Do you have a quick tool to measure team confidence?
Hi guys, this post will be about a quick exercise that I did during last retrospective and I would like to get your input.
Like always I started the retrospective with a small exercise to “set the stage”, something to make the people relaxed but at the same time helping them to get the focus.
I did the brand car exercise, this exercise is quite basic; we just ask to each different team member how they would describe the previous iteration using a brand car.
I had the brand of the car in my mind, I chose a Ferrari. The iteration went very well; the team delivered all promised stories, and they won a private bet against the PO. He did bet with the team that they would not be able to deliver all promised stories :). Naturally I thought about Ferrari and I expected to hear the same from others.
I started to ask one by one which brand they wanted to better describe during iteration. Surprisingly, all the mentioned brands were modest, such as Opel, Skoda, Ford, etc. The only luxurious brand car was chosen by PO. At that moment I didn’t play so much attention, I thought that these guys are humble :).
Later on during the conversation with an Agile Coach, colleague Mark, he mentioned to me “Did you see how their confidence is so low?” The iteration went so well and according to type of the cars they chose, their confidence of achieving something great was quite low.
This conversation with Mark was the main reason why I am writing this blog! I truly believe this can be used as a quick and simple tool to evaluate team´s confidence. What do you think? Do you think this is a useful tool to verify team’s confidence?
Please comment this post and leave me your opinions :).
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Thanks guys,
Luis
D5 Creation
Interesting post Luis!
I do think the game can give you an idea of how the confidence is. I havent myself ever tried such a game but it sounds as it could work out.
Of course, there could be many other factors that impact the team’s answers:
- are they by nature humble? it would be interesting to repeat the game in some time, and compare results. Perhaps, an Opel is for them a high quality car :P
- Were their answers influenced by the presence of the PO? I would be interested in knowing what they would have said if the PO hadnt been there. BTW, why is the PO attending your retros?
- Is the team newly formed? that might then explain why they are so low-profile
- Are there many junior engineers? That also might explain it.
I hope my questions help!
Your assumption is that this experiment is indeed indicative of team self-confidence. But what experiment will you do (perhaps already in this iteration) to confirm/disprove that assumption?
#Learning is experimenting :)
Thanks Vasco,
This iteration I will not do anything, they delivered again everything what they promised… But next one I will try to do the same to see if something changed ;) I will keep you guys posted ;)
Cheers,
Luis
Yep, I believe so. Not sure if it works when you have female team members though :-)
Hi Nuno,
Veryyyy good point :D Actually we did not have any girl ;)
I will wait for some iterations and I will do the exercise again and see the differences ;)
I will keep you posted,
Thanks,
Luis
This could be the baseline, for comparing the next iteration results against. Maybe they believe that the particular iteration was normal, and they said middle/average brands. I believe your question is why don’t they believe the iteration was “Mercedes” level, or Bugatti. Do you believe that particular iteration was that good ? If they have picked top-premium brands, what would be the next level ?
It is ok to be normal, as it leaves room for improvement! Let them be VW …so that they have room to grow to a Bugatti.
After all, it is a average brand that owns the premium ones :) Right ?
Hi Lucian,
Thanks for the comment :) I guess you are right. The team is still new; I believe we will see some improvement in the future. I will do the same exercise in a near future.
I will keep you posted about the results ;)
Luis
Hmmm, interesting approach. I’ll try it in a week. Meanwhile, I’ve just started using Mitch Lacey’s “4th question in daily meeting”. Curious about how the results of the two ways will turn up. http://www.mitchlacey.com/blog/the-fourth-question-in-the-daily-scrum-standup
What did you find with that? Some hidden issues that could sabotage the iteration outcome? Or something else? :)
So far, nothing… but that’s because the spring is going really really well. I’m sure this will be more useful when things are not so great. I’ll keep you posted.
Thanks ;)
Another possibility is that the apparent dissonance between your judgment and the team’s might come down to different realization expectations. A PO/manager is more likely to feel fulfilled by having full closure on the planned tasks, whereas a team will get a feeling of accomplishment but won’t necessarily feel fulfilled. In order for an engineer/technician to feel fulfilled he/she needs to achieve something relevant to his own personal interests or of substantial technical worth.
An Opel is reliable and functional in the sense that it is accomplishes what it is designed for: it takes you from A to B and that’s pretty much it. A Ferrari is spectacular, challenging and rare. For a driver (the developer), it is of course more exciting to drive the Ferrari and it will probably bring some sort of realization in the end, but for someone wanting an important package to be taken from A to B (the PO/manager), an Opel will have the same worth as a Ferrari.
As an engineer, I would never answer that the sprint was a Ferrari just for having closed all planned tasks - this should be the normal, the Opel. A Ferrari is rare and in the context of a sprint evaluation should symbolize outstanding performance past a technically challenging sprint.