Tiago Rosa
http://tiagorosa.postach.io/feed.xml
2023-12-08T13:06:10.548000Z
Werkzeug
The Empathy Imperative: Why Software Development Needs More Heart
https://tiagorosa.postach.io/post/the-empathy-imperative-why-software-development-needs-more-heart
2023-11-29T18:00:25.372000Z
2023-11-29T14:46:00Z
Tiago Rosa
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<div>In the early days of computers, creating software was often a solitary activity. I'm always amazed to read the story of how Chris Sawyer designed and developed the first Rollercoaster Tycoon mostly on his own, in Assembly. But today, software development is a much more complex activity that involves multiple different disciplines and their practitioners, who all have to join forces in order to build and evolve products that delight users and bring value to the company. Think about it: any modern software product contains the fingerprints of engineers, infrastructure specialists, quality analysts, product managers, product designers, delivery managers, marketing people, data scientists and engineers, and then the heads and leaders of those areas, executive leadership, and, of course, the users (through discovery, research, interviews, etc.). Each one of these actors comes from a different background, contributes to the product using a different set of skills, and has their own needs, wants and expectations.</div>
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<div>Building a technology-powered product that thrives in today's market is an amazingly elaborate endeavor. Anyone who's ever been a part of a successful product team will tell you that it requires an astonishing amount of hard work, dedication, creativity, resilience and collaboration. All of the people listed above need to constantly find ways to make their unique contributions valuable to the whole, and synergize towards an outcome that is coherent, valuable and performant.</div>
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<div>As a leader in the IT consulting business, I often train teams on how to be effective consultants. I tell them that, in order to succeed at a client engagement, a consultant needs to go beyond the technical confines of their role and embrace the development of soft skills such as listening, communication, negotiation, influence, synthesis, and so on. I try to inspire them to look beyond titles, roles and names and really get to know the people behind those. Establishing connections with people around you is a key part of teamwork, and the best product teams, those who have really "jelled", rely on those personal connections to make getting work done much easier and more efficient.</div>
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<div>However, I believe that behind all of the soft skills that you can possibly develop resides a single trait that is the catalyst for everything else. It's the glue that binds the others together. It's the enabling factor that allows you to truly relate to others, and makes all of your hard-earned skills glow with the light of honesty, truthfulness and authenticity. </div>
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<div>According to <a href="https://bard.google.com/">Bard</a>, <b>empathy</b> is "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. It is the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes and see the world from their perspective". When you empathize with someone, you try your best to simulate how that person will respond to what you're saying or doing. You strive to bring to your mind's working memory the other person's needs and wants, and consider them as important and valuable when deciding how to proceed. As a result, your actions and words are conceived in a way that takes their effect on others into account. It's the Golden Rule in its essence: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".</div>
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<div>Empathy is a true transformer of interpersonal relationships. As a result, it's also a deciding factor in the success of product teams and organizations. For instance: when developers empathize with other developers, they strive to write code that's clean and readable, to document any processes that might become obscure with time (and keep that documentation up to date), and provide feedback to each other in a way that is constructive. When designers empathize with developers, they create a design system that's consistent, has clear guidelines, and is built with technical feasibility in mind. When leaders empathize with their teams, they listen to their opinions, take them into account when making decisions, and strive to remove any blockers that might be in the way of them getting their best work done. Empathy is what enables a diverse group of individuals from different disciplines to align on a common path forward, where each person makes a set of concessions, trusting that the needs of others are as important as their own.</div>
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<div>But it doesn't stop there. Empathy is also a key factor in the success of the <i>product</i> itself. A product that delights users and, in return, produces value for the company is built and evolved with the user's needs, wants and pains as its north star. A great product vision communicates not only the multiple features in the product, or the results that it's going to achieve, but also how the user will benefit from it, which is the reason for its existence in the first place. In order to empathize with users, product teams need to spend time getting to know them, studying their behavior, and building a model of how the product will positively impact their lives by enabling them to solve problems in a better way. In other words, empathy is also the cornerstone of product discovery and its related activities (interviews, prototypes, A/B tests, MVPs, etc.).</div>
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<div>Empathy is also the precursor to trust. I can only trust someone when I believe my inputs are relevant to them, and that any decision they might make will take into account my perspective as well. On the other hand, it's impossible to trust someone who clearly doesn't care about me, doesn't listen to me, and acts in a way that ignores all of my wants or needs. Trust is earned through consistent display of reliability over time. Being reliable and keeping commitments made to others is, in essence, also a way to show empathy towards them. A commitment is something that, if broken, will bring about pain and resentment. No one wants pain and resentment, so naturally an empathetic person will avoid causing pain and resentment on other by following through on their commitments.</div>
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<div>The other (and sometimes overlooked) benefit of empathy is the expansion of the boundaries of our own mind. In order to empathize with someone, we need to incorporate their perspectives into our thinking. By doing so, we're also learning something about them that might be new to us. When I try to figure out what someone's constraints and incentives are, I may be able to use that context as another piece in the puzzle to help me better understand the big picture. This is especially true when we augment empathy with humility and open-mindedness. When I approach things with an open disposition, always considering the possibility that I might be wrong or missing something, I invite people to educate me on things that I don't know much about. As a result, I learn new things and expand my horizons.</div>
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<div>So, my pitch here is for all of us in the software industry: let's talk about empathy. As leaders, let's foster a culture in our companies where empathy is valued and rewarded. Let's review our processes and structures to ensure we're also empathetic as an organization: recruiting knows what staffing needs and sources candidates accordingly; staffing knows what product teams need, so they do their best to fill open roles with the right skillset, and so on. As individual contributors, let's do our best to get to know the people around us and what drives them. Let's incorporate those learnings into everything we do, and allow them to shape the way we interact on Zoom calls, write e-mails and review pull requests. As is the case with anything else, change can only start in the self.</div>
How to Grow Effective Teams
https://tiagorosa.postach.io/post/how-to-grow-effective-teams
2023-12-08T13:06:10.548000Z
2015-09-03T13:45:29Z
Tiago Rosa
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<div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans';"><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);">[Cross-posted on ThoughtWorks Insights: </span><a href="http://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/how-to-grow-effective-teams" rev="en_rl_none">http://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/how-to-grow-effective-teams</a>]</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);">The advent of the computer era is a major breakthrough in history. Mankind created amazing machines to handle the tasks our brains struggle with. Telling computers how to solve our problems has become a practice called Software Development. Over time, higher level languages have made programming less daunting. We realized the difference between a </span><i><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);">program</span></i><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"> and a </span><i><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);">product</span></i><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"> </span><sup><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);">[1]</span></sup><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);">. We built frameworks to avoid repetitive tasks. We discovered how important it is to automate tests and deploy as often as possible. In essence, we've made development more efficient, enabling it to tackle heavier, more intricate problems.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Moreover, we've turned software into a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_industry#Size_of_the_industry" rev="en_rl_none"><span style="color:rgb(238, 11, 119);">US$400bi industry</span></a>. Software is ubiquitous and <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/article/2502348/it-management/it-jobs-will-grow-22--through-2020--says-u-s-.html" rev="en_rl_none"><span style="color:rgb(238, 11, 119);">demand is increasing faster</span></a> than almost all other industries. Development firms have grown to the level of tens of thousands of employees. Back in the day, programming was a one-person hobby, almost a form of art. Now, it's carried out by large distributed teams across the globe. How did that massive upscaling happen so fast?</span></span></div><h3><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 26px;">The Real Challenge</span></span></h3><div><br/></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">DeMarco and Lister have presented us with a bold claim: the biggest challenge today in software development is not technology. What actually still stumps us is the people factor<sup>[2]</sup>. Software Engineering has tried-and-true answers for most of what enterprise systems need. How to enable several engineers working together to achieve effectiveness is still an open question. Attempts at answering it pop up every day from different schools of thought. The more we try, the more we realize a fundamental truth: people teams are complex.</span></span></div>
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<div style="background-color:initial;color:rgb(247, 143, 49);padding-left:120px;"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 32px;"><i>Grow, don't build</i></span></span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">We know the difference between a group and a team, and <a href="http://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/taking-care-what-matters-your-team" rev="en_rl_none"><span style="color:rgb(238, 11, 119);">what keeps the latter together</span></a>. Trust and interdependency are crucial for teamwork. But everything that begins to exist needs a cause. How can one lead a group of people into becoming not only a <i>team</i>, but an <i>effective</i> one?</span></span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">The Project Management discipline has discussed the subject of <i>team building</i> almost to exhaustion. Organizations are hungry for a checklist they can apply to <i>make</i> people work better together. The truth is that experience shows you can't actually <i>build</i> a team. <i>Building</i> implies you can make a big effort to create a stable foundation that stays up indefinitely. A more appropriate term for teams would be to <i>grow</i>, meaning to <i>cultivate</i>. You can work to make the soil fertile, and then hope a nice garden springs up.</span></span></div>
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<div><br/></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a7110274-2ce9-4bdb-87d7-635a7f2194f2/920ab5b0-027f-4324-b572-4d31123c7e5d/eca145e0-509c-42b2-abe9-ab7090a2db88.jpg" alt="How to Grow Teams" height="801px" width="1200px" style="--en-naturalWidth:1200; --en-naturalHeight:801;"/><h3><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 26px;">Gardening Tips</span></span></h3><div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Just like gardening, growing teams takes time and demands effort. This is especially true when we talk about development teams. The abstract nature of software adds to the natural intricacies of social interaction. The result only reinforces the main characteristic of people teams, which is complexity. People’s behavior is often unpredictable and influenced by many external factors<sup>[3]</sup>.</span></span></div>
<div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">From the perspective of the leader, this unpredictability can be intimidating. Traditional management presupposes measurement and control. But the fact that teams are complex does not mean they're impervious to improvement. As a leader, there are actions you can take to tend the garden - that is, create conditions in which your team can thrive. Here are a few suggestions:</span></span></div><h4><b><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">1) Know Thyself</span></span></b></h4><div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">A team consists not only of people, but also of interpersonal relationships. We all have our idiosyncrasies, and we can't simply leave them at the door when we come to work. Try to understand what motivates, frustrates and influences you. Learn to predict how you will react to certain situations. Encourage your team to do the same. Tools such as the <a href="http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/" rev="en_rl_none"><span style="color:rgb(238, 11, 119);">Myers-Briggs Type Indicator</span></a> (MBTI) and <a href="http://www.piworldwide.com/solutions/predictive-index-system/" rev="en_rl_none"><span style="color:rgb(238, 11, 119);">Predictive Index</span></a> (PI) can be useful. Have people sharing their results with others, as far as they're comfortable. This will enable people to shape their interactions to make the most out of each other.</span></span></div><h4><b><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">2) Act on Trust</span></span></b></h4><div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Trust is a word that's often abused and taken out of context. Trusting people is not only being able to predict how they'll behave. In the context of a team, trust has to do with belief and exposure<sup>[4]</sup>. When people believe other's motives are good and feel comfortable around them, there's trust. This requires people to be open, even vulnerable, to each other. People in a trusting team are confident on each other's abilities to get the job done. They also understand each other's weaknesses and are able to self-organize around them.</span></span></div>
<div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Fostering trust in a team can be as simple as starting a conversation. Inspire people to open up and share things about their personal lives. It's amazing what a quick round of <a href="http://www.funretrospectives.com/peer-introduction-game/" rev="en_rl_none"><span style="color:rgb(238, 11, 119);">peer introduction</span></a> can do to a group of people who've never met before. Help people identify their own strengths and weaknesses and bring those to the team. Avoid second-guessing people's abilities, but instead show you're confident they can do it. Take risks by delegating actual responsibilities to others. And, more importantly, be vulnerable yourself. Don't be afraid of admitting mistakes and letting your shortcomings show up. When a leader is transparent about her errors, people feel trusted to be open about themselves too.</span></span></div><h4><b><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">3) Discover Your Measurable Goal (and make it public)</span></span></b></h4><div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">When you're in a software project, several things can be desirable achievements. On time delivery, fewer bugs, high code coverage, low turnover, etc. Yet, it's also true that each project has to have a few objectives that are more important than the others. Otherwise, by "focusing on everything", you actually end up prioritizing nothing.</span></span></div>
<div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">To achieve success, a team needs to have clear alignment on what's their primary goal. They also need to be able to measure their progress towards that goal. Above all else, you can't set a team's goal from outside; you can only help them find it. And once you do, make use of boards, charts and other radiators to ensure it's crystal clear. Talk about it often, and make sure everyone knows precisely where they are towards it. To achieve true commitment, you need to ensure people are included in the decision process. We can only comfortably agree to something we had a say on, even if we don't get our way. Consensus can be dangerous, and healthy teams don't get paralyzed waiting for it.</span></span></div><h4><b><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">4) Encourage a Culture of High Standards</span></span></b></h4><div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">It's easy to fall for the trap of holding people accountable. Obviously, if you're a manager, part of your job is to align expectations and monitor results. However, true performance has little to do with pressure, and everything to do with motivation. You can hardly motivate anyone by telling them what </span></span><b><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">you</span></span></b><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"> want them to do. In any case, great teams don't need many external motivators. They self-motivate, as their people hold each other to high standards. When a team is committed to a shared, clear, measurable goal, people know they depend on each other to succeed. As a result, they know the quality of their work is contingent on the efficiency of their peers. And, if there's trust, they'll make their expectations on each other clear through healthy, constructive conflict.</span></span></div><h4><b><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">5) Rinse and Repeat</span></span></b></h4><div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">The "growing" metaphor is not only about providing the conditions for the team to thrive. If you grow a beautiful flower garden and then leave it alone, entropy can quickly bring it down. In a similar way, maintaining effectiveness in a team requires constant work. People can easily drift away from good team practices when work starts to pile on. Just as important as taking the steps above is to persist on them. If something hurts, do it more often. When practices become habits, habits can become principles. And when your team starts to act on these principles, there's no way it won't achieve effectiveness. </span></span></div><h3><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 26px;">References:</span></span></h3><ol><li><div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Brooks, Jr., Frederick P. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month" rev="en_rl_none"><span style="color:rgb(238, 11, 119);">The Mythical Man-Month</span></a>: Essays On Software Engineering, © 1995, Addison Wesley Longman Inc.</span></span></div></li><li><div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">DeMarco, Tom and Timothy Lister. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Second-Edition/dp/0932633439" rev="en_rl_none"><span style="color:rgb(238, 11, 119);">Peopleware: 2nd Edition</span></a>. New York: Dorset House Pub, 1999. [DeMarco, Lister 1999].</span></span></div></li><li><div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Appelo, Jurgen. <a href="https://management30.com/" rev="en_rl_none"><span style="color:rgb(238, 11, 119);">Management 3.0</span></a>. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley, 2011. Print.</span></span></div></li><li><div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Lencioni, Patrick. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership/dp/0787960756" rev="en_rl_none"><span style="color:rgb(238, 11, 119);">The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team</span></a>. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002. Print. </span></span></div></li></ol>
What Makes a Team?
https://tiagorosa.postach.io/post/what-makes-a-team
2023-11-29T14:35:26.583000Z
2015-09-03T13:37:10Z
Tiago Rosa
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<div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);">People are social beings, and their interactions form the core of agile software development. In order to build software, we tend to organize ourselves in groups we call</span><i><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);">teams</span></i><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);">. It's a nice name that evokes a feeling of collaboration and motivation, but are all </span><i><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);">groups</span></i><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"> of individuals actually </span><i><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);">teams</span></i><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);">?</span></span></span></div>
<div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">We tend to think that what sets groups apart from teams is the presence of a common goal that guides people's actions. If several people get together to pursue a single goal, that's a team. This is true, but not the whole truth. What ultimately turns a group of people into a team is <i>interdependency</i>. A group of sales representatives working for the same company shares the goal of selling the products from their catalog, but each individual is seeking to sell more than the other, to obtain a bonus. That's not a team. A group of baseball players, on the other hand, is a team not only because they share the goal of winning; they also depend on each other. The third baseman can't win the game unless the pitcher and the catcher do a good job in defense. When people depend on each other to reach a common goal, they are a team.</span></span></div>
<div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">And here's the deal: what makes a team interdependent are the </span></span><b><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">personal relationships</span></span></b><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"> that exist between people. We can, then, look at a team as a collection of personal relationships. We can also argue that the quality of a team's relationships is one of the most important things a leader should worry about. So how can we understand these relationships?</span></span></div>
<div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">As always, it's hard to look at subjective entities like personal relationships with analytical eyes. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Let's imagine a team of four software developers working in a project: Alice, Bob, Carol and Dave. Using simple math, you can see that even though the team has four people, it's actually comprised of six personal relationships (Alice<->Bob, Alice<->Carol, Alice<->Dave, Bob<->Carol, Bob<->Dave, Carol<->Dave)</span></span></div>
<div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">If we were to start observing the way these people interact with one another, listening to what they're talking about when pairing, keeping an eye out for how they refer to each other during team meetings, and so forth, after a few weeks, here's an example of what we could observe:</span></span></div><ul><li><div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Alice and Dave get along really well; when they pair on a story they tend to deliver faster than when they pair with others; they seem to trust each other a lot</span></span></div></li><li><div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Bob is a very easygoing person; everyone likes to pair with him and everyone trusts his opinions</span></span></div></li><li><div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Carol doesn't seem to completely trust Alice. They are able to work together, but Carol seems to question Alice's decisions with certain frequency</span></span></div></li><li><div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Dave doesn't really get along well with Carol. Maybe he resents Carol's lack of trust in Alice's opinions. He argues with Carol all the time and doesn't seem comfortable when pairing with her</span></span></div></li></ul><div style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">From this, we get to the conclusion that while most of the relationships in the team seem healthy, there is some level of friction and distrust between specific people. But how healthy is the team as a whole? Let's try a visualization:</span></span></div>
<div><br/></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a7110274-2ce9-4bdb-87d7-635a7f2194f2/0c503725-ee2a-44e4-8a6a-2545b6302c78/0049cd9f-5ec3-432a-9e26-6bc4c4dc6e33.png" style="--en-naturalWidth:650; --en-naturalHeight:551;" height="autopx"/><div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">The green squares represent healthy relationships. Yellow means there is some level of distrust, but the relationship still functions. Red means a broken link: people are not able to work well together.</span></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Most relationships are "green". There is some noise, but generally speaking it seems like the team is fine. After all, teams are supposed to have a little friction here and there, right?</span></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">But let's look again: suppose the green squares count as fully healthy personal relationships, while yellow ones count as neutral (zero) and reds count as negative relationships that are damaging the team (thus subtracting from the total). Something like this:</span></span></div>
<div><br/></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a7110274-2ce9-4bdb-87d7-635a7f2194f2/0c503725-ee2a-44e4-8a6a-2545b6302c78/6e86f301-70a1-40bd-9e1b-af0c4234d083.png" style="--en-naturalWidth:650; --en-naturalHeight:622;" height="autopx"/><div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Let's add the numbers again: at the end of the day there are only three high-quality personal relationships. That may imply that our team is only 50% as effective as it could be. Should we still assume that, in terms of relationships, the team is "generally OK"? If a team is a collection of individuals (and their relationships) that depend on each other to achieve success, a severed personal relationship damages not only both ends of the link, but everyone else as well. In a highly functioning team, any unaddressed instance of distrust will spread like a wildfire, destroying the team's cohesion and undermining its effectiveness.</span></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">This is all, of course, a rough depiction of things much more important than numbers and colors. It certainly leaves out the nuances of actual people and their interactions. Even so, the main point is still worth considering: seemingly small disruptions in a team's relationships can cost way more than we think. As we strive to be part of and lead highly effective teams that deliver amazing results, caring for how people get together and providing the necessary means for them to thrive and grow as social agents should be a principle that guides our every action.</span></span></div>
<div><br/></div><h3><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 26px;">What can you do?</span></span></h3><div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Microsoft YaHei', 'Hiragino Sans GB', 'Hiragino Sans GB W3', 微软雅黑, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;">As a leader, invest time in talking to people in your team. Understand them as individuals. Retrospectives and other ceremonies might help you, but nothing beats face-to-face communication combined with genuine interest and empathy. Listen more, talk less, respect people's opinions and don't shrug off any concern as insignificant. Once you become good at something, delegate it to someone else and help them grow. Understand your team's culture and help shape it. Foster communication at all levels, in all directions, at all times. Share the context, build alignment. It's a lot of work and a big responsibility but, after all, are not individuals and their interactions the most valuable asset in agile?</span></div>