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My last post triggered a few comments, with having a common goal for a team to rally around somehow also implied groupthink, and thus, Wisdom of the Crowds is a better alternative. I want to clarify a few things:

The point of the original post?
Organisations where I’ve seen them have successful delivery, they also had, what I would consider, true teams. People working together towards a common goal. I’ve also observed many other organisations struggling to deliver, and often, because of multi-project context switching, they had what I would describe as “groups of people” instead of a true team.

Not all teams have groupthink
When I think back to great teams I’ve worked on, the individuals complement each other strengths and, at least in my experience, respond better to unplanned events. Talking about the “taboo” topics is fine because everyone is already comfortable working with each other. I compare this experience to what I see around committees, newly formed teams, or even teams that remain unbalanced (due to a particularly strong member or something) where other participants are too polite, or don’t want to cause a commotion even though it may be the right thing to do.

Understandably, when Felix saw my diagram, he (rightly) feared groupthink. In my experience, I feel it is symptom of poor performing teams, and is more likely to happen with “groups of people” (think of all those traditional project managers who make a decision for the team!). I do acknowledge it can still happen in a high performing team.

I believe the trick to making this work is having a leader in the team that ensures that conflict is handled in a safe environment, not simply quashed, silenced or bullied away as these eventually lead to group think.

Wisdom of the crowds don’t necessarily mean all crowds are wise
When I see many groups of people, I don’t automatically see a lot of wisdom. It takes another step before you can benefit from wisdom of the crowds. Often it means asking the right question, the right amount of diversity, and a lot of independence to actually benefit from it. I see the right question the same as having the right goal shared amongst people. It doesn’t necessarily mean everyone is doing exactly the same thing to get there, it just means that everyone is pointing in the right direction.

An example: Brainstorming using sticky notes is one way that I’ve worked in that avoids groupthink and tries to harness the wisdom of crowds. In my last team, we used it to come up with different solutions to tackle a key design problem (note the shared goal!) We each wrote ideas down independently on sticky notes before presenting them to each other. We even spent some time investigating and proving out a number of solutions to gather some hard data about the pros and cons. What made it work was that we all understood what it was we were all trying to get to (the shared goal), not necessarily how we get there. I felt that this was an example of a real team, a situation where everyone was comfortable disagreeing with each other, and openly discussing each option. It certainly didn’t feel like a committee or a random collection of people. I can only imagine what the outcome would be if we did though.

Once again, your comments welcome.

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When I go into different organisations, I see many of the people doing the work (analysis, development and testing) split across multiple projects. In my experience there are plenty of reasons why this is just a bad idea, and probably the biggest one that I see is that the split priorities for an individual conflict with a model for ideal teamwork.

What does your organisation have more of? Teams or groups of people “working together”?

There’s a big difference between the two, particularly if your organisation is interested in tapping into the benefits of teams. Unfortunately most of the time organisations miss the mark.

How can you convert groups of people into teams?
Split priorities create natural conflicts between groups. A lot of management theory I’ve read describes how to get the most out of teams by rallying them towards a shared goal or set of goals. At the individual level, setting different goals for different people establishes a dynamic that, at some point, individuals’ priorities will conflict and without a broader shared goal, will go unresolved. Setting the same priority for everyone is, in effect, putting everyone into the same team. Leaving people split across multiple projects, is in effect, setting different sets of priorities for an individual.

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Definitely a post well overdue (think end of March), although I thought I’d still put it out. Four years at Thoughtworks for me has:

• Taken me to four countries (Australia, United Kingdom, India, Canada). Even more if you take into account conferences and other invites (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Italy, USA)
• Let me see eight different client organisations (from small to extremely large)
• Worked on seven different delivery projects

Picture taken from BFick’s photo stream under the Creative Commons Licence.

• Advised on two pure consulting engagements
• Presented and participated at five different global conferences
• Participated in five different internal conferences
• Seen me focus on two main programming languages and platforms (Java and .Net)
• Broaden my experience as a developer, technical lead, analyst, agile coach, full time trainer, and facilitator.

There’s been plenty of happy moments, sad moments, lots of learning, lots of growth, and plenty of insight balanced with plenty of humility (in that there is still so much to learn).

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One of the biggest teases developers use on their peers when they move into a non-developer or a less developer focused role is to tag them as “Post-technical”. I’ve heard this term ever since I joined the industry. My other interests around team work, organisational processes, coaching and training seem congruent with this attitude.

How do I try to balance these roles? Embedded coaching.

It’s as simple as working in the role of a developer and a coach at the same time. There’s something about working “on the front lines”, so to speak, that earns you a certain level of respect that you wouldn’t get if you were on the same team in the role of a project manager, or something you wouldn’t earn if you visited as a coach or advisor. It lets you build that trust and rapport on a daily basis that gives you insight into the things that drive people mad, or the things others may not feel comfortable stepping up and saying out loud.

Of course, there are benefits to also doing coaching from an outside point of view though I do think that embedded coaching is undervalued and often unavailable due to the delicate mix of skills required.

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We’ve almost arrived at the end of my first two week course for internal training. We’d normally hold it in our offices, but space in the office is a huge premium with so many active projects. We’ve had to move our training sessions to the Royal Orchard Hotel. We hold our sessions in one of the conference rooms and I’ve noticed a distinct difference between sessions we’ve held and those that the different groups of people next door hold.

Our sessions use a blend of techniques including individual brainstorming, group brainstorming, facilitated discussion, reflective exercises and a group exercise combined with discussions about principles.

In contrast, the sessions held next door are often a single speaker presenting uni-directionally at the audience with a barrage of powerpoint slides.

As a coach, as a teacher, and as believer in agile methods, respecting people and their individual mechanisms for learning are motives enough to teach using a variety of techniques, especially in group situations. I like to think that our company thinks differently, more effectively, and hopefully much more fun.

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You know you’re in trouble if you want to and can actually fill out the following information:

(Found in the bowels of the Lotus Notes Address Book)

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