney spare time to look.

    thanks agen dan

    ReplyDelete
  7. This was an interesting post. I like the idea of a scary list :D It's seems the best state to be in - is one where scariness doesn't exist at all.

    Our small company doesn't have this issue because there are so few people and everyone knows pretty much everything.

    Perhaps a change of management style or company structure could also effect this. Though these are much harder things to change :D

    ReplyDelete