Importance of Gauging and Maintaining Remote Team Health

Many companies and teams therein, are encountering what it means to work fully remote.  Companies have applied work from home (WFH) benefits for a variety of reasons such as WFH Fridays, WFH to accommodate home needs, and WFH for those who live a distance from the office, to name a few. When the coronavirus pandemic thrust itself into the human condition, it required drastic work-related measures.  One such measure is having full teams work from home. 

As companies are navigating unchartered territories with this virus, many are navigating what it means to provide WFH options. With working from home has become the new normal and with work not slowing down for many, how do you ensure the mental health and well-being of team employees?  

As employees work from home, many are stressed by the isolation from co-workers, friends, and extended family. Add to this, being forced into close quarters with spouses and children on a continuous basis adds further anxiety and stress. As past routines are disrupted and new routines are established, this causes physical and mental strain on team members.

With all of this isolation and change, it is more important than ever to gauge and maintain team health.  As a leader, what are some practical tips that you can do to help team members maintain their well-being? The answer revolves around experimenting with a variety of options.  What might work for one team may not work for others. The key is to get started, include some continuous activities, and some impromptu activities all focused on team health. Here are some ideas.      

Getting started

• Initiate and continually gauge the health of the team. This could be in the form of morning check-ins or online pulse surveys (e.g., 1-10 on how you are feeling). This helps you gauge when team health is a concern on not. Depending on what you learn, there may be continuous and impromptu things you can do. 

 Continuous

• Periodically ask the team via brainstorming ideas from the team as to what they need to maintain team health.  Soliciting ideas from them makes the team feel that you care.  
• Have virtual yoga mornings.  This can be initiated by either a professional yoga instructor or one of the team members that enjoys a leadership opportunity. Similarly, this could be a virtual walking morning.
• Provide flexibility in work hours.  As spouses and children are within the remote office (aka, home), flexible hours help relieve stress from juggling family schedules
• Set boundaries on work schedule. As the house becomes the “office”, it can be harder to escape the office and ‘shut off’. Ensure there are work hour boundaries set so team members feel they have relief.  
• Recommend employees connect with one other team member every day in a face-to-face manner via video conferencing.  This helps team members feel connected to one another in a visual manner.

 Impromptu

• Periodically apply a Wellness weekend.  This is effectively a long weekend where team members have Friday off to give them time to unwind beyond the normal 2-day weekend.
• Send care packages to team members. These packages do not have to be extensive and should be focused on highlighting appreciation.  This surprise also makes for a way to break the monotony of everyday life.

Visualizing your Team with the Team Constellation

Your team is real. It is made up of real people that support each other toward common goals. We often get so engrossed in our work that we forget the important connections and relationships across and beyond a team. What really is a team?  Emergn defines a team as having a shared purpose, compelling direction, complementary skills, shared responsibilities, and common performance goals. It is important to imprint the team in a visual way.  Equally important for a team to visual themselves is for those that support the team to be visually connected.  

One way to envision a team is through the visual Team Constellation.  The team constellation is a visual way to share who is on the team and who may contribute to the team.  The question is how to create the constellation? If you have a team room or area, you can construct one on a white board or on large poster paper, although in either case, I recommend using post-its to represent the people. I’ve had some teams print out small photos of their faces. For distributed teams, you can create a digital online constellation via a number of graphic or illustrative tools and place them on team sites or printed out so they can be shared.

I typically recommend a Team Constellation with three tiers as there are three levels of responsibility that typically are needed to embrace the team’s needs.  The first tier includes the core team who are committed to work directly on the product or service and meet the definition of team (in the first paragraph). They provide leadership for each increment, self-organize around the work, build the deliverables, and attend team ceremonies.

The second tier are the extended team that contribute to the team but are not fully committed. They may provide subject matter expertise in a specialized area or a missing temporary skill needed by the team to build the next increment. For work done in an increment, they should participate in any planning, stand-up, or demo related ceremonies.

The third tier are the stakeholders that support and advocate for the team.  Those in this tier, have an interest in seeing the team’s work become successful.  This will include providing sponsorship in terms of people and resources.  They help with communicating progress more broadly and may attend team demos to observe what is being build and may provide feedback. They may also help the team remove roadblocks beyond the team level.

Consider taking time to visualize your team via a team constellation. Take a moment to adapt the definitions of each tier. I suggest making it publicly available so that others understand those that work on and support the team. It can also help you solidify what it really means to be a team.  

Ways to Mitigate the Challenges of moving to Self-Management

If you are considering Self-Management, first you learn what it is.  Then it’s important to understand the difference between Self-Organization and Self-Management. Next you should gain insight on some of the steps to put Self-Management into action. This article, the fourth in this four-part series on Self-Management focuses on the number of challenges you may encounter when moving toward self-management. Let’s explore some of those challenges.

Lacking Management Context

One of the concepts of self-management is that you operate as if there are no managers.  However, this is much harder than it seems.  Most employees do not have the working context of a manager.  Who do you contact for finance questions or issues?  How do you begin the interview process? How do you escalate issues? Do you have enough context to make decisions that cross the border of your team? What do you do to mitigate the lack of context?

• Pick the brain of your manager on the various topics such as budgeting, human resource, hiring, expenses, and any area that they have had responsibility. 
• Become aware of oddities and exceptions on how things work within an organization and what has been tried.     
• Decide who on the team will be the new contact for different areas.  The contact may rotate.
• Connect with and meet with those contacts from other departments.

Unfamiliar with Structures, Processes, and Policies

Within each company, there are often a maze of processes and policies.  Most employees are exposed to only a small number. When becoming self-managed, those on the team must become more familiar with the array of processes and policies. In addition, when there are reorganizations or a change in structure in different departments, a manager typically learns what this means.  What do you do to mitigate this unfamiliarity with structures, processes, and policies?

• After a reorganization or change in structure, take time to fully learn what the change is and how this may impact your team. 
• Take time to learn the processes and policies within the organization.  This will vary from country to country.  Consider doing this as a group. 
• There may be unspoken policies.  Ask your manager if they are aware of any and have them explained.   

Not respecting Knowledge and Experience

There is often a misunderstanding that now that you are self-managed, that everyone is the same.  Self-Management within a team context does not mean everyone is created equal.  You may have some people who have knowledge and experience in self-management and some who have none.  What do you do to mitigate this lack of knowledge and experience?

• If you have little or no knowledge or experience, be honest about it.  Be open to continuously learning as self-management is a journey.  Explore, learn, and adapt.
• Be willing to take guidance from those that have experience.  Recognize and value others’ experiences.
• As moving toward self-management is hard, be honest if you (as a team) are not ready to assume some of the responsibilities early one. 

Lack of discretion about your Self-Management

It is important to understand that few teams will have the unique responsibility and ability to direct their own future with few constraints that self-management brings.  This can make other teams envious. You can find yourself creating problems if you share this too broadly.  What do you do to mitigate the concern of discretion?  

• Act with discretion.  Only share your self-management experience when asked. 
• If a team is exploring the idea of self-organization or self-management, then consider sharing those portions of the topic that may benefit them. 

Confusion around Communications and Stakeholder Management

When there is a manager, there is often communication both from the outside to the manager and the manager to the team.  There is a more complex pattern of communication when everyone from the team is involved.  Who gets the communication?  Who do you communicate with?  How do you solicit feedback from your stakeholders?  What do you do to mitigate the confusion around communication and stakeholder management?

• Create a communication strategy both amongst the team and outside of the team.  This ensures that everyone gets the information in a timely manner and no one is missed.
• Be mindful what you communicate outside of the team.  A manager often adapts the message depending on what information is to be shared so it is delivered in the right tone and balance.  Learn to adapt the message.
• Identify who communicates to whom outside the team.  This may be one person, a rotation, or different people depending on the topic at hand. 

Additional Workload on the Team

When moving to self-management, the team absorbs the responsibility of the manager. This shouldn’t be taken lightly and injects a whole full-time equivalent amount of work onto the team as the manager’s responsibilities are transitioned to the team.  Where does all of this work go?  It gets shared across and amongst the team.  What do you do to mitigate the additional workload?

• If the team already has enough work to fill the number of people on the team, then they will need to reduce the workload in order to absorb the new responsibilities of the manager when moving to self-management.
• Consider creating a percentage of slack time to be able to adapt to the peaks of activity that may be needed.
• Add the manager’s activities as real and visible work on the team backlog

Lack of ownership

There can be an illusion that in self-management that everyone owns the work. While this is generally true, it is misunderstood. There is a saying that ”When everyone owns the thing, no one owns the thing.” There will be a need to have theme owners of work to ensure the work is adequately being guided with appropriate strategy. What do you do to mitigate the lack of ownership?

• Identify theme or epic owners who understand the work more closely, who prioritize the work in increments, who get feedback, and who craft the strategy.
• Add the owner as the primary contact for the work. Anyone can own a particular activity relating to the theme or epic. 
• While there should be owners of buckets of work, input from other team members should be continuously collected. 

Increase Team Conflict

A manager has a certain hierarchical position.  When the manager moves toward the background, team members need to step up.  This can cause conflict when some personality types jump at the chance at leadership roles and some that shrink from it.  However, this doesn’t mean that the extroverts should automatically get the opportunities or are better at the responsibilities.  Who enacts the leadership roles now that the manager is not around?  What do you do to mitigate the potential increase in team conflict?

• Allocate thinking time to discuss how to manage potential conflict.  This may include ways to negotiate leadership opportunities and rotations.
• Work on conflict-management, problem solving, and decision-making soft skills as a team.  
• Build team knowledge and experience in giving and receiving feedback. 
• Recognize that you may be re-entering the forming and storming phases (per Tuckman’s model) and team-forming activities may be needed.   

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It is important to learn about the challenges of self-management so that you don’t stumble into these problems. Instead, proactively be prepared. Consider adding self-management challenges as part of your self-management education.  Also, as you embark on your self-management journey, consider regular retrospectives so that you can understand what is going well and what can be improved.  Good luck!

Consider reading the rest of the Self-Management series:

• What is Self-Management and is it good for Agile - Part 1
• The Difference between Self-Management and Self-Organization - Part 2
• Putting Self-Management into Action - Part 3

Being Agile in HR with Peer Recruiting

A collaboration by Alexa Fuhren and Mario Moreira

Does a manager know better than a team who fits best to a role? How can we recruit the right people that fit best to our Agile organization? The answer is, by being Agile ourselves, particularly in the recruiting process!

In a more traditional working environment if there is a vacancy in a team, the manager approaches the recruiter, shares the requirements of the role, hands over the responsibility for the recruiting process to the HR department, and will be involved again when interviewing and selecting candidates. The recruiter is responsible for creating a job ad, posting it in appropriate recruiting channels, pre-selecting candidates, inviting the manager to interviews and making an offer to the selected candidate. The team usually plays a minor role in selecting the candidate.

Many teams in Agile operate with a self-organizing model.  This model includes much more team ownership, autonomy, as well as responsibility and accountability for all team members than traditionally operating teams. In self-organizing models, the concept of peer recruiting can be applied where the team should play a much stronger role in selecting the right candidate that fits best to the team. Due to a better person-team fit, a reduction of early employee turnover could be a desired outcome.

If teams are responsible for selecting new team members, this will change the role of the recruiter from owning the recruiting process to supporting the process and coaching the team. Depending on the knowledge and experience of the team, the recruiter will be more or rather less involved in selecting the right candidate.

Self-organizing teams can be responsible for the whole recruiting process and accountable for hiring the right candidate. It starts with creating a (new) job profile for the vacancy. The Recruitment Coach will challenge the team to figure out which profile is needed to increase their current and future team performance. When creating a job ad, the Recruitment Coach can give advice on how to make it compelling and will provide templates that are in line with corporate design.

Team members can post the job ad on job boards and in their social media channels (LinkedIn, Xing, Facebook, chatrooms, private networks). After pre-selecting the candidates based on previously defined criteria, the team invites the selected candidates for interviews, roles plays, presentations etc. They can choose to ask the manager or recruiter to interview the candidates. The recruiter’s role will be to train the team on interview techniques and how to avoid evaluation errors like stereotyping, the halo effect or the Pygmalion effect etc.

Implementing peer recruiting means moving the decision to the people who know best who fits to their teams. It helps to speed up the recruiting process by reducing long decision making processes with managers and HR.

What is in it for the company?

• Faster decisions due to less interactions with HR and the manager
• Higher team commitment
• Less turnover in the first 6 months of employment due to a better company-person fit
• Recruiter can focus on strategic work, e.g. employer branding, building networks etc., and become a valuable coach for the recruiting processes

What is in it for the candidate?

• Candidate experiences an Agile culture right from the first contact with the company
• Candidate gets to know the colleagues he will closely work with
• Job interview at eye level with team members instead of the potential manager

Peer recruiting shifts the recruiter’s role to a coach who supports the business in making hiring decisions faster, selecting candidates that fit best to the company and lowering the early turnover rate. Enabling the team to select new team members increase their autonomy which can lead to higher team commitment and higher team performance.

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Learn more about Alexa Fuhren at: https://de.linkedin.com/in/alexa-fuhren-b745843/de

Mario Moreira writes more about Agile and HR in his book "The Agile Enterprise" in Chapter 21 "Reinventing HR for Agile"

Pokémon Go to Agile Go

Pokémon Go is an augmented-reality game that recently launched in Australia, New Zealand, United States, Germany and a number of other countries. In a nutshell, you search for Pokemon in the Poké world in your actual, geographical location, which you can explore by physically walking around.

Allow me to introduce you to my newly invented game called Agile Go.  Like Pokémon Go, Agile Go is a reality based game in which you search for people within your “Agile World” (aka, your company) that are exhibiting Agile behaviors aligned with the Agile values and principles.  Take a picture of them and tag it with “Agile Go”.  In Pokémon Go, you capture pokemon.  In Agile Go, you capture the moment where people are exhibiting Agile behavior.  What Agile behaviors should you look for?  Here are some real time scenarios to look for:

• Business and development collaborating together
• Product Owner or Team welcoming change to requirements
• Teams self-organizing around the work
• Team or Product Owner demonstrating an iteration of work
• Product Owner getting feedback from actual customers
• Team member applying a secondary skills to help others 
• Anyone applying face-to-face communication 
• Team identifying work not needed during grooming 
• Anyone completing an action for improvement 
• Manager or anyone removing an impediment to progress

If you see someone exhibiting any of these Agile behaviors or others you deem as aligning with the Agile values and principles, take a picture of them, write the Agile behavior they are exhibiting, and tag it with the “Agile Go” logo (see below).  Then share the photograph with them, letting them know that you appreciate them exhibiting positive Agile behaviors! Even consider tweeting their picture with the #agilego hashtag.  Go Agile!

© Agile Go All rights reserved. Anyone may use the Agile Go logo for non profit and non revenue basis

Empty Customer Chairs – Illustrating the Absence of Customer Participation

Once upon a time, there was a company that said it was customer focused.  They used Agile methods to incrementally build software. At the end of an iteration, each team within the company would conduct a demo session.  The feedback from the demonstrations would be used to adapt the product toward what was deemed as customer value.  When the demo was investigated, it was learned that there were no actual customers or end-users in the demo. The question that may then be posed is if there are no customers in the demos, then what are the teams adapting too? 

What appears to be a challenge to some companies who say they are customer-focused or Agile, is how to successfully construct a functional demo.  The short answer is that customers or at least the end-users must attend the demo.  Of course this is more easily said than done.  The long answer is to establish a the Agile Customer Feedback Vision.  This vision is a strategy for identifying the right customers to attend, applying personas that represent the various customer groups, establishing feedback sessions throughout the work, and then motivating the customers to attend the feedback sessions. 

In the meantime, how do you highlight the problem of the missing customers?  Certainly those in the company understand that gaining customer feedback is important to the success of a product.  Even when providing companies with the mechanics of a customer feedback vision, customers are still found missing from the demos.  Why is that?  Maybe it's important to illustrate the obvious, that customers are indeed missing from the demos.    

One way to illustrate the obvious to companies and their teams is by applying the Empty Customer Chairs technique.   The Empty Customer Chairs is a visual way to highlight the absence of customers at a demo of the product.  The technique is applied by having 3 chairs that represent the customer at a demonstration. If customers attend the demo, they fill the chairs.  If no customers attend the demo, then the chairs remain obviously empty.  If the demo is held virtually, then 3 virtual screens are designated to customers.  If no customers attend, then those 3 screens remain empty. 

It would be hoped that a company or team realizes the benefit of customer participation.   Until such time, this technique can help you illustrates the obvious lack of customer participation that may have the intent to motivate the filling of those seats. At the end of the day, it is all about delivering customer value and this is a technique that can help you highlight the importance of this value through the absence of the customer.