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The ICF Code of Ethics

Let’s get real. The International Coaching Federation has a Code. See it here. This document and the wording in it as written is inadequate for Agile Coaches in my view. It is missing a key set of  keywords.

The ICF wrote a generic Code. It is not intended for the Agile Coaching specialty. Agile Coaching probably was not even a real occupation when the ICF code was written.

Using the ICF code is dodging the issue. The issue is DEPENDENCE.

We need to include certain specific words in the Agile Coaching code.

They are:

dependence

dependency

dysfunction

codependence

These words need to be at the front of mind if you are an Agile Coach (big A, big C).

The reason is simple: there is nearly automatic dysfunctional, highly codependent relationship that can exist between external Agile Coach and client. I have ranted on this plenty in many previous posts.

(previous Agile Coaching Ethics posts.)

The ICF code is a good starting point. OK? It is a base class, also known as a abstract class. It’s good to use as a starting point, and for using that starting point to add more (minimal) features that tailor it for the Agile Coaching. Let’s stop pretending the ICF Code is adequate as a code for Agile Coaching ethics. It’s not.

Here is the idea: Agile Coaches must

1. Be mindful that dysfunction is nearly automatic;

2. Take steps to create firewalls that prevent co-dependence between coach and client;

3. Never knowingly encourage a dangerous and unhealthy  dependence on the coach;

Such dependency can create a nearly-automatic stream of revenue from client to coach. I’ve seen it. It goes on where I live. It probably goes on where you live.

That, and:

1. Client learns nothing; and has no clue this is true;

2. “Coach” ends up doing the same tasks over and over; making loads of MONEY

3. Agility gets a black eye when people observe the results; resulting in observers worldwide thinking Agile is some kind of gimmick;

4. The client trades one set of dysfunctions for another; and has no clue this just happened.

 

We can do so much better. Where I live, there is loads of this happening. And no one is saying ANYTHING about it. Where is leadership in the Agile space when we NEED it? We have a very weak immune system.

 

It’s time for the Agile community to:

1. Get a backbone and have this conversation now.

2. Develop a code of Agile Coaching Ethics that devalues the development of ANY dependency in the client.

3. Start discussing and identifying which behaviors that encourage a dangerous dependence, and call them out as out-of-bounds and not honored by the community at large. For GOOD reasons.

4. Wake up and smell the coffee. A lot of coaching is actually revenue generation with little or no learning taking place. The Agile community has no immune system and even honors this behavior.

It’s ludicrous and absurd to watch.

What’s up with this? Anyone can show up and promote ideas like coaches “occupying the Scrum Master role for some time” when we all know that is not coaching at all. What that is, is manipulation. Coaching is not manipulation and coaching definitely is not consulting, EVER.

Let’s all wise up. The ICF Code is a starting point. Let’s go to work.

What you tolerate, you insist on.

What you insist on will be supplied.

-Jim and Michele McCarthy, SOFTWARE FOR YOUR HEAD

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Story and Language: Why Do You Care?

Language is the code of culture.

Stories and narratives are core, platform applications that execute the cultural operating system. Repeat:  The culture is the operating system, composed of the stories— the core applications. The language is the code used to create these core ‘applications’. If you have no stories, you do not have a culture.

Got that?

Dave Logan has all this covered in TRIBAL LEADERSHIP. You listen to the language- the code— of the stories you hear. That tells you the level of the culture. The level dictates what the culture can aspire to. What it can do.

What it is capable of doing. And being.

Example. You show up. People are talking in ‘We’ language and telling ‘We’ stories. That’s a tribe that can dominate their market space. That’s a tribe that can get to Stage 5 in the TRIBAL LEADERSHIP stage development model of culture. This Stage 4 tribe has the capacity to reach Stage 5 and be world-changing.

Another example. You show up and people are speaking ‘I’ language. The stories are all heroic in nature. He did this, she did that. I think this; I do that. Hear it? That’s Stage 3 culture. “I am great. (You are not.)”

This culture can function in a minimal way. It cannot change the world.

To change the culture, change the stories people are telling. There are many ways to do this. It’s not a trivial task. I explain some specific techniques in THE CULTURE GAME book. When you change culture, you change the stories. This is an axiom that does not change.

The culture is the operating system.

The stories are the core components and core applications that make up the operating system. They encapsulate what the culture means. This operating system is composed of stories.

The language is the high-level (story) programming medium.

Last thing: recall that the best computer programmer is up to 10X better than the average. This is ALSO TRUE for those who ‘code’ stories.

Interested in culture? Wise up about story. There is no better place to start than the web site www.GetStoried.com. That site has a boatload of tips, techniques and specific guidance on how to leverage narrative. The individual responsible for that site has PLENTY to teach you.

Michael Margolis is a brilliant man who knows more about narrative than ANYONE I know.

Tell him Dan sent you, and that you want to know how to get a bigger story.

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Tribal Leadership and Scrum

In genuine and authentic Scrum, the three roles form a triad.

A triad is a super-small social structure with just 3 participants. These 3, aligned on values, commit to executing a very small strategy with intent to get results inside a very short time horizon.

Tribal Leadership is the book that introduces triads. It is a New York Times bestselling business book on business, leadership and culture. I’ve outlined this in an earlier post. The book is brilliant. The triad, is a 3-person social structure that is very small– and very robust. A well-formed triad is a powerhouse. Triads are capable of accomplishing absolutely tremendous results with just 3 participants, across very small time horizons.

If you know Scrum, this is sure to sound familiar….

My latest book, The Culture Game, describes in A-B-C terms exactly how to use triads to spread transformative learning across an entire enterprise. If Tribal Leadership is a cultural operating system, The Culture Game is an application. It provides a small strategy (a “microstrategy”) and leverages triads to spread it virally throughout the entire organization. I believe The Culture Game is the first of many such books that will be built upon the Tribal Leadership platform.

Triads are a key to the business agility problem. Genuine Scrum teams with the 3 roles of Product Owner, Scrum Master and Team exhibit a key aspect of Tribal Leadership’s triads: each role takes responsibility for maintaining the quality of the connection between the other two. This is the very picture of a healthy and well team.

In 2010, I met Dave Logan at Zappos. (Zappos Insights is one of my clients. Actually, one of my favorite clients. That is a truly great and amazing story for a detailed telling … at a later time.) Dave and I have many friends in common, and we became good friends ourselves.

In early 2012, I traveled to the Los Angeles offices of CultureSync, Dave’s management consultancy. I brought the 16 learning practices described in my book. We spent two days with the CultureSync team, doing work while using all the techniques in the book. The result was a delightful, laughing-out-loud kind of astonishment on the part of the CultureSync team. They loved it. My account of the details of the coaching experience at CultureSync are located here.

As a result of that meeting, we made serious headway in blending a very strong brew consisting of Scrum and Tribal Leadership. We kicked off a project composing elements of Tribal Leadership’s 5-stage culture model, the 3-person triad structure, and the 16 Tribal Learning practices described in The Culture Game. (The 16 practices are all derived from Scrum). I gathered these techniques over several years, by watching the very best Scrum teams I was coaching, and carefully noting exactly what the heck they were actually doing. From that, I developed a list…the sixteen things…

…I call them Tribal Learning practices. If you do them, you create automatic team-learning and a generate a genius team. All of these techniques are related, and conspire together to create team genius: in truth, a small learning organization. The Tribal Learning practices, derived from Scrum, are the ‘secret sauce’ in the recipe for creating a learning organization.

We can thank Scrum’s creators, Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber,  for pointing the way.

Over a 2-day period Dave, the CultureSync team and I executed on brainstorming and planning around the re-mix: Tribal Scrum.  Incorporating essential aspects of both Tribal Leadership and Scrum, Tribal Scrum has the potential to transform organizations, one triad at a time. It’s all described in my book, The Culture Game, which you can purchase today.

Intrigued? The Tribal Learning practices described in my book provide the ingredients and the recipe for creating more learning, more fun, and a greater capacity to respond to change.

Tribal Scrum is a re-mix of practices distilled from Scrum and Tribal Leadership. Please join us as we embark on this adventure.

Join us in creating tools that managers and executives can use– right out of the box– to create effective learning tribes in organizations of all sizes throughout the world.

 

Background Links on Tribal Scrum:

Make Your Meeting Hyper-Productive and Fun article at CBSNEWS.COM

Tribal Leadership Book

The Culture Game Book

Tribal Leadership and The Culture Game blog post

Design Thinking: Composing the Tribal Learning Practices blog post

How Tribal Leadership and Scrum will change the world blog post

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Design Thinking: Composing The Learning Practices

The CULTURE GAME is a book of 16 practices that accelerate learning in your organization. If you do just 3 or 4 of them , you team, your department and even your entire division can begin to learn, as a group, faster and faster. This learning is essential to respond to change. Societal change, driven by technology, is literally re-writing the rules of business. Enterprises that learn really fast eliminate competition by out-thinking them in real time. This level of group learning is not random.

 

I wrote the book as a set of 16 standalone practices, what I call Tribal Learning practices. You compose them as you see fit, by remixing them. Each reader faces a unique situation and will use the book differently. As a manager, you can pick and choose from the list of practices to create a tailored an customized application of the guidance in the book. This allows you to immediately begin. You can choose the practices that fit your context, situation and preferences.

Here are some pre-fab combinations of the practices that work well in specific cultures and contexts:

 

Facilitate Your Meetings, Be Punctual, Structure Your Interactions

Notes: These 3 are good for tuning-up your meetings. When combined, these 3 practices convert meetings from soul-sucking death marches to intentional team learning events.These 3 practices are  kind of starting point for converting your meetings from bleak no-engagement events to highly enjoyable and satisfying episodes of work with others. The book provides loads of detailed support for your use of each practice.

 

Pay Explicit Attention, Examine What’s Normal, Inspect Frequently

Notes: Iterating on work is essential if you intend to make sense of highly complex (even chaotic) work. Iterations provide a natural inspection point… at the end. Having the discipline to periodically inspect exactly what is going on encourages adjustment, experimentation and adaptation. This concept can be applied to any kind of work. These 3 are appropriate for organizations that are already relatively safe and open (as compared to unsafe and closed.)

The book explains specific tactics and things to consider as you compose your implementation.

 

Conduct Frequent Experiments, Socialize Books, Get Coached

Notes: Get Coached and Socialize Books are the two Tribal Learning practices that cost something. The rest to do not cost a dime. Socializing books signals that learning is valued; the content provides ideas to try out as experiments. A culture of experimentation leads to more learning. If  even a small “failure” is a source of potential career suicide in your company, get a coach to help you and start socializing books like TRIBAL LEADERSHIP (and others)  with new  and useful ideas. These 3 practices are a good starting point if you organization is already moving in the direction of more organizational learning; for example of your IT teams are already using some agile methods.

 

Summary

The Culture Game book contains 16 specific learning practices and guidance on how to socialize these ideas in your organization.  The book provides a detailed tutorial and a reference guide. It also provides a rich bibliography for further study. Collectively, the book forms a complete toolbox, with tools you can use …  as YOU see fit.

You have to intend to create more learning and a higher capacity to adapt in your organization, because team learning is not random. Mix and match, pick and choose. Create your own custom program based on your context, and what people are willing to try, and willing to do. The book provides loads of ideas, starting points and specific A-B-C guidance in Part 3, so you can get going now.

You can learn more about the CULTURE GAME book here.

 

 

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Tribal Leadership and the Culture Game

The Culture Game a a tutorial and reference guide for every progressive, changing-making manager on the planet. The premise of the book is that managers do not have to ask permission, because they are already authorized to convene meetings, hire, fire, and deploy small budgets.

The Culture Game book is built in part on concepts found in the book TRIBAL LEADERSHIP, the work of Dave Logan and co-authors.

The book explains how the pace of change is mandating that organizations learn faster, so they can adapt. The book provides 16 practices, derived from Agile, which help make this learning happen. The beauty of the Culture Game approach is that it is not prescriptive. The book is a cookbook. To get results, you only need to do 3 or 4 of the practices to start. For example, you can choose to implement the practices Be Punctual, Facilitate Your Meetings and Structure Your Interactions in all your meetings. These 3 practices promise to substantially raise the level of satisfaction, learning and results in your meetings.

Part 3 of the book explains the power of the triad structure described by Dave Logan and co-authors in the book TRIBAL LEADERSHIP. A triad is a 3-person structure where:

1. Every person in the group shares common values;

2. Each person is committed with the others to execute a small strategy together that gets specific, intended results, and

3. Each person in the group takes responsibility for maintaining the quality of the connection between the other two people.

If you are a manager, and you know the Culture Game practices, then you already know the power of the practices to generate fun, satisfaction and learning in your department or group.

The next step is to teach others how to do it just like you did. In the book, I argue that triads are the secret sauce that can be used to scale agility from teams to tribes. The book embraces and extends the triad concept from TRIBAL LEADERSHIP. It provides A-B-C guidance on how to form a triad to socialize these techniques throughout your organization. Triads are a super-powerful way to scale agility from teams to tribes, groups of up to 150 people that exist informally in every organization.

The book TRIBAL LEADERSHIP describes 5 stages of culture, and then describes the triad structure as a vector for culture change. The book lays down a foundation. THE CULTURE GAME builds on this, supplying the small strategy (The 16 Tribal Learning practices) and A-B-C guidance on how to socialize these practices using triads. This is a bottom-up approach that effectively scales agility UP and OUT of software teams, and into the mainstream…scaling agile from teams, to tribes.

If TRIBAL LEADERSHIP is an operating system, THE CULTURE GAME is an application that runs on it. Triads are a brilliant idea; my book is the first ‘application’ to run on TRIBAL LEADERSHIP. I think it is fair to say that it is not the last. Triads are the real deal.

You can learn more about the TRIBAL LEADERSHIP book here and get a quick summary here.

TRIBAL LEADERSHIP co-author Dave Logan recently wrote about how he and I, and his entire team spent 2 days working together. We used Culture Game concepts to structure 2 days of work with Dave’s CultureSync team in Los Angeles. (CultureSync is Dave’s management consultancy.) The results were pretty good!!

You can read that article from Dave’s column at CBSNEWS.COM, here:

Make Your Meetings Hyper-Productive and Fun by Dave Logan (CBSNEWS)

You can learn more about the THE CULTURE GAME book, and pre-order it here.

 

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Speaking in “We”, thinking in “Me”

Psst. Want to change the world?

If so, you’ll need the right kind of folks on the bus, the kind of people who “get it”.  You’ll need some leadership. Some TRIBAL leadership.

Me vs. We

My friend Dave Logan, author of TRIBAL LEADERSHIP, outlines 5 specific stages of culture. At each stage, the majority of the people in the culture are telling each other a standard story for that level. Stage 3 is “I’m great, (you’re not)” and Stage 4 is “We’re great (they’re not).” The difference is in where you get your identity from. At Stage 4, most (but not all) of the people get their identity from the group, rather than individual-ego….

The five stages of tribal culture, expressed as stories, from most basic to most advanced,  are as follows:

1. Life sucks!

2. MY life sucks!

3. I’m great! (You’re not.)

4. We’re great! (They’re not.)

5. Life is great!

There is a specific pattern of behavior that can rapidly create a dystopia in organizations and teams. It happens when people in a team or org “talk a good game” about Stage 4 and use “we” language, while behaving in Stage 3 “me” language.

I call it “speaking in “We” and thinking in “Me.”

“Thinking in We” is required if you are out to do something big that is literally impossible to do alone. It’s a Stage 4 way of being. At Stage 4, the language is about being the best tribe in a given domain or market. “We’re great” is the place where many successful companies START. Existing companies can do rework, to “refactor” or upgrade their culture by developing new “tribal” language. It’s all explained in Dave’s remarkable book.

If you cannot get big things done at Stage 4, “We’re great”, you have NO SHOT at Stage 5.

And what is Stage 5?

Stage 5 is the platform for manifesting world-building initiatives. Stage 5 the “Life is great” stage, where a focus on competitors literally disappears. The tribe has loads of alignment around a huge, world-changing  idea, and all of them together execute on making it happen. Stage 5 culture is rare.  When it occurs, the people in the culture are predominantly Stage 4 folks who know that game, and want to play a much BIGGER game.

(NOTE: These folks always seek each other out. And find each other. And help each other. It’s automatic behavior at Stage 4.)

Bottom line: We cannot do Stage 4 work unless we are at Stage 4 in our heads, in our mindset. This is why Stage 3 individuals have no shot at executing on big, huge, Stage FIVE work that requires a world-building mindset. That’s because, according to Dave Logan, you have to “own” each stage completely before you can move to the next. You cannot skip a grade. Stage 3 “I’m great” type people literally have no shot at Stage 5, because they are attempting to skip Stage 4 and do not have the essential “We” skills necessary to actually execute on genuine world-building.

Scrum and agile set up at least the potential for a Stage 4 culture, that  “We are great” mindset. We can argue that people that do not “get” agility are stuck at Stage 3, 2 or 1. You can learn all the stages of Tribal Leadership, in detail, by getting the book and reading it.

My book THE CULTURE GAME leverages the best ideas from Dave’s TRIBAL LEADERSHIP book. THE CULTURE GAME employs triads for socializing agile (group) learning up and out of IT, from teams to tribes. You can learn more here.

Dave Logan and I are developing products and services that combine the best of TRIBAL LEADERSHIP, agile, and what I call trans-agile or Tribal Learning patterns and practices as described in THE CULTURE GAME. There are 16 specific practices in the book, that any manager can put to work, today, to upgrade team culture.

If you want to sign up for interesting tutorial podcasts that Dave and I are doing around these ideas, click here to  sign up.

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Trans-Agile and the Learning Organization

The organizations that LEARN FAST are the new winners in game of business. They have more fun and make much more money doing it … by learning faster that their competitors, and then eating their lunch.

Let me explain.

Recently, I went out to LA to work with my friend Dave Logan at the offices of CultureSync, Dave’s management consultancy. Dave is  the lead-author of the book TRIBAL LEADERSHIP. This book introduces the triad, a very robust 3-person structure for getting amazing amounts of work done. This book also enumerates a stage-development model of culture in organizations. The book is brilliant– and so is Dave. My book THE CULTURE GAME is based in part on Dave’s TRIBAL LEADERSHIP concepts.

We did work over 2 days using all the tools in the framework outlined in my book, THE CULTURE GAME. In this book I lay out the 16 specific practices that create nearly-automatic organizational learning. These practices are derived from agile, mostly from Scrum. These are the “trans-agile” practices. I call them Tribal Learning practices. If you commit to do them, your group learns fast, and almost automatically.

The Scrum framework is actually an amazing learning lab for teams. Teams literally “learn how to learn” when the framework is implemented in a genuine and authentic way… that is, in alignment with the spirit of Scrum, as described in the Scrum Guide.

My book is an enumeration of the practices I see the very best Scrum teams doing consistently inside my Agile coaching practice. Part 3 of THE CULTURE GAME details how use Dave’s triads to socialize the 16 trans-agile practices described in THE CULTURE GAME  book.

 

Playing the Culture Game at CultureSync

There were 5 of us present. We spent two days together. We ended up using all 16 of the practices described in my book, across those two days.

We got LOADS of work done.

The CultureSync team made these comments during the daily retrospectives:

“What just happened is amazing”

“I cannot believe how much we got done in one day!”

“It’s shocking how much fun this was. How much fun this IS!”

“Normally, after a full-day meeting, I’m glazed over. The day is over and I actually feel super-energized right now.”

“I’m in shock about how these simple practices completely change the tone and tempo of our meetings.”

“Some of these practices seem uncomfortable at first, and then it’s like: why weren’t we working this way years ago?”

I want you to notice that CultureSync has NOTHING to do with information technology and does not develop software.  CultureSync sells management consulting services, and training that supports leadership development.

Also, keep in mind that Dave Logan is the co-author of THE THREE LAWS OF PERFORMANCE and is tight with David Allen, the celebrated author of GETTING THINGS DONE.

The CultureSync folks are a tribe of over-achievers, much like Dave himself.

That made the feedback especially sweet !

 

The Coming Revolution in Work

It’s ten years since the Agile Manifesto. In my book, I explain how the high failure rates in software projects actually spawned a solution, and a revolution: agile, and Scrum.

In the book, I explain what Scrum is: a framework for creating shared knowledge, also known as team learning. Scrum itself creates small, team-sized learning organizations as described by Peter Senge and others. The habits of good Scrum teams are group learning practices. Being punctual, facilitating your meetings, opening the space, structuring your interactions … as described in the book, each of these (and the other 12) encourage and support absolutely massive levels of organizational learning.

The time has come to say it like it is: Scrum and related practices create a learning organization. We call it a Team. When that Team gets really good, it exhibits 16 specific habits I call Tribal Learning practices. When these practices are socialized using triads as described in TRIBAL LEADERSHIP, the results are truly amazing. Your organization gets smarter, adapts faster, has loads more fun, and makes loads more money, often at the direct expense of all your competitors.

The trans-agile revolution has arrived. Enterprise agile is here. It’s called the learning organization, powered by the Tribal Learning practices described in THE CULTURE GAME book.

Looking to ways for your organization to learn faster? Be more adaptive? Interested in how this works? THE CULTURE GAME books ships in February. You can learn more and pre-order the book, by following this link:

Learn more, and PRE-ORDER The Culture Game Book

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Team Learning is Not Random

Team-level learning requires intent. Team learning, and group learning generally, is NOT random. If it was random or automatic, then our families, our teams, our organizations, even our societies, would automatically learn, and evolve. Instead, in terms of learning, we typically DEVOLVE in groups. We become ineffective after a while. That is what is automatic.

If we want to adapt, we must learn quickly as a group. Especially in times that feature lots of change, like the times we are living through right now. Organizations that learn faster than peers eclipse them, leave them in the dust, call it whatever you want. If we can figure out how to learn as a group, we have the secret to just about everything.

A valid question to ask is: why are we so dumb when we get into groups? Why do we design and implement soul-sucking interactions, stupid meetings, and ineffective team and organizational structures? Why do we behave badly? Why don’t we wise up??

One answer may be found in a community of folks called the Group Relations (GR) community. They are curators of a body of knowledge based upon the work of Alfred Bion. He developed a kind of depth-psychology for explaining what goes on in groups.

I attended a GR conference in 2008 and it opened my eyes. A pure experiential conference, the event focuses on the study of leadership and authority in groups. The object of study is the behavior of all attendees over a 4-5 day period.

Team learning, and group learning generally, is NOT random. If it was random or automatic, then our families, our teams, our organizations, even our civilization, would automatically learn, and evolve. If learning in groups was automatic, we’d be done with world hunger, and cancer, and war. We’d be colonizing other planets. We’d be done with poverty on earth. 

We get dumb when we get into groups. Period. That is what is automatic. Opposing this pattern requires full intent. My book is one small contribution to the body of knowledge around team learning. Team-level learning requires intent. The good news is, We now know how to do it. People like Jim and Michele McCarthy, Jeff Sutherland, Ken Schwaber, folks in the GR community … all of these folks are pointing the way. We can literally create genius teams- IF WE WANT TO.

We have the technology to routinely do this. The problem is conquered. 

What is missing is the intent. Are you in?

 

 

 

 

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Nominalization

Everything is framed by language. Change the language and you are changing the game. This is as aspect of culture covered in my book, The Culture Game.

Naming things makes sense of the world, yet it can be bad for teams. Ironically, naming things reduces the flow of We. That is because the names are literally symbolic of things. Names create very real divisions.

Nominalization is one way we make sense of things. Nominalization assigns names  to things and reduces them to nouns. Nominalization is a linguistic device that allows you to turn a verb (and other word types) into nouns. It’s a trap that can limit perception and thinking at the level of We. Nominalization creates opportunities for division to occur. For example, this cannot be that if this is not(that).  I am describing the divisions: these divisions reduce the flow of We. Nominalization creates linguistic (and therefore very real) division inside the mind of groups.

On the other hand, anything that increases the flow of We is insanely great. Some specific, named socio-technologies that help do this include:

  • Kanban
  • Scrum
  • Core Protocols
  • Open Space
  • Facilitation
  • Coaching
  • Triads

There are others like these; I have a name for them as a group.

When I tell you the name, it is sure to reduce the flow of We in the community of readers. Why?

Because as soon as I divulge the name, then the discussions start, describing: how this is not that, how this is inferior to  that, how that is crap compared to this, and so on. Eventually, I have to tell you the name, so We can talk about it. There is no other way. I plan to wait until at least a few people comment on this post, to get the ball rolling. That is the signal I am waiting for. If I do not get any comments, that is my signal to wait. See also: semiotics.

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Introverts and the Daily Scrum

Scrum is a framework optimized on greatness for teams, mostly software teams. Other complex, engineered product teams can also do well with Scrum. Most engineering teams are populated with introverted people. You can quickly identify the introverts: they say little or nothing when attending meetings.

These types of engineering-oriented teams are typically populated with left-brained, problem-solving introverts who get paid for right answers. I think Scrum actually adjusts for this via the second Scrum ceremony: The Daily Scrum.

Introverts find extended socializing to be sub-optimal for their personality type. Introverts do not like extended ‘blending’ and prefer away-time. Meanwhile, software and other complex products simply refuse to ship until and unless the people making the products get the teamwork figured out.

So, on the one hand, great engineers are often quite introverted. On the other hand, we all need to be working together and communicating effectively. Scrum handles this with the Daily Scrum meeting.

Notice:

1. The Daily Scrum is 15 minutes long. Yes, this encourages smaller team size. I also think is is kept short so even introverts can be comfortable with it.

2. The Daily Scrum encourages (introverted) team members to disclose essential info about the work. Introverts (and most other types) do NOT do this automatically.

3. The Daily Scrum repeats, is predictable, and not random or ad-hoc. This makes it easier for introverts to agree to participate in it.

The Daily Scrum makes it easy for introverts to show up, and tell the truth about the work…in 15 minutes or less. Brilliant!

A great article on the dynamics of creativity, collaboration overload and introverts is available below  from the NYT if you might like to do a deep dive on introverts and the Scrum connection. I believe Scrum is optimized for easy participation by left-brained, problem solving introverts.

This post is over. Way too much blending; I need my away-time. Nothing personal you understand. Talk to you later.

See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&pagewanted=all