Agile Room Dynamics

© 2014 Intelliware Development Inc.
Agile Room
(Team) Dynamics

Agile Room (Team) Dynamics:
Getting Teams Performant (and Happy)
What You’ll Learn in this Presentation:
• The signs to look for in a dynamic Agile team room.
• How to get a team performant (and happy).

Why (Room) Team Dynamics are Important
• Agile focus on people strongly related to teams.
• In a team environment, team dynamics translates directly
into productivity.
o A happy team will inherently be more productive. Agile is no
exception.
o Conversely, an unhappy team can be extremely non-functional.
• When a team isn’t working well, everyone suffers.

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The 11 Signs of Good Room Dynamics
1. Deliverables are EVERYONE’s responsibility.
2. Team Lead and Architect roles may be designated, but delivery is
EVERYONE’s responsibility.
3. Everyone is engaged & respected.
4. Healthy debate and conflict happens – and compromise.
5. Whiteboard sessions.
6. Members help each other.
7. Team members have confidence in each others’ abilities.
8. No egos.
9. Buzz in the room.
10. Celebrations of small successes.
11. Music.

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1. Deliverables are EVERYONE’s Responsibility
• The team must be working as a team towards a common goal.
o Everyone has the same understanding of the overall project objective.
o No silos.
• Certain team members may be focused on specific stories or
tasks, but they are not solely responsible for them.
o Everyone on the team is aware of what
everyone else is working on and are
willing to assist when needed, even
when not asked.
o Refusing to help others is not an option.

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2. Team Lead and Architect Roles may be
Designated, but Delivery is EVERYONE’s
Responsibility
• Leadership roles, such as Architect or Team Lead,
are necessary and important.
o These roles involve responsibilities that require certain
skills and don’t make sense for the whole team to do.
o They do not denote seniority over other team members.
• The whole team works together to keep the project
on track.
o There is a collective focus in the room on the overall delivery
objective – success is a team objective; it is not the
responsibility of one or two individuals.

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3. Everyone is Engaged & Respected
• In a dynamic Agile room, everyone:
o is an equal,
o listens,
o is heard, and
o participates.
• There is no:
o avoiding the team or
o disrespectful behaviour.
• There are no heroes.

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4. Healthy Debate and Conflict
• Debate and conflict are normal.
o Debate, arguments, and conflicts happen
often in the room.
o Facilitated by the fact that everyone feels
free to speak up and that their opinions
will be respected.
o The focus is on the good of the project
and maximizing value to the customer.
o Personal attacks are not tolerated in any
way whatsoever.

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5. Whiteboard Sessions
• Whiteboards are an important feature of
the room used to communicate design
diagrams, task lists, etc.
• Whiteboards are used as a common focal
point for design discussions, tasking
meetings, etc.
o Everyone is allowed to participate in these
discussions, at their own discretion.
o Closely related to healthy debate.
• No whiteboard in the room is left blank!

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6. Members Help Each Other
• A stuck developer is an unproductive
developer.
o Nobody is afraid to ask for help from other team
members.
o Assistance is offered without question.
• Collective sense in the room that helping each
other is critical. Works in two ways:
o If we help each other, the team will benefit.
o I may need you to help me one day.
• Standup is a common mechanism to point out
difficulties and ask for help.

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7. Team Members Have Confidence in each Others’ Abilities
• Everyone on the team is aware of and respects their own and other team
member’s abilities.
o Varying skill sets and levels of proficiency are known and appreciated – not
everyone is a rocket scientist.
o Team members don’t sign up for tasks that they’re not
capable of completing.
o Likewise, when team members take on a task, this
decision is respected by other team members.
• The team accepts that delivery relies on a team
with diversified skills and levels of experience.

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8. No Egos
• No cowboy programmers.
• No ‘last minute’ heroes.
• Yes Servant Leaders.

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9. Buzz In The Room
• The project room immediately appears to be a
hive of activity.
o Everyone is busy and engaged.
o The team is located around a central table.
 No outliers.
o There’s lots of talking:
 Pairs working together.
 Ad hoc discussions.
 Whiteboard sessions.
o Whiteboards are covered with stuff.
o It’s not exactly neat and clean.

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10. Celebrations of Small Successes
• In Agile, a successful project is not
one event but instead is the
cumulative effect of a series of small
successes.
• Agile teams recognize this and
celebrate small successes often by:
o Showing appreciation for other team
member’s efforts.
o Going out to lunch together.
o Bringing food or drinks into the project
room at the end of the day.

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11. Music
• Music can often be heard in an Agile team
room because…
o Developers enjoy listening to music while they work.
o The atmosphere is relaxed.
o Everyone gets a chance to play what they like.
o Nobody criticizes other’s musical preferences
(within reason  ).
o It’s not too loud.
• No headphones!
o This is a sign of somebody who’s not fully
engaged with the team.

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How to Maintain Healthy Project Room Dynamics
These are the things that Agile Teams implement to maintain healthy
project room dynamics:
1. Group negotiation of team rules.
2. Team lunches.
3. Storming as a given.
4. Pairing negotiation.
5. Always listen in.
6. Conflict amongst team members.
7. Decisions.
8. Engage the larger development team.
9. Incorporating new team members.
10. Humour & Food.

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1. Group Negotiation of Team Rules Guidelines
• Collective confirmation regarding:
o Stand-up.
o Story writing structure on the board.
o Scrum board.
o Bug tracking and wiki usage (e.g. Jira & Confluence).
o Retrospectives.
• Guidelines can always be changed as the team
settles in. Usually done as a result of end-of-sprint
retrospectives.
• First order of business: Team Lunch !

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2. Team Lunches
• Scheduled in calendar in a repeating cycle
(~ 3-4 weeks).
o 1st team lunch.
o Team building activities to break the ice.
• Initiated by any member of the team.
Important that whole team attends!!!!!
• Takes about 3 lunches for team to warm-up
to each other.
• Discuss 5 Stages of Team Development 
Next Slides.

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• Forming
o Little agreement, lack of purpose.
• Storming
o Conflict, power struggles, increased clarity
of purpose.
• Norming
o Agreement, clear roles & responsibilities.
• Performing
o Clear vision and purpose; focused on
common goal.
• Adjourning
o Project/task complete; hopefully with good
feelings about outcome.
Tuckman, Bruce, 1965. "Developmental sequence in small
groups". Psychological Bulletin ,63 (6): 384–99.
3. Storming as a Given…The 5 Stages of Team Development

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What Happens if the Team
Changes
• Why might the team change?
o New team formed for new
project.
o Maternity leave.
o Somebody leaves the company.
o New hire added to supplement
the team.
o Somebody is added that has a
specific skill set.
o Team members moved between
teams to cross-pollinate skills
and practices.
Tuckman, Bruce, 1965. "Developmental sequence in small
groups". Psychological Bulletin ,63 (6): 384–99.

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You Are Expected to Storm
• Must be verbalized by the Team Lead, Project
Manager or team coach to ensure team has
common expectations.
• Introduce concept at first team lunch.
• Allows team members to disagree passionately
(and even get annoyed with each other) and know
that it is an expected part of growing pains.
• Early retrospectives review where we think we are on the 5 steps of team
formation.
• The whole team storms, some are more noticeable than others.

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4. Pairing Negotiation
• Discuss briefly how you like to pair.
o Want pair to point out typos or mistakes immediately?
o Drive for several hours and switch, or ping pong?
• What are habits you have (or not aware of that have
been pointed out to you in the past)?
• What are your normal work hours?
• Give pair permission to speak-up or stop you if you are
doing something they don’t like.
• This is especially important at the beginning of project
for all “new pairs.”
o Additional reading: Pair Programming Illuminated by
Williams & Kessler.

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5. Always Listen In
• Pay attention to discussions going on in the room!
o It takes a village!
o At the end of the day, it’s EVERYONE’S fault if something goes wrong (especially
true if a new or junior member caused it).
• Tune in and out of conversations around you.
o Saves time when you have to switch pairs or a task.
• Do as much pairing as possible and practical.
o Ideally identify tasks that should be paired on during tasking.
• Verbally communicate code changes that may impact
others as soon as it’s pushed.
• Headphones?  Seriously??

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• Not easy initially, but team building helps.
• Kindergarten rules.
• Always give an opt-out option and if not
possible - the lesser of two evils.
• Include everyone in their own way.
• Don’t allow others to be interrupted by
stronger personalities in a discussion.
• Pay attention to non-verbal cues & ask
follow-up questions.
6. Conflict Amongst Team Members - Know the Personality Types

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Myers Briggs Personality Test
• Based on the theory of psychological
types.
o Rational (judging) – thinking &
feeling.
o Irrational (perceiving) – sensation &
intuition.
• Knowing your personality type and
the types on your team will help
you better interact with them.
• Online Myers Briggs Test:
www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-
win/jtypes2.asp

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Conflict Amongst Team Members - Storming
• Let people storm, but monitor that they move beyond that stage.
o If two people are storming, let them work it out.
• Don’t enable avoidance, just to be “nice”.
o Don’t allow team members to avoid each other via
not pairing when they could or should be.
• Pay attention to non-verbal cues.
o Folded arms.
o Raised eyebrows.
o High pitched voice.
• Be aware of the differences among:
o Difference of technical opinion vs.
o Personality conflict vs.
o Personal styles.

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Conflict Amongst Team Members - Intervening
• Only step in when it becomes unhealthy/uncomfortable for the team and
absolutely necessary.
o If you must intervene, discuss with them separately & privately and provide and objective
point of view, then arrange a mediation if absolutely necessary.
• Anyone on the team can step in.
• Come to consensus and then be consistent.
Don’t agree to disagree and then implement
multiple flavours of the same solution.

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7. Decisions
• The team is responsible for delivery, but technical
decisions are not the responsibility of the whole team…
o Some members of the team, such as PMs, BAs and QAs, do
not have the skills, experience and background to be involved
in these decisions.
o Larger final decisions that have impact on overall architecture
are usually arrived at as a result of discussion of one or two
senior team members. These decisions are then
communicated to the rest of the team to seek consensus.
o Day-to-day technical decisions are made by the team
consistent with the shared technical direction.
o If options impact scope, budget or future feature options, PM
and/or BA present to Client for the final call if necessary.

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8. Engage the Larger Development Team
• It takes the development village.
• Interact with other co-workers beyond your team
during your project’s lifetime.
• Don’t spin wheels too long.
o Ask around if stuck. Your company’s knowledge isn’t
limited to your project room.
o Know and engage your options before spending 2 to 3
days on a problem .
o Document and share answer!
o By asking around, people you talked to will remember
next time they encounter a similar problem.

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9. Incorporating New Team Members - Make New Members Feel Welcome
• When the team is disrupted, storming is expected again in addition to the
other 4 stages.
o Good time for team lunch.
• New team members are responsible for asking
questions partly to learn and partly to challenge
the status-quo. They are by definition “fresh eyes”.
o This is an opportunity to learn where team’s process and
documentation is lacking.
• Existing team members should be confident in the
existing decisions that were made by the team.

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New Team Member – Make Yourself Fit In
• Accept that you represent a disrupting force.
o The team will storm. Don’t take it personally.
• Don’t be afraid to ask questions.
o But respect history.
o Previous decisions may seem insane, but they were
probably made for reasons that made perfect
sense at the time.
• Go out of your way to fit in with your
new team mates.
o It’s okay to rock the boat…but don’t tip it over!

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How to Make a Team Happy
• Humour & Food
• Food & Humour
• Humour & Food
• Food & Humour
• Did I mention Humour?........
What about Food?

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For More Information
• Intelliware’s Knowledge Centre contains
several resources on the basics of Agile
(see next slide for titles in our Agile series):
http://www.intelliware.com/knowledge-centre
• Further reading that we recommend:
o The Human Side of Agile by Gil Broza.
o Peopleware by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister.

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