AGILE IN ACTION

When we created our training materials we included a time line stretching back to the 1700s, which identified significant events, revolutionary breakthroughs and key people that have influenced how we work today. This required quite a lot of research, which proved to be both interesting and enlightening. One of the small gems we got from this effort was a lovely set of norms from Training Within Industry, which was created by the United States Department of War during the World War II to provide consulting services to war-related industries.

I really like the idea of having a team norm in place to help deal with interpersonal conflict. The norm would require the people involved in the conflict, as part of their membership of the team, to work together (with the help of a facilitator; aka Scrum Master) to find the root cause of their conflict. Basically get in a room and work it out before the conflict gets bigger and pulls the whole team down. The people involved are required to bring their analysis and agreement to the next retrospective and report it to the team so that everyone learns from the experience.

All teams have blips. I sensed growing frustration in the team over the last few iterations - sniping, bickering, moaning, negative comments. Morale was starting to be affected. When the team norms were breaking down and a lack of respect started to emerge I decided to intervene and focus the next retrospective on getting to the root of the problem.

Timeout - when play is temporarily suspended at the request of a team to discuss strategy

Try creating agreeing on team norms. For example: