Devops for Growth

Here's how I use the cards:

1) Training:

Give each participant a set of cards. Ask them to work in pairs and to pick two principles between them. Have them discuss the principles they have chosen: What do they mean? What would they look like in their context? What practices support them? What habits inhibit them?

2) Retrospectives:

Choose one of the principles and deep dive into what it means in their context, how well they are doing in this area and what they could do to get better at following it.

3) Wallpaper:

Print them and put them on the office walls or toilet doors. Reflect while you sit down ... :-)

If you’d like your own set download the pdf here (then print double-sided with long-edge binding, cut and laminate) or here for the single-sided version.

Conflict: Any situation in which people have apparently incompatible goals, interests, principles or feelings

What is a 15% Solution?

The term 15% Solutions was initially coined by Gareth Morgan. It is any first step or solution that you can do without approval or resources from others and that is entirely within your discretion to act. More succinctly put, it is something that you can start right now if you want to.

15% Solutions can be identified in relation to a shared solution you identified with your team. But it can also be deeply personal. We’ve seen examples ranging from “I will buy different colors stickies to distinguish types of tasks” to “I will refactor this class we’re struggling with”. And from “Instead of staying silent and grumble, I will speak out when someone does this thing I don’t like” to “When I get worried, I will focus on my breathing”.

Uses in Scrum

As a simple, short structure, 15% Solutions can be used virtually anywhere. But these are some examples of where we’ve used it:

• Use it as a closing for Sprint Reviews to identify how people will contribute to improving the product based on was learned during the Sprint;
• Use it as a closing for meetings with multiple people to create space for people to identify how they want to contribute and to give and get help;
• Use it in a Sprint Retrospective to change focus from how ‘we as a team can improve’ to ‘how can I contribute to improving the team’. You can precede 15% Solutions with another Liberating Structure, like 1–2–4-ALL, to identify important challenges or themes;
• Use it after a team conflict or other incident. You might feel overwhelmed about how to proceed, 15% Solutions helps you focus on setting the first small step in the desired direction.

Role Expectation Mapping in a nutshell

Role Expectation Mapping is a three stage rocket.

First you have interviews with people having the different roles. These interviews extracts the current expectations that those people have on other roles, as well as capturing what expectations that others are allowed to project on themselves. Each group is interviewed individually.

 Once all interviews have been held there is a discussion meeting where participants can debate and question the results from the interviews. The output of this meeting is understandment of others point of view, clarification of notes from the interview and knowledge about where opinions diverge.

Finally there is the consensus meeting where the participants formulates five bullets that captures the most important expectations for each role. Only the bullets that everyone agrees upon are kept.

The model has five phases. Context, Brainstorm, Cluster, Name, Resolve.

En amont de la réunion :

• Clarifier la finalité et l’objectif de la réunion.
• S’assurer que l’objectif à atteindre a du sens pour les participants visés et est motivant.
• Collecter toute l’information nécessaire pour bien comprendre le contexte et la motivation de cette rencontre.
• Déceler les freins possibles à l’atteinte de l’objectif. De courts entretiens préparatoires avec quelques participants cible s’avèrent le plus efficace.
• S’assurer que les bons participants sont invités : ils sont tous nécessaires pour atteindre l’objectif
• Construire les étapes de la rencontre et les outils de facilitation pour les franchir avec succès.
• Communiquer l’agenda de la rencontre aux participants (bien en amont pour leur laisser le temps de s’y préparer).

Pendant la réunion

• Rappeler l’agenda et l’objectif de la rencontre
• Construire et faire respecter un climat favorable à la bonne tenue de la rencontre.
• Stimuler le groupe : questionner et reformuler souvent
• Utiliser des outils de facilitation qui permettent à la créativité de chacun de s’exprimer
• Ecouter ce qui est dit et percevoir ce qui n’est pas dit et mériterait de l’être
• Faire des synthèses régulières d’avancement
• Créer les conditions pour que chacun s’implique dans le processus et que personne ne reste en position d’observateur
• Prendre en note (ou faire prendre en note) les points marquants de l’échange
• S’assurer de l’adhésion de tous aux décisions prises
• Rester neutre sur le contenu
• Valider avec l’ensemble des participants le résultat obtenu
• Valider les étapes du suivi

En aval de la réunion

• Assurer le maintien et le bon déroulement des étapes du suivi décidées
• Penser et agir dans l’intention de rendre le groupe autonome

Certaines de ces responsabilités sont peu habituelles et difficiles à assurer lorsque nous sommes dans le feu de l’action et immergé dans le contenu. Pourtant, l’expérience montre que ces compétences acquises font gagner du temps et le plus souvent contribuent à développer la confiance entre les partenaires, le ciment de l’efficacité collaborative.