Diving into Peopleware

Jorge Tutor

drupal.org/u/gedur

We have heard about code, libraries, infrastructure, processes... but

What about you?

Maybe... the major problems of systems work are not so much technical as sociological.

(DeMarco & Lister, 1987)

In this session we will talk about:

1. The Dark Ages
2. Why Peopleware
3. Motivation
4. Multifunctional teams
5. Self-organized teams
6. Productivity & Waste
7. Improvement

The Dark Ages

That continues today

The Principles of Scientific Management

(Frederick Taylor, 1911)

Thinkers vs Doers

Up/Down social break

"I don't Pay You to Think"

Hierarchy Models

Hardly adaptable to change

Departments

Functional departments, specialization, Time & Planification (waterfall model)

Communication issues

Resources

People as Interchangeable Resources

Are they?

Productivity

Number of hours in front of your desktop, lines of code, commits...

• Productivity varies over the course of the workday, with the greatest productivity occurring in the first four to six hours. After enough hours, productivity approaches zero; eventually it becomes negative.
• Productivity is hard to quantify for knowledge workers.

Motivation

No one leaves the office before the boss does

• Five-day weeks of eight-hour days maximize long-term output in every industry that has been studied over the past century. What makes us think that our industry is somehow exempt from this rule?
• At 60 hours per week, the loss of productivity caused by working longer hours overwhelms the extra hours worked within a couple of months.

Incidences/Bugs

The team is not doing their work properly

• Continuous work reduces cognitive function 25% for every 24 hours. Multiple consecutive overnighters have a severe cumulative effect.
• Error rates climb with hours worked and especially with loss of sleep . Eventually the odds catch up with you, and catastrophe occurs. When schedules are tight and budgets are big, is this a risk you can really afford to take?

Meh...

Why Peopleware

Make People Awesome

What differentiates Great companies

(Collins, 2001)

Classic Software Development Mistakes (People)

(McConnell, 1996)

1. Undermined Motivation
2. Weak personnel
3. Uncontrolled problem employees
4. Heroics
5. Adding pleople to late project
6. Noisy, crowded offices
7. Friction between developers & customers
8. Unrealistic expectations
9. Lack of effective project sponsorship
10. Lack of stakeholder buy-in

Our Real World

Open to change, not clear specifications, what does the client need?

Creativity, Motivation, Invidividual Skills, Communication

What is Peopleware

Anything that has to do with the role of people:

developer productivity, teamwork, group dynamics, the psychology of programming, project management, organizational factors, human interface design, and human-machine interaction...

The three core aspects of computer technology are: hardware, software and peopleware.

Modern Agile

But... How do we Make People Awesome?

Motivation

The Eye of the Tiger

The Human Side of Enterprise

(McGregor, 1957)

What is motivation?

The overjustfication effect

Concerns about extrinsic motivation

Soma Cube Experiment by Eduard Decí, 1969

		Group A	Group B
1		=	=
2		↑	=
3		↓	=

How should we reward?

(Six Rules for Rewards - Jurgen Appelo, 2011)

1. Don’t promise rewards in advance
2. Keep anticipated rewards small
3. Reward continuously, not just once
4. Reward publicly, not privately.
5. Reward behaviors, not only outcomes.
6. Reward peers, not only subordinates.

Peer Rewards

Example: Kudo Box

Are we stronger together or alone?

How we do create the perfect team?

Multifunctional teams

One for all and all for one

Why work as a Team

Integrated, interconnected, organized (self)

Adapt, compete & colaborate: objective

How do we select each member?

The FullStack Approach

Management , Testing , DevOps , Frontend , Backend , Site-Building... What else?

Multifunctional Matrix

Great, I've selected the right people

Do I have a team now?

The Stages of Team Formation

(Tuckman, 1965)

It looks great! But...

Will they be able to manage themselves?

Self-organized teams

The default way of management in nature

What is a Self-organized team

Adaptative Complex System

• Autonomous: distributed control
• Adaptable: adapts & improves
• Responsable: collectively

No Managers ≈ No testers

"But do we need managers anyway, with all these self-steering teams nowadays? Management 3.0 believes management is the responsibility of everyone."

Jurgen Appelo

Do I need to delegate everything to the team?

Alignment & Autonomy

Autonomy with alignment increases motivation, quality and also fast releases.

The River Problem

Praveen Kumar Purushothaman - My Experience on Spotify Agile Methodology

The Delegation Board

(simetric)

Examples

The Team is ready, How can I measure its productivity?

Productivity & Waste

More hours ≠ more work done

What is Productivity?

Work (properly) Done / Effort & Resources

Increasing productivity by removing Waste

- Examples -

Avoid Superflous documentation

Unmaintained, nobody will read it.

Avoid Neverending meetings

No Agenda, No Goals, No Actions

Avoid Unused features

Resources are limited.

Avoid Unreasonable Bureaucracy

Kills entrepreneurial spirit: creativity, flexibility, initiative, teamwork, self-confidence, and critical thinking.

Same approach, Same results

Avoid Interruptions / Context switching

Avoid Low quality code

Bugs alters planning

Limit team size

Communication can be an issue

Increasing productivity by team actions

- Examples -

Swarming

One piece continuous flow.

Kanban: WIP (work in progress) limit.

King & Servants

(Kinberg, 2007) - Swarming applied

• Anyone working on the top priority story is King.
• Everyone else on the team is a Servant.
• Whenever a King needs help, Servants immediately offer their services.
• A Servant may not disrupt a King.
• As soon as the top priority story is Done, anyone working on the next story is now King.

Practice TimeBoxing

• Meetings
• User Stories / Tasks

Increasing productivity by individual actions

- Examples -

Pomodoro Technique

(Francesco Cirillo, 1980s)

Work per intervals of 25 minutes (focused) + 5 min relax

Gettings Things Done (GTD)

(David Allen, 2001)

So... we have the team motivated, balanced & self-organized.

Can I go to sleep?

Nope!

Improvement

Kaizen (改善) - change for better

"If it works do not change it!"

someone will do it better sooner or later...

Promote a Safe Environment for Failure

Company Culture, CI Tools

The Agile Cicle

Retrospectives

Ask the Team

Niko-Niko Calendar (async)

Ask the Team

One 2 One Meetings (sync)

• OPEN - What's on your mind?
• SELF ESTEEM - What is your biggest accomplishment this month?
• CHALLENGE - What’s your biggest challenge right now?
• FOCUS - What do you want?
• IMPROVE - What things/processes should we do differently?
• RESOURCES - What resources would be helpful to you right now?
• HELP - Is there anything I can help you with?

Identity

Team Name ≠ project name

• What makes us special?
• What do we want to remember?
• What represents us?

Have Fun!

Implement your own Gamification strategies.

And avoid leaderboards, rankings and badges.

Our team fight against Zombies, Orcs & Dragons

Conclusions

...

• Think & Do
• People are not Interchangeable pieces
• Invest in a Healty/enjoyable environment
• Have rules at the start and later break them (adapt).
• Coach the team through the process
• Take risks & Evolve!

Any questions?

Thanks!!!