Agile Learning Labs

Chris is on the Cranky Middle Manager Show talking about Agile

If you want to hear Chris explain agile in layman's terms, have a listen to this episode of the Cranky Middle Manger Show, where Chris is the featured guest. The show is hosted by our friend, Wayne Turmel, who is jovially cranky in a way that only a stand-up comic-turned-management trainer can be.

We did a pilot for a two day course with Wayne in Chicago last year, aimed at introducing newly-promoted individual contributors to the dark arts of management. It was a lot of fun, and would be even more fun to do in-house at your company now that you have a hiring freeze and need to bootstrap your junior people into management... but I digress.

Wayne dedicates each show to a historical figure; it's always someone fascinating you've never heard of, and it's always eerily apt--don't know how he does it. This episode is dedicated to Gaius Marius, "reorganization consultant to the Roman Army."

Another Cranky standard, the quote of the week, is from the Kaballah, and is also astonishingly relevant to agile practice:

"Every phase of evolution commences by being in a state of unstable force and proceeds through organization to equilibrium. Equilibrium having been achieved, no further development is possible without once more oversetting,"

Management 2.0: What makes a great manager?

Just before the holiday, TMI had the pleasure of debuting a brand new course, Management 2.0, in partnership with Wayne Turmel, aka The Cranky Middle Manager. It was also our first course offering in a new market: Chicago. To kick off day one of this action-packed two day course aimed at those who have recently made the move from individual contributor to manager, Chris led the participants through a brief session that examined the question, "What makes a great manager?"

Chris used the exercise as an opportunity to teach the "Group Wisdom Without Groupthink" method of structured brainstorming, using Nominal Group Technique (NGT) to gather ideas, then sorting the results using Decision Optimizing Tiny Stickies (DOTS or Dot Voting).

Each attendee thought about the best managers they had worked for, and what attributes, practices, or skills set them apart from the rest. Our group included experienced engineers, a few management consultants, and one professional clown (You think clowns don't need management and team-building skills? You just try getting ten of them into one of those tiny cars.)—as diverse a collection of minds as we've ever had the pleasure of surveying. Everyone participated in several rounds of brainstorming, and once the conference room wall was plastered with ideas on giant Post-Its, everyone “voted” for their top choices.

The result was a tiered list of valuable qualities, with 'tier one' being those that the group felt were most important. According to this group, a great manager...

Tier One:

• develops people
• values fun
• sets clear goals
• gives timely feedback

Tier Two:

• is open and honest
• is empowering
• develops strengths

Tier Three:

• removes obstacles
• seeks to understand
• is a systems thinker
• gives frequent positive feedback
• uses metrics/measures
• expresses appreciation
• is “but” free

Tier Four:

• cares about the “whole person”
• keeps the “big” perspective
• is flexible
• gets out of the way

Tier Five:

• understands the job/responsibility
• states goals positively
• fosters a team environment
• personalizes interactions
• gives direction, not details
• is an enabler
• has a sense of humor
• follows up

It is interesting to compare the results of this exercise across the several other groups that have gone through the exercise for the same question. This group tended to emphasize the manager's role in developing people. As most of the people present were fairly new to management and worked at the level of team leader, it made sense to us that they would see management as centering on helping individual contributors to shine. Here are some links to the brainstorming lists other groups have generated:

The California Employment Development Center
IEEE Technology Management Council
Bay Area Engineering Managers' Support group

Management 2.0 - Becoming the kind of leader you would follow

I have teamed up with Wayne Turmel, host of The Cranky Middle Manager Show, to create a 2-day workshop to help you move beyond being 'good at your job' to helping others excel at theirs. When we take this show on the road in 2009 the price will be $1,000 a seat, but we are holding a 'dress rehearsal' in Chicago on December 15 & 16, for a mere $450.

Learn more about the workshop

Claim one of the last available seats

Cheers,

Chris

The Makings of a QA Leader at ST&P Conference

This post contains the results from the second of two sessions that I facilitated at the Software Test and Performance Conference in Boston. This session was held in the largest of the available rooms, and it we nearly filled it.

I asked the participants to think back to the very best leaders that they had worked with in their QA careers. I pointed out that a leader is not necessarily a manager, as informal leadership can often be very powerful. We then used the Group Wisdom Without Groupthink process to collect and rank answers to the question:
"What separates the most effective leaders from the rest?"

Over the course of an hour, we generated and ranked over 40 answers to this question. These are listed below, in the order that the group ranked them.

Tier One
Approachable
Straight shooter
Creates an environment of trust

Tier Two
Accountable
Open to new ideas
Takes blame/Gives Credit
Mentor
Knows the job (Leading from experience)

Tier Three
Great communicator
Shielding from politics
Big picture
Empowerment
Can push back to upper mgmt.
Positive
Active listener
Flexible
Lets me make mistakes
Subtle influencer, "A benevolent manipulator"

Tier Four
Diplomatic
Obstacle remover
Appreciates
Motivator

Tier Five
Timely, supportive feedback
Works for you first
Ability to get things w/o explicit authority
Political savvy
Builds skills
Decisive

Tier Six
Tactful
Positive reinforcement
Self-aware/Emotional intelligence
Walks the talk

Tier Seven
Balance team's needs with business needs
Good judgment
Resourcefulness
Rolls up their sleeves

Tier Eight
Fair
Delegates
Asks open questions
People-focused
Does the management job
Stays calm
Consensus builder
Pursues staff’s interests

You may find it interesting to compare these results with those from the workshop that I facilitated at the Targeting Quality conference in Waterloo, Ontario: From Tester to Leader.

Also relevant are the results from these similar workshops:
IEEE Group Answers: "What makes an engineering manager great?"
Bay Area Engineering Managers Support Group (plus 'Group X')

These results on retaining key employees seem relevant as well.

Cheers,

Chris

Makings of a Great Manager - at EUSF

Greetings,

Today I had the pleasure of facillitating The Makings of a Great Manager for a group of ambitious job seekers at Experience Unlimited, a program of the San Francisco Chapter Employment Development Division.

Each member of the group considered what attributes, practices, or skills set the best managers that they had worked for, apart from the rest. The group had diverse experience, and the discussions were interesting. We chose a label for each idea, and then we ranked them, based on the collective experience of the group.

Here is the list of 'idea labels' as ranked by the group.

Top Tier
Encourage and inspire
Compassionate leadership

Second Tier
Management by leadership (vs. by administration)
Appreciative

Third Tier
Creates a sense of mission
Friendly, Fair, and Firm
Promotes personal growth
Room for mistakes
Positive reinforcement

Fourth Tier
Innovator
Gives benefit of the doubt
Honest
Happy
Kind
Chemistry
Team oriented
Competence in the area managed

Fifth Tier
Conflict resolution
Stays calm
Good networking
Open door
Having self together
Authority matches responsibility
Work - life balance
"We need YOUR help"
Celebrates anniversary of joining company
Workload management
Firm
Entrepenuerial
Well-groomed
Remembers birthdays

You may be interested to compare these results with those of other groups:
IEEE Technology Management Council
Bay Area Engineering Managers Support Group (plus 'Group X')

These results on retaining key employees seem relevant as well.

Cheers,

Chris

Meeting Agenda Template

Looking for a good starting place for the agenda for your next meeting? Here is an Excel file that you can use. There is more here than you will likely need for any given meeting, so just remove the extras that you don't use.

At the top you will find:

Goal
The most important thing to know about your meeting: what do you hope to achieve?

Location, Date, and Start Time
OK, pretty obvious.

End Time
This gets calculated auto-magically for you.

Owner
Who is calling this meeting?

Facilitator
If this meeting will have a facilitator (a very good idea), who are they?

Scribe and Time Keeper
Other roles that may be helpful

The bottom of the agenda is where you put your agenda items. There are six columns:

What
Well, what is the agenda item anyway? Give it a short description.

How
What process will the group use for this item? Possibilities include: brainstorming, discussion, voting, or perhaps group wisdom without groupthink.

Goal
Why are you discussing this anyway?

Who
Who will own this agenda item?

Time Allocated
This column is useful when creating the agenda, as it lets you figure out how much time you will need.

Start Time
This value calculates automatically based on the start time of the meeting and the length of all of the agenda items before this agenda item. This is really useful to have during the meeting, so that you can tell if you are running on time.

Download it now!

Leave a comment to let me know if you find it useful, or to share any suggestions or tips.

Cheers,

Chris

Great Meetings are on the Agenda - Wednesday

A great engineering manager knows how to run effective meetings. A written agenda is the road map that these meetings follow to success. When your meeting invite includes a well-crafted agenda, the participants are more likely to arrive on time and well prepared. Your meeting is set to move quickly to a successful outcome, and it might even end early!

Come out to the May Bay Area Engineering Managers Support Group and learn how to create agendas that lead to successful meetings. As always, the meeting will also include a facilitated discussion where participants can share challenges that they are facing as engineering leaders, and get feedback, ideas, and support from the group. The event is free, open to the public, and we'll feed you good Thai food.

Where
Rearden Commerce World Headquarters
1051 E. Hillsdale Blvd. - 6th Floor
Foster City, CA

When
Wednesday, May 21, 2008

6:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Networking and Thai food
Katie will be in the lobby to ferry folks up. If she's not there when you arrive, you can hail her at: 650.619.7562.

7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Great meetings are on the agenda.

8:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Round-table discussion of your engineering management issues
Bring your questions and get ideas and feedback from your fellow engineering managers.

Our sponsors:
The Technical Management Institute
Rearden Commerce

Details and RSVP here

Cheers,

Chris

Presentation Tips and Tricks

Photo courtesy of markhillary

At the April meeting of the Bay Area Engineering Managers Support Group, I did a presentation on doing presentations. Here are the slides. You might also want to checkout these past posts about presenting.

Cheers,

Chris

One-on-Ones: Agenda Item One

I promised more detail about One-on-Ones. Over time, I'm planning to cover each item on my One-on-One agenda. As a refresher, here is my agenda for a half-hour One-on-One meeting:

• How are things going personally?
• How are things going at work?
• Action Item Report: Manager
• Action Item Report: Report
• Feedback (+ and/or -)
• Annual Review Goals
• Personalized News (down-flow)
• Anything Else?
• Action Items for Next Time

Let's have a look at the first item: How are things going personally?

You manage people, not 'resources'. Make a point of knowing the names of spouses, children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, pets, or whom-ever is important in their lives. Do they have hobbies? Are they involved in charity work? Do they follow baseball? Badminton? Be ready to share this type of information about yourself as well.

If you haven't had these types of conversations before, you can initiate one something like this:

"Bob, I realized that we don't know much about each other, apart from work, and I'd like to change that. I would like you know more about who I am, and I'm interested to know more about you.

My wife, Sue, and I have two kids. Jimmy is 14 and Tammy is 12. They both play basketball, and their pretty good too! Last year, Jimmy's team went to State, and had a real shot at the title.

If you don't mind sharing, I'd like to know a bit about your life outside of the office."

Most people will be thrilled that you are interested. If you happen to have a direct report who really wants to keep their personal life private, respect their wishes, of course. If you find that several of your reports are resistant, this may be an indicator of deeper trouble in your relationships with them.

Over time, you may want to ask questions like:

• Where did you grow up?
• Where did you go to college?
• What are your plans for the weekend?
• How was your weekend?
• How is your son Bobby doing in school?
• Do you follow any sports?
• Are you involved in any organizations?

You get bonus points if you ask follow-up questions about things that came up last time:

• How did Bobby do in the spelling bee?
• Is your mother feeling any better?
• Did the dealership ever figure out what was wrong with your car?
• How did Fluffy do at doggy day-care?
• Did Brenda get the job?

Take it slow. Be genuine.

Have some insights or experiences to share? Leave a comment!

Cheers,

Chris

Active Listening Techniques

The workshop topic from last night's Bay Area Engineering Managers Support Group was Active Listening. Here are the various techniques that were discussed, as well as a few bonus ideas as well.

101 - The Basics

Focus your attention
Focus your attention on the speaker. Don't look at the pink elephant dancing behind them! Encouraging statements or sounds "Hmmm." "Umm Hmm." "That's interesting." "I didn't know that." "That's a surprise!" "I see."

Take notes
This allows you to capture ideas that you may want to ask about or have clarified, without the need to interrupt. It also indicates to the listener that you are paying attention and value what they are saying.

Paraphrasing
Use paraphrasing to confirm that you really do understand what they just told you. Repeat back, in your own words, what you have just heard. Doing so will give you a chance to confirm to both the speaker and yourself that you do understand.
"So I think you are saying..."
"It sounds to me like..."
"I think I understand, but I want to make sure."

Summarizing
After a long discussion, it can be useful to try to summarize what you think the speaker's main points were. The summary is similar to paraphrasing, with the exception that you are trying to cover just the main points, not everything the speaker said.

201 - Questions

Prefer open-ended questions
Ask open-ended questions to get the speaker to elaborate. An open-ended question is one that invites an elaborate response, as compared with a closed-ended question, which can usually be answered with a word or two. Open: "What did you think of the workshop?" "How are things going with the new team?" Closed: "Did you like the workshop?" "Is the team getting along?"

Clarifying questions
"What do you mean by...."
"When you say... do you mean like...?"
"Like a ....?"
Be careful with these! Make sure that your question is really aimed at clarifying your understanding, and not challenging the speaker's points or point of view. Avoid indicating your own preferences, judgments, or expectations in the form of questions. There is a big difference between:
"Interesting, how did you go about creating that?"
and
"Did you use the approved process to create that?"

Ask for more information
"That's interesting; tell me more about that."
"What else?"

Ask for their opinions and analysis
"Why do you think that is?"
"What do you think was going on?"

When you aren't getting it, let the speaker know
"I'm not understanding."
"Can you explain that part again?"
Temper this with some patience and good note taking. Often, something that isn't clear now will clear up in a few sentences. Prefer not to interrupt, but don't let the speaker go on too long if you really don't understand what they are saying.

Listen all the way to the end
Attempt to listen all the way to the end. When you think they are done, it is often useful to ask:
"Is there anything else?"

301 - Nuance

Use silence
After the other person has finished their thought, wait a while and don't say anything. This gives them an opening to tell you more. Silence can make people uncomfortable, so they tend to fill the void - the only way they can, by talking more. You want to give people, including yourself, time to think.

Body language
Use body language to indicate that you are listening. The occasional head nod or smile can let your speaker know that you are engaged. People tend to trust body language over the actual words we say.

Acknowledge, and ask about emotions
"It seems like this has you pretty upset."
"Are you frustrated by that?"

Validate concerns
If the speaker doesn't feel that you understand their concerns, and treat them as valid concerns, they are not going to be receptive to your attempts to put them at ease.
"I can see why you would be worried about that."
"That's a real concern."

Verify assumptions
We make a lot of assumptions in order to facilitate talking about complex things without getting bogged down in the details. Sometimes this leads to misunderstanding. Be on the lookout for these situations. A question or comment to verify this type of assumption will clear up any particular misunderstanding as well as reassure the speaker that you are familiar with the domain.

We often make other types of assumptions as well, like knowing which 'Sue' the speaker is referring to. Verify these assumptions as well.

401 - Advanced Topics

Be Zen!
Be Zen! Be fully present in the moment. Notice everything about the speaker, their words, their tone, and their body language. Do not let your own emotions, or emotional attachment to the conversation, the topic, or the person, take your focus away from the present moment. If you notice yourself reacting emotionally, acknowledge it internally "I'm getting upset" but don't dwell on it.

Create a safe space
Create a safe 'space' for the speaker to express themselves. They need to trust you and the situation, if they are going to really open up and share. When it is your turn to talk, be honest, and respectful. You need not agree with what the speaker is saying, but it is important to honor and respect their thoughts, ideas, and feelings.

Cheers,

Chris