Mob exercise

 Olivier Costa invited us for a mob session, it was really great to join and see how it could work.

Preparation

We built up teams, carefully to add at least one expert to a team.

The flow and agenda

We discussed the topic what we will deliver during the mob session.
There several stories, but of course during an hour we did not go so far.

So in a mob session there are several roles

And of course we switch a lot.

Tooling

We used miro for the explanation and retro, and Hopin for the communication.

These are great tools for any meeting.

We used Anydesk to login to the development environment.

The mob session

We used Visual Studio for coding in C#. I used this language for my diploma in 2005, that time the version was .NET 1.4.

I had two .NET coder teams to coach in the last years, so I was ok to join.

But in fact if you dont know the exact syntax, the mates will help you. I would not skip any mob because of the tools or language.

There were few issues for me:

• too many navigator
• too many speaker
• too many details about the architecture and we just touched one or two classes.

TDD is always great and during mob it is FUN.

Remote mobbing

Mobbing is a great technique when the team delivery together a request. You can imagine this event as a Dojo or coding Kata, but the content is a user story on a real application, and the developers shares the keyboard for 5-10 minutes.

The advantage list is long. We can put there the continuous review, the shared knowledge, the team work. Some teams invite also the Product owner to show him what is the effort of one request, so there is a transparency.

How to do this event online? - it was one of the interesting topics of yesterday.

Some participants shared they use miro, mural, zoom for collaboration. Maybe they share a certain computer as dev environment, and each mobber contribute there in his slot.

We tested a great tool: Remote mob programming. It is shared in GitHub.

With this tool the team could simplify and facilitate the mobbing.

The flow is based on git, screen sharing with audio and a kind of semaphore which handle the git synchronization also.

1. mob start 5 - branch APP-526-add-feature 
   lets start the mob session, your slot is 5 minutes
   
   
2. do your coding
   
   
3. mob next
   handover to the next person, change sharing
   
   
4. work until you reach the goal
   
   
5. mob done
   synchro to the base branch

The tool is great, it handles the timer, the git commands, and everybody could work on his comfortable environment.

Integrated Agile Transformation Model (IATM)

That is fine there is another model how to run agile transformation in an organization.

During this academy we studied this approach with several masters and professionals.

The model is supported well will explanation, descriptions, visual stuffs.

Overview of IATM model

The agile transformation is based on waves, which are basically one month period, but you can customize as you wish.

The architect of the IATM model highlighted that, it is an agile process, and executed in an agile way, so it contains a lot of iteration, feedback, there are the traditional agile roles also.

So for a transformation project you need your team to execute the project, and the teams and stuff from the organization side.

1. Contract

There is a client, first lets analyze and agree on the expectations! 

2. Assessment

Each wave has a mission to analyze the current situation at a piece of the organization. You can start from the top or even from the bottom, or both. What is very typical, you start at the not most risky team or department.

During the assessment you will observer and identify the knowledge, practice and exercise gaps. It will be your Product backlog.

3. Academy

Kind of teaching part. The coaches become teachers and using trainings, workshops, pair working start to explain the theory and the meaning of content. It can be agile mindset, iteration, leadership, feedback etc.

4. Synchronize

Lets start to use what the team learned. Create visuals, new workspace, plan the rituals, working agreements.

5. Follow

Lets see as a coach how the rituals are running. The teams starts the first steps alone.

6. Lead

It is the time to coach individually. The teams and participants receive feedbacks.

7. Handover

Retrospective with the team and Backlog refinement for the next wave / iteration.

In summary

I just wrote here a little overview of the IATM process. There are many knowledge and technics behind for each steps.

I would not say you can find more details on the website, but you can find contacts there.

A few important parts I will share also later.

https://integratedagile.com/

Coaching working types

Shadow coach

Working behind the sciences and following experienced coaches.

Co-coach

Working together with other coaches, not completely independent.

Lead-coach

Leading a project, could work alone.

Six principals for the right mental path and changes

There are many reasons to delay a change in the team or organization. You will miss the train of the opportunity with each delay. Do you have doubt? Try to understand first with the team the next six principals before starting the journey:

1. It’s always a good time to make a change
2. Believe in your idea
3. Share your idea
4. Accept feedback
5. Have a passion for collectively bringing the idea forward
6. Assume the decisions made by others can always be changed

Bühler, Erich R. Leading Exponential Change: Go beyond Agile and Scrum to run even better business transformations 

Profiling

We did a nice exercise for profiling your client.

It helps you to better understand and select you tools as a coach.

Levels

1. Identity - what is the identity of the person is coming to you?
2. Values and beliefs: how is it important this problem?
3. Capabilities: Does he has all the capabilities to solve his problem?
4. Behavior: is he going closer to the solution?
5. Environment: is there a supporting environment?

Ok, I wrote there questions, they indicated the meaning of the level. but as a coach we should ask better questions:

1. Identity - what is your role around this problem?
2. Values and beliefs: how is it important this problem?
3. Capabilities: Do you have all the skills to solve the problem?
4. Behavior: What you would do to solve the problem?
5. Environment: Could you find support for your solution?

You can do this exercise also for yourself when you face with a problem.

Dialog exercise for commitment

We need commitment from the teams very usually. They should have ownership and a strong relation with the topic to build responsibility.

This commitment is supported by a conversation, dialog.

Exercise: Vision, Values, Commitment

We built up our Vision (WHY), it can be general or personal, and try to find a collection of value (WHAT).

The journey to improve our values step by step and reach the vision is working via the commitments.

During this conversation we try to find what are the values to become a coach and how we can support this goal.

My commitments to become a Technical and Team coach:

• Joining agile academy workshop
• working with developers and team
• pair-coaching with IATM coaches
• joining conferences, meetups
• practice self reflections
• reading relevant books
• start blogging and sharing the journey
• earn ICF ACC certification
• follow IAF trainings

8 elements of coaching

So a people could have 36 identities.

Just try to avoid no to mix them. So you arrive home from work where you were an manager and you wife ask you something, dont forget, you are the husband!

Coaches has eight very important identities, they use them in different situations.

Your identity can be defined also by your opponent, for example if he takes  a child role, you will play as an adult.

Coach

you are focusing on developing a shared goal. your tools are the questions.

Mentor

You are focusing on developing the how-to, normally it is a pair work.

Trainer

You are teaching the team, sharing knowledge, focusing on the learning outcomes.

Facilitator

You are helping the team for their goal and outcome. Avoid conflicts, miscommunication, introduce transparency.

Lean Leader

Promoting for life-long learning the teams.

Change agent

Develop a formal path for the change

Consultant

You share your experiences, the best practices, giving advises and problem solving.

Problem to Opportunity exercise

 Let see your team has a problem, and they turn to you to find a solution. 

As a coach it is better not to provide a solution, they have find their solution, because they will find the connection and see they are the owner of the solution. They can do commitment more easily to deliver the solution.

Opportunity Tree Analysis

Lets invite the team for a workshop to find a solution for a problem.

The Opportunity tree analysis is a very good practice for this.

Let's create a  Tree about a problem, and then find the desired situation of the problem.

Try to identify what could support this desired situation. Later you can collect together the possible outcome of this positive, desired situation.

Example of "I am tired"

We selected a personal or general problem to solve and see the outcomes.

1) The problem tree:

We placed in the roots of the tree what could support this problem. Just a few ones are:

• eating to much
• sickness
• lack of quality sleeping
• stress etc.

2) Now lets create the Opportunity tree. We selected "I am energized!"

So when you think about with the team what could support I am energized, you can find a lot of positive things, just a few:

• fun
• health
• hope
• vision
• calm etc

3) The green leaves can be the outcome of you are energized.

• Enjoy the work
• Help each other
• Love
• Focus
• Energize others

You can see in a one hour exercise we can help the team to focus on the positive side of the problem, and seeing the opportunity of the original problem if we turn to the solutions.

We have the yellow postits as solution and the green postits as the reason why to do that.

5 Classic principals of integrated Agile coaching

1. Constructionist principal

Words create worlds. The reality is created through the language and the conversations.

2. Simultaneity principal

Inquiry creates change, and when we ask the question, we begin to create the change.

3. Poetic principal

What we choose to study makes us different. It describes the world as we know.

4. Anticipatory principal

The human system move in to the direction, what they can imagine. It should be a positive and hopeful image of the future.

5. Positive principal

Positive questions lead the individual  or the team to positive changes.