[case] Iteration on time or half a team?
Friends, well, since the first case received its 15 minutes of attention , then we’ll continue.
About four years ago we held in Moscow the third seminar from our series of then-seminars. To diversify the program, we decided to allocate a couple of hours for the analysis of participants' cases. Since there were about 40 participants, it is clear that all cases here can not be disassembled. Therefore, a special democracy was imposed: collection of cases, voting, calculation of results by an authoritative commission represented by us with slavapankratov .
As a result, the following situation got into the top of the most interesting cases. Case real, taken from the real experience of our students:
')
Disclaimer from slavapankratov colleague. Please note that after the actual situation that is used to design the case is processed by the trainer (depersonalized, overgrown with formal introductory, reinforced by the facts, without which its solution would be impossible), it may acquire "plastic taste": that is, it may seem a little artificial and invented. Analysis of a problem situation in itself always carries a certain percentage of distortions of reality, and a case, as a model for a time segment of the real world, can seem artificial and far-fetched. We suggest that you consider this situation as a training simulator, and the situation itself as a sparring partner who, unlike a punching bag, can give up, but it is not his task to knock out the trainee.
Why did we make this introduction?
Any trainer, if he conducts trainings, and not just reads a piece of lecture or retells a memorized seminar, is faced with the resistance of the student. As soon as the real experience of the student gets into a situation of critical assessment by the coach or group, the person is inclined to defend him. In the past, nothing can be fixed, but to admit that once you were wrong before, even if it was a long time ago and it would seem that it does not matter, we don’t love. In other words, if in a learning situation a student recognizes himself and sees that previously he could behave in a situation that was not the most logical or effective way, a defense arises: “Some kind of case is obviously wrong” or “Yes, what can they know about your case on real life? !! "or (the most favorite for coaches)" It was you who gave me a special case to slip a curve in order to mock. " Why favorite? This is a good marker for a running reflection, internal discussion in the student's head. And reflection is the first step in learning.
So if you have such defensive reactions in the process of reasoning over the solution of this case or simply wanting to search around the guilty (in the case itself, in the comments of other participants or in the words of the authors of this analysis) you should not keep it in yourself: just went reflection. Probably, we suggested you the idea that earlier in your experience you could not behave quite correctly. Congratulations, you have joined the case, and the learning process has started.
Go!
There is a project team: programmers, testers, analysts and a project manager for whom we invite you to play in this case. That is, you will need to design a model of the behavior of the project manager for a sustainable solution to the situation.
The project team is developing a large IT system that is delivered to the customer in monthly iterations. That is, before the beginning of each month, the team selects and estimates the amount of work that it can deliver to the customer. The work includes the analysis of requirements for the iteration, development or revision of the system code, testing the new version of the system, its deployment and configuration at the customer’s stand. The first day or two of each month the team spends analyzing and evaluating the requirements, which can be developed and tested within 1 calendar month. Work with the customer is about a year, at the moment, taking into account public holidays and holiday seasons, the customer was delivered 10 versions of the product.
The customer does not just accept the intermediate version of the system and waits for the next one, but uses the supplied software to automate a significant area of business processes. On the customer's infrastructure in the system are real data. If errors or delays occur in the delivery, deployment or operation of a new version of the system, the work of a large division of the customer’s company will lose approximately 300-400 users' working hours.
Despite the streamlined procedure for estimating the amount of iteration, the project team in 4 iterations out of 10 disrupted the delivery time of the new version of the product (from 1 to 4-5 business days). The reasons for the breakdown are different every time: a problem with the deployment and updating of software on the customer's infrastructure; critical errors that occurred that caused corrections and re-delivery; changes in the composition of the implemented requirements and underestimation of the timing for the implementation of changes. After a “problem” supply, it was not possible to identify any one systemic problem in retrospect. The consequences of failure to meet customer’s business terms are also different each time: the problem is the customer’s simple unit, and not just the fact that the delivery date is delayed.
The last 2 deadlines for delivery occurred in a row in two months, one by one. The failure of the launch of the new version for 3 days led to the downtime of all 400 employees of the customer’s unit for a period of 3 days. The angry customer in the ultimatum form demanded that the management of your company take measures to restore order in the project.
The technical director of the company, in which the project team works, called the main character of the case and informed him of the following management decision:
If the next iteration, at the beginning of which the project is now located, will be disrupted by deadlines, then in order to establish discipline and create an indicative precedent for the other 15 project teams of the company (more than 1,000 employees work in your company) the project will be reformatted according to the composition of people and the timing of future deliveries.
The decision was announced as final. The technical director, possibly under pressure in negotiations with the customer’s representative, promised to execute this decision in case of failure of the delivery dates and can no longer cancel it.
Put yourself in the position of the project team manager, to whom such a management decision was delivered by his superiors, and try to answer a few questions:
1. To speak or not to speak to the team about the management decision?
2.1 If to speak, what exactly and in what words to speak to the team or its individual members?
2.2 If you do not tell the team, what will be your next steps? Will you work? Will not be? How will you lead the project? What are the consequences of your chosen behavior model?
The team works smoothly. There are no obvious outsiders or stars in the team. Previous problems were not systemic in nature. Earlier, you have already voiced the team that the deadline may affect the future of the project: in your company's practice there were depremirations of employees and the dismissal of both managers and engineers. But the breakdowns were repeated. There are always explanations. The situation has not changed, and now the customer has decided to put pressure on the company, whose services he uses.
Take a break. Think calmly as much as you need. Register your decision and clearly fix your decision: to speak or not to tell the team about the dismissal in case of failure of the iteration time? If you decide to “hint” the team about the consequences, write down the formulations and think how they can be perceived by the team. You have already voiced these comments earlier. Will people work differently after your words this time?
[PAUSE FOR INDIVIDUAL CO.)
Before we offer you our solution, let us once again recall that we are in the framework of an educational model that cannot take into account all the factors that will affect the sustainability of the decision. In real life, the solution may be much simpler or not feasible at all.
Usually the “spherical manager in a vacuum” is the servant of three masters:
All these things are tightly interconnected. If the decision does well to the business, but the team dies, fulfilling it, then what happens to the reputation of the manager? In the eyes of the business, everything can be good, but in the eyes of the team ... And we have a sooo small market, after 5 years of work there are friends in all companies.
If the decision makes the team well, but the interests of the business are not taken into account, then what will happen to the reputation of the manager?
Let's return to our case. When designing a solution, we try to take into account the most obvious factors that influence the stability of the solution and may lead to a loss of control over the situation. That is, an unsustainable decision, this decision in which the team manager will not be able to influence the situation, it will go out of its control and go into a phase that the manager did not want to allow.
To put it simply, those who turned out to be behind the wheel of a car, the driver sees that the curve is covered with ice and decides what to do to take the car out of a turn. Unstable will be the solution that leads the car into a ditch. If the driver puts the car into a controlled drift and nicely takes the car out of the turn, the decision is considered to be working, but applicable in a confined space - the driver is a professional, ready to act in a similar situation and has done so many times. "Lucky", as a solution is considered as an accident.
Speaking of the conditions of the case - the decision to fly to the customer and by blackmail or threats to convince him to cancel the decision and influence the technical director is taken as risky. “And we have wonderful relations with him and we have a drink together” - an amendment with which you change the conditions of the case and decide it in your reality, and not in the conditions of our training simulator.
At the same time, for our part, we can accidentally change the reality of the case with our own decision option or with the assumptions made. The rules are for you and for us. Both we and you have the right to say that the decision makes a change in the initial conditions of the case.
Ready?
We will present some very unstable, in our opinion, solutions that most often come from students in trainings and our online programs. Analyzing these answers, we, at the same time, give examples of what we call the “non-sustainable solution”.
Let's go through the first fork of the decision tree.
The arguments are different: not to sow panic, so that no one falls off himself (as soon as he learns about the impending threat), so that there is no split in the team (who will they fire?), So that no one goes instead of working on his tasks to look for another job and so on.
From the point of view of systems theory, the manager assumes the risk of the decision “We do not speak”, leaves the team without information and hopes (you can’t find another word) that “Everything will settle somehow.” And hope is not the most sustainable management plan ...
What is most often not taken into account when designing the solution of this case?
It is often not considered that information about the threat of dismissal will be known to the team in the middle of the iteration. At the same time, in fact, in the real world, the model of which we are still considering, information travels around the company in the most unexpected ways in addition to the official ones: “You are just anyone ... but you will soon be cut, you look at your job” (as an option, people worked or studied earlier together), “I heard you will have short cuts soon, can we come to our project? Just a vacancy has opened ”(a case of internal competition for resources between the managers of one company),“ These are from project A and completely gone nuts with such delays! I’ll go half if they try to soak it again! ”(An angry technical secretary who confides in one of the trusted managers or just outsiders’ ears: secretaries, HR, employees from the staff just walking along the corridor).
We work in companies that are a plate of noodles, where communication between people exists regardless of the staffing table and oral communications (aka gossip), there is practically no real possibility to manage).
What will the manager do in a situation when he did not tell the team about a possible dismissal, and the information leaks into the team? Say you didn't know? To say that he hid so as not to sow panic? People can not live in uncertainty. And the realization that the manager, due to lack of awareness or (even worse!) Deliberately concealed information from the team about the common fate, is more likely to break the trust of the team-manager. Finishing the project and working further in such a situation will be very, very difficult for the manager.
This is not a change in the conditions of the case: we do not say that they will definitely find out. We check the decision "Do not tell the team" for sustainability. Sustainability is determined by the ability to answer the question “What if?” And be able to continue the implementation of the solution in case of the occurrence of such a risk.
What are the risks of this option? In the TV series Interns, there was a wonderful series when Dr. Bykov spoke to 4 interns: “At the end of the day I will dismiss one of you. I have not decided who. Yeah, that's it! Dismissed, then the most nakosyachit! "
What happens next? Then people are trying in every way to be in the group of those whom the punishing right hand does not touch. Nonworking games come to work reality: the setup, the conscious decision not to share information with other colleagues, etc.
Will the iteration be completed on time under these conditions? Hardly. People think not about that. how to pass something in time. but about not being half the losers. Energy is not directed there.
Wait, you say. Do not say no. It is also impossible to speak. How is that? Where is the solution? ..
As a result of an hour-long discussion with 40 managers, we then came up with the following option, which still seems to us the most stable one:
Step number 1. At the general meeting with the team to describe the situation. And inform that if the iteration is not surrendered. then everyone will be fired. And me. as a manager, first of all.
Comment: not "half the team", and all. In order not to give birth to "games" in the team. If someone somewhere hears that half of the team will seem to fulfill, the manager can always object: according to my data, at least I’ll leave everyone.
At the same time, the very threat of dismissal may affect different people in different ways. Someone may immediately start looking for work, which increases the risk of a person leaving in the middle of an iteration. Therefore, we need:
Step number 2. Immediately at the general meeting, to say literally the following: “I understand that this information can be perceived differently. If you decide for yourself to leave before the end of the iteration - a big request in the next 2-3 days tell me about it. After our meeting, I would like to meet one-on-one with each of you in order to understand what you think about this. ”
Step number 3 , necessary to instill confidence in the doubters. At the end of the general meeting, say: “Friends, in order to minimize the risk of our missing in time, I propose to aim 5 days earlier. Just to err. Moreover, every day we will all get together and see the big picture of how we are going - we are in time or not in time. ”
Step number 4. Meet 1: 1 meetings with each team member. And if someone is going to leave, then report it to everyone in a couple of days, and get together again and decide how we will cope without leaving.
The team will have time to pass the release, it will not have time - life will show. But in terms of the three components:
This solution seems to be the most sustainable of all the options. You can say: wait, so the manager that you need to be able to lie? Lie for good? May be. At least, the manager does not know exactly what will happen if the project is not delivered on time. And IMHO sometimes it is better to thicken the paint and insure, especially since there is always the opportunity to say that you did not have a clear certainty that they would fire half of it.
Well, behind our shoulders with you was the second case. We will be glad to hear your opinion - both positive and constructive.
And we, in parallel with the launch of the closed case of the Systemic People Club, will continue to publish difficult situations in Habré.
About four years ago we held in Moscow the third seminar from our series of then-seminars. To diversify the program, we decided to allocate a couple of hours for the analysis of participants' cases. Since there were about 40 participants, it is clear that all cases here can not be disassembled. Therefore, a special democracy was imposed: collection of cases, voting, calculation of results by an authoritative commission represented by us with slavapankratov .
As a result, the following situation got into the top of the most interesting cases. Case real, taken from the real experience of our students:
')
Case "dismiss half the team"
Disclaimer from slavapankratov colleague. Please note that after the actual situation that is used to design the case is processed by the trainer (depersonalized, overgrown with formal introductory, reinforced by the facts, without which its solution would be impossible), it may acquire "plastic taste": that is, it may seem a little artificial and invented. Analysis of a problem situation in itself always carries a certain percentage of distortions of reality, and a case, as a model for a time segment of the real world, can seem artificial and far-fetched. We suggest that you consider this situation as a training simulator, and the situation itself as a sparring partner who, unlike a punching bag, can give up, but it is not his task to knock out the trainee.
Why did we make this introduction?
Any trainer, if he conducts trainings, and not just reads a piece of lecture or retells a memorized seminar, is faced with the resistance of the student. As soon as the real experience of the student gets into a situation of critical assessment by the coach or group, the person is inclined to defend him. In the past, nothing can be fixed, but to admit that once you were wrong before, even if it was a long time ago and it would seem that it does not matter, we don’t love. In other words, if in a learning situation a student recognizes himself and sees that previously he could behave in a situation that was not the most logical or effective way, a defense arises: “Some kind of case is obviously wrong” or “Yes, what can they know about your case on real life? !! "or (the most favorite for coaches)" It was you who gave me a special case to slip a curve in order to mock. " Why favorite? This is a good marker for a running reflection, internal discussion in the student's head. And reflection is the first step in learning.
So if you have such defensive reactions in the process of reasoning over the solution of this case or simply wanting to search around the guilty (in the case itself, in the comments of other participants or in the words of the authors of this analysis) you should not keep it in yourself: just went reflection. Probably, we suggested you the idea that earlier in your experience you could not behave quite correctly. Congratulations, you have joined the case, and the learning process has started.
Go!
Situation
There is a project team: programmers, testers, analysts and a project manager for whom we invite you to play in this case. That is, you will need to design a model of the behavior of the project manager for a sustainable solution to the situation.
The project team is developing a large IT system that is delivered to the customer in monthly iterations. That is, before the beginning of each month, the team selects and estimates the amount of work that it can deliver to the customer. The work includes the analysis of requirements for the iteration, development or revision of the system code, testing the new version of the system, its deployment and configuration at the customer’s stand. The first day or two of each month the team spends analyzing and evaluating the requirements, which can be developed and tested within 1 calendar month. Work with the customer is about a year, at the moment, taking into account public holidays and holiday seasons, the customer was delivered 10 versions of the product.
The customer does not just accept the intermediate version of the system and waits for the next one, but uses the supplied software to automate a significant area of business processes. On the customer's infrastructure in the system are real data. If errors or delays occur in the delivery, deployment or operation of a new version of the system, the work of a large division of the customer’s company will lose approximately 300-400 users' working hours.
Despite the streamlined procedure for estimating the amount of iteration, the project team in 4 iterations out of 10 disrupted the delivery time of the new version of the product (from 1 to 4-5 business days). The reasons for the breakdown are different every time: a problem with the deployment and updating of software on the customer's infrastructure; critical errors that occurred that caused corrections and re-delivery; changes in the composition of the implemented requirements and underestimation of the timing for the implementation of changes. After a “problem” supply, it was not possible to identify any one systemic problem in retrospect. The consequences of failure to meet customer’s business terms are also different each time: the problem is the customer’s simple unit, and not just the fact that the delivery date is delayed.
The last 2 deadlines for delivery occurred in a row in two months, one by one. The failure of the launch of the new version for 3 days led to the downtime of all 400 employees of the customer’s unit for a period of 3 days. The angry customer in the ultimatum form demanded that the management of your company take measures to restore order in the project.
The technical director of the company, in which the project team works, called the main character of the case and informed him of the following management decision:
If the next iteration, at the beginning of which the project is now located, will be disrupted by deadlines, then in order to establish discipline and create an indicative precedent for the other 15 project teams of the company (more than 1,000 employees work in your company) the project will be reformatted according to the composition of people and the timing of future deliveries.
The decision was announced as final. The technical director, possibly under pressure in negotiations with the customer’s representative, promised to execute this decision in case of failure of the delivery dates and can no longer cancel it.
Put yourself in the position of the project team manager, to whom such a management decision was delivered by his superiors, and try to answer a few questions:
Questions:
1. To speak or not to speak to the team about the management decision?
2.1 If to speak, what exactly and in what words to speak to the team or its individual members?
2.2 If you do not tell the team, what will be your next steps? Will you work? Will not be? How will you lead the project? What are the consequences of your chosen behavior model?
Additional data
The team works smoothly. There are no obvious outsiders or stars in the team. Previous problems were not systemic in nature. Earlier, you have already voiced the team that the deadline may affect the future of the project: in your company's practice there were depremirations of employees and the dismissal of both managers and engineers. But the breakdowns were repeated. There are always explanations. The situation has not changed, and now the customer has decided to put pressure on the company, whose services he uses.
Take a break. Think calmly as much as you need. Register your decision and clearly fix your decision: to speak or not to tell the team about the dismissal in case of failure of the iteration time? If you decide to “hint” the team about the consequences, write down the formulations and think how they can be perceived by the team. You have already voiced these comments earlier. Will people work differently after your words this time?
[PAUSE FOR INDIVIDUAL CO.)
Before we offer you our solution, let us once again recall that we are in the framework of an educational model that cannot take into account all the factors that will affect the sustainability of the decision. In real life, the solution may be much simpler or not feasible at all.
Usually the “spherical manager in a vacuum” is the servant of three masters:
- Business - the interests of the customer, company, leadership
- Team interests
- Own authority (informal and formal) and reputation
All these things are tightly interconnected. If the decision does well to the business, but the team dies, fulfilling it, then what happens to the reputation of the manager? In the eyes of the business, everything can be good, but in the eyes of the team ... And we have a sooo small market, after 5 years of work there are friends in all companies.
If the decision makes the team well, but the interests of the business are not taken into account, then what will happen to the reputation of the manager?
An example from real life. Not so long ago we communicated with a participant in our annual program , who, among the real prospects, considered switching to another company with his team. Regardless of the situation, this is a very unstable step. Because the owners of another company can go for it to get a team, but will they want to continue to work with the manager who takes the team away from the companies? Big question ...
Let's return to our case. When designing a solution, we try to take into account the most obvious factors that influence the stability of the solution and may lead to a loss of control over the situation. That is, an unsustainable decision, this decision in which the team manager will not be able to influence the situation, it will go out of its control and go into a phase that the manager did not want to allow.
To put it simply, those who turned out to be behind the wheel of a car, the driver sees that the curve is covered with ice and decides what to do to take the car out of a turn. Unstable will be the solution that leads the car into a ditch. If the driver puts the car into a controlled drift and nicely takes the car out of the turn, the decision is considered to be working, but applicable in a confined space - the driver is a professional, ready to act in a similar situation and has done so many times. "Lucky", as a solution is considered as an accident.
Speaking of the conditions of the case - the decision to fly to the customer and by blackmail or threats to convince him to cancel the decision and influence the technical director is taken as risky. “And we have wonderful relations with him and we have a drink together” - an amendment with which you change the conditions of the case and decide it in your reality, and not in the conditions of our training simulator.
At the same time, for our part, we can accidentally change the reality of the case with our own decision option or with the assumptions made. The rules are for you and for us. Both we and you have the right to say that the decision makes a change in the initial conditions of the case.
Ready?
We will present some very unstable, in our opinion, solutions that most often come from students in trainings and our online programs. Analyzing these answers, we, at the same time, give examples of what we call the “non-sustainable solution”.
Let's go through the first fork of the decision tree.
Option number 1. The team does not say about the consequences.
The arguments are different: not to sow panic, so that no one falls off himself (as soon as he learns about the impending threat), so that there is no split in the team (who will they fire?), So that no one goes instead of working on his tasks to look for another job and so on.
From the point of view of systems theory, the manager assumes the risk of the decision “We do not speak”, leaves the team without information and hopes (you can’t find another word) that “Everything will settle somehow.” And hope is not the most sustainable management plan ...
What is most often not taken into account when designing the solution of this case?
It is often not considered that information about the threat of dismissal will be known to the team in the middle of the iteration. At the same time, in fact, in the real world, the model of which we are still considering, information travels around the company in the most unexpected ways in addition to the official ones: “You are just anyone ... but you will soon be cut, you look at your job” (as an option, people worked or studied earlier together), “I heard you will have short cuts soon, can we come to our project? Just a vacancy has opened ”(a case of internal competition for resources between the managers of one company),“ These are from project A and completely gone nuts with such delays! I’ll go half if they try to soak it again! ”(An angry technical secretary who confides in one of the trusted managers or just outsiders’ ears: secretaries, HR, employees from the staff just walking along the corridor).
We work in companies that are a plate of noodles, where communication between people exists regardless of the staffing table and oral communications (aka gossip), there is practically no real possibility to manage).
What will the manager do in a situation when he did not tell the team about a possible dismissal, and the information leaks into the team? Say you didn't know? To say that he hid so as not to sow panic? People can not live in uncertainty. And the realization that the manager, due to lack of awareness or (even worse!) Deliberately concealed information from the team about the common fate, is more likely to break the trust of the team-manager. Finishing the project and working further in such a situation will be very, very difficult for the manager.
This is not a change in the conditions of the case: we do not say that they will definitely find out. We check the decision "Do not tell the team" for sustainability. Sustainability is determined by the ability to answer the question “What if?” And be able to continue the implementation of the solution in case of the occurrence of such a risk.
Option number 2. Tell the team: “If we don’t manage, half will be dispersed.”
What are the risks of this option? In the TV series Interns, there was a wonderful series when Dr. Bykov spoke to 4 interns: “At the end of the day I will dismiss one of you. I have not decided who. Yeah, that's it! Dismissed, then the most nakosyachit! "
What happens next? Then people are trying in every way to be in the group of those whom the punishing right hand does not touch. Nonworking games come to work reality: the setup, the conscious decision not to share information with other colleagues, etc.
Will the iteration be completed on time under these conditions? Hardly. People think not about that. how to pass something in time. but about not being half the losers. Energy is not directed there.
Option number 3. Is there any?
Wait, you say. Do not say no. It is also impossible to speak. How is that? Where is the solution? ..
As a result of an hour-long discussion with 40 managers, we then came up with the following option, which still seems to us the most stable one:
Step number 1. At the general meeting with the team to describe the situation. And inform that if the iteration is not surrendered. then everyone will be fired. And me. as a manager, first of all.
Comment: not "half the team", and all. In order not to give birth to "games" in the team. If someone somewhere hears that half of the team will seem to fulfill, the manager can always object: according to my data, at least I’ll leave everyone.
At the same time, the very threat of dismissal may affect different people in different ways. Someone may immediately start looking for work, which increases the risk of a person leaving in the middle of an iteration. Therefore, we need:
Step number 2. Immediately at the general meeting, to say literally the following: “I understand that this information can be perceived differently. If you decide for yourself to leave before the end of the iteration - a big request in the next 2-3 days tell me about it. After our meeting, I would like to meet one-on-one with each of you in order to understand what you think about this. ”
Step number 3 , necessary to instill confidence in the doubters. At the end of the general meeting, say: “Friends, in order to minimize the risk of our missing in time, I propose to aim 5 days earlier. Just to err. Moreover, every day we will all get together and see the big picture of how we are going - we are in time or not in time. ”
Step number 4. Meet 1: 1 meetings with each team member. And if someone is going to leave, then report it to everyone in a couple of days, and get together again and decide how we will cope without leaving.
The team will have time to pass the release, it will not have time - life will show. But in terms of the three components:
- Business
- Team
- Authority and trust
This solution seems to be the most sustainable of all the options. You can say: wait, so the manager that you need to be able to lie? Lie for good? May be. At least, the manager does not know exactly what will happen if the project is not delivered on time. And IMHO sometimes it is better to thicken the paint and insure, especially since there is always the opportunity to say that you did not have a clear certainty that they would fire half of it.
Well, behind our shoulders with you was the second case. We will be glad to hear your opinion - both positive and constructive.
And we, in parallel with the launch of the closed case of the Systemic People Club, will continue to publish difficult situations in Habré.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/253559/
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