Agile Conversations

src: Agile Conversations

• in 90s, models copied from Taylorism, but software development fail
• Dr Alistair Cockburn observed successes and failures depends on humans, people are the central concern of a software methods
  • ⇒ Lean Software / Deveops movement
• simple technique to master to get people back into your process: the conversation
• Agile Manifesto
• agile approach demands a culture that can support collaboration and learning
• devops movement: trust, respect, and collaboration
  • cross-functional team
  • cattle, not pets
  • infrastructure as code
  • automated deployment
  • sharing metrics
• the whole point of devops is to create unity and collaboration among different specialities, no more silos
• even with those promising movement, we are still falling back to Taylorism approach

Improving your conversation

• use 4 R’s:
  1. how to Record your conversation
  2. how to Reflect them to find problems
  3. how to Revise them to produce better alternatives
  4. how to Role Play to gain fluency

Why our power (conversation) is flawed

• it makes collaboration possible but not inevitable
• we come with pre-existing built-in flaws, called cognitive biases
• under those biases, agile practices can fail to deliver the promised benefits

Conversation as an investigative tool

• we all have outcomes we want to achieve, and we use out theory of action to choose which steps to take
• there is often a gap between what we say we would do in a situation and what we actually do

Defensive vs productive reasoning

• things change when the situation is potentially threatening or embarrassing
  • in those situation, people use defensive reasoning
  • people act to remove the threat or potential embarrassment
  • they think in term of winning or losing
• in theory, value diverse team because diversity can be a strength
  • diversity of experience
  • diversity of knowledge
  • diversity of modes of thought
• in practice, we tend to see different opinions as threatening and potentially embarrassing, so we react defensively
• difficult to detect by oneself, and can also be in denial
• change behavior of transparency and curiosity
  • sharing of knowledge across organization boundaries
  • sharing of and resolution of difficult previously taboo issues
  • ⇒ bad news: this takes substantial effort, and this effort involves difficult emotional work
• common pitfalls:
  1. we won’t be transparent and curious when we lack Trust
  2. we will, consciously or not, act defensively when we have unspoken Fear
  3. we will be unable to generate productive conflict when we lack a shared Why
  4. we will avoid definite Commitment as long as those situations feel threatening or embarrassing
  5. we will fail to learn from our experience if we are unwilling to be Accountable
• most effective communication is person-to-person, face-to-face, 2 people at the whiteboard

Record ---> Reflect ---> Revise ---> Role Play
              ^            |             ^
              |            |             |
              |            |             v
              +------------+-------- Role Reversal
           Repeat

• technique for the 4 Rs: take a paper, create 2 columns
  • right column: write down what each person in the conversation said
  • left column: write what you thought at the time as the words were spoken

The Trust conversation

• use the phrase “The story I’m telling myself…” when sharing internal reasoning
  • ex: The story I’m telling myself is that you are not working on this project because it’s boring
• what you see is all there is
  • there’s a lot that you don’t see
• to get past your natural instinct to protect your story, try getting yourself to blurt out “unsafe” things, e.g. ask “dumb”-sounding questions or share your doubts about how you drew a particular conclusion
• sense of comfort and intimacy: tool to help achieve it is the Ladder of Inference, which is the Reflexive Loop where our believe affect what data we select next time

^ I take action based on my belief
| I adopt beliefs about the world                 --+
| I draw conclusions                                | only visible
| I make assumptions based on the meaning I added   | to me
| I add meanings (cultural and personal)          --+
| I select data from what I observe

• from data your derive meanings, which gives you assumptions, conclusions and beliefs, and from these, you determine your action
• Ladder of Inference provides a way to structure alignment: 1st align on the bottom rung, then rung 2, and so on, until your stories match
• only the bottom rung (observation) and the top rung (action) exist outside your head
• when using the Ladder of Inference, you are going to ascend in small tested steps, each of which increases your confidence: TDD for people
• at the end, you and your partner will have move closely aligned your ladders, and therefore your stories, and where you still don’t fully agree, you will at least understand each other’s motive
  • you will build substantial trust for the future

The Fear conversation

• fear is one of the biggest inhibitors of transformations, paralyzes team, inhibiting creativity and cooperation
• normalized deviance means the whole team, including you, has likely become blind to the variation from the espoused norm ⇒ learned helplessness