Agile Leadership – Moss and Lichens

Decision latency

Photo by Anastasia Lysiak on Unsplash

Have you ever felt Decision latency in real life or work?

I recently felt it in real life.

I had ordered a bouquet of flowers to be delivered to a friend in the hospital.

The order process was seamless and I even got a confirmation of when it will be delivered.

Order date: Saturday

Delivery date: Tuesday

I get to know from my friend that she has moved to home early on Monday.

I contact the hotline of the flower provider on Monday and ask if they can change the delivery address.

The hotline person says that it is too late and the order has been processed.

The process workflow does not allow to postpone the decision of updating delivery address for the flower delivery person on the day of delivery.

I ask the hotline person of the flower provider on Monday if they can cancel the order.

The process workflow does not allow to cancel the order one day before the execution of the order.

I put the phone down and one hour later I get an email saying that the order is being processed to the wrong address.

The customer experience is so wrong at this place. Two NOs in a telephone conversation and followed up with an email confirmation which rubs salt in the wound.

I write an email to the service email address explaining what happened with the hotline and asking for other customer friendly options.

The order has been processed and a telephone or an email will not change things.

I then receive an email to rate the service with three smileys.

Guess which smiley I chose!

In our Agile teams, what is the decision latency – 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month?

Is it small enough that we can bring value to client fast enough?

If it is not small enough, can we recognize and fix it?

Interesting article from Jeff Sutherland:

Why 47% of Agile Transformations Fail! – Scrum Inc

Habit matrix

Session from Agile Speakers Meetup on 10 Mar, 2022

In the last Agile Speakers Meetup we had an interesting discussion on the habit matrix.

Our undesired effect statement was “undesired”:

“Team member with strong opinion was overriding others”

We know how much this can negatively affect the morale in the team. When this kind of behavior is not nipped in the bud it tends to leave a bad taste in the team vibes and is difficult to correct at a later time.

This particular person did not need any special trigger. Just starting a conversation was enough to trigger a strong opinion being forced on others.

What could be the reward that this person had?

Possibly it was “winning” the conversation at all times and at all costs.

The effect was that it led to frustration in other team members. They felt that no other opinion was heard or appreciated.

One simple way to discipline this person would be to not invite the person for meetings or have any conversation with them.

However that is not possible if that is a contributing member of the team.

Idea 1:

Take aside and explain the effect of the aggressive behavior to the person. Explain some feedback rules and how good behavior can improve team morale.

Check again after a few sprints and repeat above actions if necessary

Idea 2:

Conduct a values workshop with entire team.

Explain the expectation that the team follows the values discussed.

Check again after a few sprints and use Idea 1 if necessary.

What actions do you take when you see such behavior in your team?

Reference:

Habit matrix | Re:Lead – Refreshing Leadership (relead.com)