Agile Principles #5 Build projects around motivated individuals

It has been over a year since I published my last Newsletter. Like many other things that go on in life. I started it out as a weekly and then moved it to bi weekly and then instead of making it monthly it has become a yearly affair. No, I think I will try to write every two weeks. and if that does not happen maybe make it monthly. Which might be more realistic. But for now let us try the Biweekly. And today we will continue from where we left it. We will talk about the 5th Agile Principle.

Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

But before we start I want to say I am making a name change to the Newsletter. I am renaming it to Penpositive Learning for seamless integration into my activities at Penpositive. That said, the tone of the Newsletter will remain?pretty much the same. Minimal Agile - Minimal in Life and Agile?@ Work.

Motivated Individuals: What does that even mean? Does it mean that they are always smiling.?That they are always available for the beck and call of the management. Are these the people?who never argue with others? Are these the people who work from home or don't do so? Who are these Motivated Individuals?

While we all have seen them, worked with them and some of us might even be able to explain what that is, I will take a stab at what I think is a Motivated Individual. For me it is an individual who does what it takes to keep a commitment. But at the same time make sure it is realistic when they give a commitment.?

Why do I say that? Because you cannot be motivated if your commitment is not realistic. At least in my opinion and you can differ with me. Motivation is not about excitement. People are even excited about unrealistic things. But then being unrealistic will lead to demotivation at some point.

Secondly it is not fair to ask a person to do everything they need to do to meet an unrealistic commitment. I know it happens a lot in the industry and we all know people who work as task masters driving people to slog to meet unrealistic things. Are these people who slog Motivated? Not in my opinion. Because they don't think they have a choice to change and they often quit. And we all know people don't quit companies, they quit managers.?You lose good people. People who were Motivated once.

So for your people to be Motivated they need to be able to take up commitments that they think are realistic and build and improve on it every sprint. There is no other easy way to make them Motivated individuals.?

Environment and Support they need: What the heck is an environment? Free pizza ? the?apt temperature? a quiet place? Beer at work? Purple Tables and yellow chairs? But when many people work from home that cannot be the environment. Environment for me is about the team and culture and peers and a lot of such things. It is how the company is structured or has evolved. It is also about the tools I think. Environment is not just about where we sit, it is about where our work sits.?

Ensuring?that the necessary tools are available and we have a consensus about how it has to be used. Above all, making things simple will be good in my opinion. But that is not enough people need support. Just because you have Motivated people, don't pull your responsibilities out of supporting them. When Individuals know that there is a place to go for help, to improve, to brainstorm and to discuss freely the matters of importance, it can tremendously help performance.?

Psychological safety is so important and supporting your team members is a way you can make psychological safety a prime item of improvement. Sometimes support can help resolve issues before they aggravate. There are people who will not ask for support but will gladly take it when it is given to them and they know about it. So even if that support system does not exist, see if you can keep mentioning that you are there for them. Available! You can see visible improvements soon.

Trust Them: Really? trust them...? whom..? why...? Who told you that we don't trust...? I have seen cultures and systems built on mistrust. These are not built overnight but it is the effort of years of a kind of culture that breeds mistrust and then every system and tool and behavior is developed in the light of that mistrust. It is important to break it. Trust is not easy to build and in teams and organizations when new people join they are conditioned and we all carry baggage beyond our computer bags. There is a lot of learning and unlearning to be done in order to enter a frame of trust.?

If you?get a new team, You can start by trusting and you could find things happening counter to that, and that is ok. Improvement is not quick, trust is not quick. If you are a leader it is not just about you testing your team members or they testing you, it is about everyone trusting one another and also trusting their own ability as a team. Build it.

Job Done: One might think it is so simple, but trust me (no pun intended) I have sat in so many meetings where the definition of done is debated. When the definition?of done is not clear. If we talk of software you might hear the Dev team have one definition and QA have another definition of what it means to be Job done. In Agile and in Scrum Done is about what the team understands as done.?Redefine the Definition of Done as you progress and improve.

These are simple things but if there is clarity we can move?much easily. If there is no concept of definition of done or if people are divided, it might take time. You might have an ideal state of definition of done. That is ok and you can reach there, in steps, in iterations. Define and then Redefine as you mature.

Now let us look at the principle once more:

Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

There is a sequence to all this, a method to the madness. Haven't you seen people draw huge plans before you know if it can be done? I know that is still the process because you need funding for projects. But in an ideal state when do you think you will know when something can be completed??

I have a recommendation, we all live in less ideal states of existence and we might all also die or end working in similar less than ideal states. The question is how do we make a difference, is there improvement when we look back.

Start with people, do what is needed for Motivation, then make that a habit of self motivation, Give them the environment as mentioned in the principle with the tools and make sure you evolve the right tools?as you need rather than forcing it on people. Reason with people who object, discuss... support them to be open and fearless. Trust people. Build trust as the bedrock of your experience. Make sure often that we all understand what Job done means. Ask if this has to be redefined, Check if the ideal state has changed.

Projects will continue but we will see improvement. We will talk about retrospectives sometime later.

What happened to me in this 1 year: Well a lot, changing jobs, new roles, new challenges, new teams, new.. new.. new...?

The Agile Scrum Course I used to sell has been made free, I decided that instead of selling it for $99 I will make it freely available on YouTube. Here is the first part of a 6 part series of over 4 hours. Make use of it if you wish. If you like, do share and subscribe to the channel. It is not just agile. there is more. And I warn you that some of them are boring. But stay with me.

I also have it in my Mother Tongue?Malayalam. For those who like it local.