In agile consulting there is much emphasis on having all parts of the agile team working together in the same direction, that even when there is conflict, it is mainly constructive. With that we tend to give rise to quick failure only to give a quicker solution so that progress continues. When all parts don’t communicate and hold back, the system falls apart. An agile working team is based on the principle of being transparent – no secrets!
The Agile Team Dynamics Working Toward Transparency
When we think of the primary agile team roles (Scrum master, Product Owner, and Team), we might be easily swayed to think that they are a distinct and separate part of the whole. In some ways yes that is true, but in every other way, they are a very synchronous part of the agile system. That is to say, they always communicate much in the same way that the human brain works with the other parts of the 5 human senses. When one part hears a sound, the entire brain works together to analyse the situation so that when there is a sense of danger or harmony, the reaction is acted upon without judgement and without resistance. All parts work together to give a common result.
The other benefit of all senses working together in one’s brain, is that new and more intuitive senses come into creation. When you see that everyone thinks about something right before someone else is about to say the same thing, you know that there’s much more at work than the regular senses can provide.
What Breaks Transparency
If there is one thing that breaks all forms of constructive progress is fear. Much like Roosevelt’s saying “Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself’,” that is a very true statement. Much like every other team, there are causes to what might keep others from sharing and communicating information effectively, and therefore reducing transparency.
Here are a few of such causes of fear:
1 – Failure – Someone can have a great idea, but as a result of fear of failure will hold back from sharing with the rest of the team. Think of all the ideas we had that we thought were ridiculous, but when someone else acted upon it, we found out it was a great and highly popular or profitable invention.
2 – Lack of Trust – When we get over the fear of failure we may traverse another realm of fear, the lack of trust. We might actually get to the point where there is self-confidence in what we might be able to contribute to the team, but only to be taken down by the possibility that someone might steal your idea or even worse, take all credit for it.
3 – Past Experience – This is a big one. Due to societal anxieties and situations that cause many to try to avoid the past, many try to undo or avoid what may have happened in the past. What most might not realize is that every team is different, even more so, is that there are many more situations out there that might seem the same as previous one, but are in fact not the same due to even slightly different variables.
4 – Success – You might ask, how can this be??? Well many people think that success is going to change their life so in many ways this is the fear of the unknown. What this might mean to a further extent is that many are afraid of the attention gained by success because they don’t know how they will react to it.
How do we get past fears?
Agile processes and methodologies strive for bringing out intuition to the team members and groups that adopt them. With that comes about the need for many angles toward increased knowledge and practice. The ways in which to accomplish agile solutions, and perhaps break the habit of fearful thinking is by attending online agile courses, agile training sessions, agile games, agile consulting, or better yet just get an agile coach on your team.
A business coach would be able to analyse and review an agile project methodology, and pick out what areas of fear that could be holding a team down. Getting to the bottom of what is preventing the team to move forward will get team members to gain speed and velocity much more quickly and build on team synergy that is remarkable if set in the right direction with the right ideas.
[Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net]
