How to believe in your team and say failure is OK

Many moons ago I watched the HBO series Silicon Valley. There was one episode where two programmers compete to get their stories done. The CTO says to the business development team "there is no technical debt" when he admits to his own team separately that “there is a lot to be done”. So there is actually technical debt he didn’t bring up as he was afraid to show weakness and possible failure.

The fear of failure is what drives leaders and their teams away from adopting agile practices.

They instead opt for "scrumfall", hybrid agile or other approaches that make agile a smooth sell. Or just to show they also “did agile”.

When I have coached agile teams there is always more than a hint that failure is possible. There are risks with a waterfall organization that is not yet ready yet for agile projects. There is the whole scrum evangelizing process where you need to get the organization ready. I have written about how this is similar to teaching an elephant to dance. I have also seen cases where agile was attempted without adequate skilled coaching and those efforts floundered.

Once you have reached the happy state where the organization is ready to try an agile project, there are still many reasons why an agile project fails. I compare it to a jigsaw puzzle where you think you are all set when you check the boxes.

Got a daily stand-up. Check.

Got the team going on something like a sprint. Check.

Got them to commit to the ship date. What? Signs of scrumfall are emerging here.

Here are some thoughts on coaching your team and letting failure be a part of life -

Small pilots and small victories

• Don’t wait for complete adoption of Agile, instead consider simple changes to make your projects more agile.
• Introduce agile practices through pilot projects.
• Look for opportunities in waterfall projects.
• Bring in support from the business teams.
• Show early value - this is key, this shows your process is working.
• Communicate the successes.
• Its OK to fail and to fail fast. In fact failure needs to be a possibility. Not something you sweep under the rug.

Try smaller teams, "More than 8 don't collaborate"

The scrum team's participation is key. Remember you can coach your teams but they need to be empowered to make decisions and deliver.

• Coach the team to ensure they know their role in scrum
• Set up clear team structures
• Small teams – as my scrum mentor Doug Shimp would say "more than 8 don't collaborate"

Coach the organization

Pick an agile champion in the leadership team. You need a champion to ensure the project and the agile process gets buy in. You also need your product owner trained and aware of his/her role.

• Share progress as each sprint gets under way
• Keep an open line of communication

Clear definition of done

Empower the scrum team to arrive at the definition of done for each sprint. This is crucial to know when you are "done". It could be

• All tasks completed (analysis, development, test, release)
• All acceptance tests running and passing
• Zero open defects
• Accepted by the product owner
• Delivered to users

Collaborate as a team

This cannot be emphasized enough. Success depends on the scrum team and how well it works together. Coach the team as often as needed.

Bringing this together

Organizational change requires commitment by leaders. You need to be ready to manage change and manage this through agile practices. You also need to invest time to show significant improvements. Believe in your team and coach it successfully to achieve the transformation you are looking for.

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