Chuck Suscheck

A few years ago, I became acquainted with a lady running a charity for a child who was having medical bills pile up. She was holding a charity bazaar to raise money for the child's family.

Can anyone be a Product Owner (PO)? What’s the best position in the company to fill that role? With Scrum you have one and only one Product Owner for a given product...

User stories are business needs, not requirements in the traditional sense. They are oriented toward the user and a business need. The big difference between a user story and other types of requirements is that a story describes a business need, not the system’s functionality.

Do you ever influence or coach people? How? Do you use a gut feel approach or do you have coaching patterns that you use? I have several coaching patterns that I step through when trying to influence people. I also have a strategy for using these patterns. Let me share with you with an example of stepping through some patterns. By default, my go to pattern is based on The Socratic Method: I ask a lot of questions and try to stimulate critical thinking. Hopefully these questions help lead my client to an answer that works far better than anything I would have come up with. Imagine you have a kid who hasn’t showered in a long time. You ask him “wouldn’t it be nice if you smelled better? Don’t you think you have more friends if you weren’t so grungy? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you didn’t get teased all day for looking so dirty?” Hopefully this leads your kid to making the decision that a shower is a good idea. I tried this with my clients once and I kept asking questions. She eventually said, “Chuck, all you ever do is ask questions. I want you to coach me.” So I tried a different pattern: The dictatorial pattern. You literally dictate a solution. Imagine again that you kid still hasn’t showered. You say, “every day I want to see the towel wet and your hair wet to prove that you’re taking a shower”. What does your kid do? Wet the towel and his head of course. That’s eventually what happened at my client’s shop. The client said, “Chuck you are so bossy. I just want you to coach me”. Time for another pattern: The mirroring pattern. Imagine now that your kid is really smelling ripe. You take a shower and then walk around saying, “Ooo I’m so clean. I smell like a rose. I look bright and shiny. It feels so nice to be clean.” Hopefully your kid gets the idea and thinks “Boy I want some of that cleanliness too”. I tried this with my client, writing stories and delving out requirements and then trumpeting about how proud I was of them. After a time the client said “Chuck all you ever do is work. I want you to coach me”. It was time for another pattern: Swarming. Imagine you tell all of your kid’s friends to say he’s dirty as a rag, he smells like an old shoe, he should shower more frequently. Hopefully, after hearing the same message from his friends, he gets the idea that it’s time take a shower. I tried this with my client telling all of my consulting colleagues “Why don’t you tell her this? Can you tell her that?” Eventually she began to listen to one of the consultants; the UI guy. I would tell him what works well, he’d tell her, and she would listen. Problem solved! But I lost influence and power. She started to listen to the UI fellow and not to what I had to say even though the UI guy was saying roughly what I had been saying. I was now only indirectly effective in my role. Finally I moved on to another pattern: The voice from afar pattern. We got a fellow from California who looked nice, wore great cologne, wore an expensive suit, and charged twice as much per hour as I did. My client looked at him and said “Oooo, he’s impressive and expensive so I better listen to him.” and she did. This was a win-win-win result. She was happy since she had somebody that was directly helping her. The consulting company was happy because they were charging a higher rate. I was happy because I was able to work myself onto another client. It’s like your kid being told by Taylor Swift that he should take a shower. He’ll be in that shower in a jiffy! The point: don’t try to influence people just from a gut feel - that’s tough and it takes a lot of trial and error experience. Each situation has a pattern or approach that is appropriate for what you and your client are trying to achieve. Learn them and how they can be applied. There are references for patterns on coaching which can help you create a concrete strategy of influencing people. Some great references for patterns are: “Fearless change” by Linda Rising and Mary Lunn Manns “Agile Coaching” by Rachel Davies and Liz Sedley “Coaching Agile Teams” by Lyssa Adkins. You can also look into the psychology of influence in: “Drive” by Daniel Pink “Switch” by Heath and Heath “Influence” by Robert Cialdini. I hope this approach has given you something to think about. What is your go to pattern? Please add it to the comments at the end of this post. Meanwhile, I’ll be off trying another pattern.

Check out this job advertisement: At Acme drainage system, we are building on our success by finding only the finest people and helping them achieve their full potential. The ideal candidate will be inspired to learn and grow, not to settle for good enough but demand excellence both of themselves and others. This is a fast paced position that requires multi-tasking, so the candidate must be a self-starter and critical thinker who takes pride in their work. We owe it to our employees to hire only the best and the brightest, the rock stars in our industry. Do you want to work at Acme drainage? It sounds awesome! Do all of these characteristics reflect your work ethic? Of course! This advertisement really appeals to the ego of the job seeker, doesn't it? But is this ad for real? All companies can’t possibly hire the best and brightest. It’s a statistical impossibility. According to a recent Gallup poll, roughly 30% of the American workforce is engaged. The other 70% are either the disengaged, who approach their work as just a job, or actively disengaged, who have enough of a moral deficit to pull everyone else down. A lot of places are hiring or creating workers that are disengaged. Imagine the impact if that rock star who is known and respected in the industry becomes actively disengaged while at your company. Internal moral can be crushed as well as your reputation in the industry! The question is, does Acme drainage really the structure and drive to support the best and the brightest? Let’s analyze the job description. The rock stars are “inspired to learn and grow”. Does your company have the long-term support to keep these rock stars engaged five or more years down the road or do you need, the kind of people who aren’t discouraged when asked to modify the pricing report for the hundredth time this year? A rock star’s drive to “not to settle for good enough” may lead to a hasty resignation. Remember, he or she “must be a self-starter and critical thinker who takes pride in their work”. If the real corporate fit is not right, this ‘A player’ should have no problem finding work at the many other companies who claim to only hire the best and brightest. Is your company willing to accept someone who “demands excellence both of themselves and others”? Will this trait be seen as arrogance or rudeness when the rock star tells people that they aren’t doing a very good job? Is “fast paced position that requires multi-tasking” a code phrase for a high pressured chaotic environment? Will Acme drainage simply expect the person to do a lot of work without much direction? The American Psychological Association proves that multi tasking is actually detrimental to productivity so do you really want a multi tasker? Will this rock star be as proud to say “I work at Acme Drainage” as they would be to say “I work at Amazon, Microsoft, Google or Facebook”? In addition, are you willing to pay well above market rate to get these kind of ‘A players’? Rock stars aren’t all about productivity and work throughput. They come with baggage, needs, and negative consequences. Maybe you owe it to your employees to hire competent people who fit your culture; people who can get along. Advertising that you “hire only the best and the brightest” may actually discourage people with the right cultural fit from applying. It’s OK to hire the ‘B players’. Take a good long look in the mirror and think about what you really need before you recruit people.

Ah, the Daily Scrum, so often misused as an instrument of status (see https://youtu.be/i7_RPceEIYE for a discussion). Often the way the Daily Scrum is conducted lends itself to a report of status. The team answers 3 questions in a round robin fashion. It often sounds like this: What did you do yesterday? I went to meet with Joe and had to fill out an HR form. I also wrote 13 emails and filled out my timesheet. Oh, yeah, I also wrote a little code. What will you do today? Well, I’m going over to the other building to talk to the stakeholders about next month’s sprint. I’m also going to three meetings about the user interface. On top of that I’m going to Yorka’s Greek for a gyro with Felice. Are there any blockers? No blockers. Not a fruitful exchange, is it? The heart of the Daily Scrum is to use it as a micro planning and coordination session for the next 24 hours, not so everyone can share their status. Status can be gleaned from a simple task board, a burndown, a burnup, or other information radiators. Here’s some ways to promote focus on the sprint goal and coordination during the Daily Scrum: Recast the questions to focus on a consumer/producer conversation like so: What did you complete yesterday that we can consume? What will you complete today that we need to consume or coordinate? Is there anything out of your control that will prevent you from reaching your objective for the day? Recast the questions to focus on the sprint goal like so: What did you do yesterday to contribute to the sprint goal? What will you do today to contribute to the sprint goal? Is there anything out of your control that will prevent you from contributing to the sprint goal? Abandon the questions and focus on 3 questions and focus explicitly on coordinating like so: In order to make progress toward the sprint goal, what do we need to coordinate today (e.g. technology, people, process)? Make sure this question says “what do we need” as opposed to “do we need”. The former infers something needs to be coordinated. Focus on the tasks and PBIs that are in progress. Rather than a round robin by person, the Daily Scrum becomes round robin by PBI: For PBI xyz, do we need to coordinate anything for today’s progress? One more thing. The it’s the Daily Scrum, not the standup. You don’t have to stand up. As you can imagine, there are a lot of other ways to keep the Daily Scrum focused appropriately. Try your own experiments and inspect and adapt. Just keep the heart of the Daily Scrum in mind.