10 Mistakes That Software Team Leads Make

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    10 Mistakes That Software Team Leads Make

    #1 Not Recognising Team MaturityThis was a good place to start because muchof the talk referred back to the maturity

    level of the team. Roy says that there are 3levels of maturity when it comes todescribing agile teams. These are:

    1. Chaos2. Learning

    3. Self-Leading

    Level 1 > Chaos

    A chaos team is one where people arealways too busy. Maybe theyre alwaysfirefighting or theyre just being asked to toomuch in too little time, either way, the resultis the same chaos. Nobody has any time toget organised and nobody has any time tolearn anything new because theyre just toobusy for that. This is obviously not a greatmaturity level to be at if you ask me,because eventually people will suffer burnout or get frustrated at the lack of

    opportunities to learn, and eventually thegood guys will leave. However, Roy says thatthe chaos level is actually exceedinglycommon, and I can easily believe him. Thetrick is to act in an appropriate way if yourethe leader of a chaos team. A chaos teamleader needs to be assertive and strong intheir actions.

    When the ship is sinking, youneed a leader to give orders,not call a meeting

    A chaos team leader will often need to takea stand and maybe tell management that theteam cannot do everything that theyrebeing asked to do. Its a tough role, itrequires you to make tough decisions withconviction.

    Management done right is a

    really tough job

    So why, as a team leader, do you have tomake all of these tough decisions yourself,instead of discussing them with your team?

    Well the simple answer is that there justisnt enough time for meetings. by makingthese executive decisions yourself, youregiving your team some breathing space, orsimply just the space they need to get theirwork done. Sure, you might make a fewwrong decisions, lifes tough, but its for thegreater good because youre giving yourteam the space they need to grow into thenext level, a Learning Team.

    Level 2 >> Learning

    This level of maturity is one in which theteam has a greater degree of self organisation, but the team members stillneed to be coached. A team leader will needto grow his/her team by constantlychallenging and questioning them, maybeeven setting them homework! The goal withthese teams is to improve week-on-week,

    and to get the team members to start solvingtheir own problems.

    So what are you going to doabout it?

    As a team leader of a Learning team youneed to start to get your team members tosolve their own problems in order to growinto a self-leading team. So if someonecomes to you with a problem, encouragethem to think of ways to fix their issue, andempower them to do so by responding withso what are you going to do about it?.

    Level 3 >>> Self Leading

    The third level of maturity is the self-leadingteam. This is where we all want to be! Inthis team, the leader is more like a mentor he doesnt tell people what to do or makeexecutive decisions on behalf of the team ashe/she would in a chaos team. Even in a self leading team, the team leader should still

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    spend in excess of 50% of his time with histeam.

    So, the first mistake in our list is to notrecognise what maturity level your team isat, and therefore not know how to lead your

    team in the right way. If you run your teamas if they were self-leading, but in realitytheyre chaos, then before long youll beheading up a certain creek without apaddle.

    #2 Fear of DelegationIf youre used to taking things on and doingthem yourself, then it can be quite hard to

    feel comfortable delegating work to people,especially if you have trouble relying onothers to get the work done.

    If everyone feels comfortablein what theyre doing, thenyoure doing something wrong

    When you delegate work, youll need to getused to asking other people to takeresponsibility for something youd

    otherwise do yourself. This responsibilitycan take some people out of their comfortzone, and this is a good thing. Its importantto challenge your team and get them out of their comfort zone as itll help them grow.

    #3 Fear of EngagementThis generally means not communicatingeffectively, but Roy breaks this down even

    further:

    #4 PlacatingThe Bus Factor whats that? Well, the busfactor is the number of people needed to gethit by a bus for the project to grind to astandstill. Its all about individuals holdinglots of information. Ive seen this in anumber of places, on good projects as well

    as bad, so I think its fairly natural, but thepoint that Roy makes is that you mustntplacate these individuals just because they

    hold a lot of crucial knowledge. A personwith a bus factor of 1 (meaning they couldbring the project to a halt if they got hit by abus) should be treated just the same asanyone else. I love the idea of people havinga bus factor, just because it reminds me of the Kevin Bacon number [5].

    #5 Being IrrelevantI think this is about being in too manymeetings and dealing with too many emailsetc and so on basically not being there forthe team, losing contact with the real work,and generally being irrelevant. Nothing todo with Kevin Bacon.

    #6 Being Super-reasonableNot sure I really agree with the terminologyhere but Roy says that its super-reasonableto assume that everyone understands whatyour talking about when in reality youmight not be getting your point across. Ithink the point to make here is that whenyoure dealing with groups of people, as inan agile team, its wrong to assume they allhave the same level of knowledge andunderstanding as yourself, and that youshould communicate with them in the bestway suitable, which tends to be by notmaking too many assumptions.

    #7 BlamingIf you make your mind up that someonesrubbish, then you will consciously andsubconsciously use this as an excuse to notengage that individual. There will always besome people who are rubbish, but what youneed to do is work on their weaknesses andbring them up to the level of the team,rather than to avoid engaging them, as this

    just means youll constantly be carrying adead weight.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Kevin_Bacon#Bacon_numbershttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Kevin_Bacon#Bacon_numbers
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    #8 Ignoring Behaviour Forces You must understand the forces that act ona person in order to understand how theybehave. There are 3 main types of forcesthat act on a person:

    Personal Social Environmental

    All of these can affect a teams ability to besuccessful, and you need to work out exactlywhat these forces are, and determinewhether they are affecting your teamsability. An example of an environmentalforce is not having enough hardware to dowhat you need to do for instance, if youdont have budget for a continuousintegration server then its going to bealmost impossible to be agile.

    #9 Fear of AssertivenessApparently this is common in the UK and inNorway, but not in Denmark. Bet you didntknow that. Well its true, allegedly. Anyway,assertiveness is all about standing yourground and not living with things that youfeel arent acceptable. If your team is inchaos mode, then you need to be especiallyassertive. A fear of being assertive can bedisastrous in a chaos team.

    #10 Spreading Non-CommitmentThis is about using vague language. Roy says

    that you should always commit to deadlines,and when speaking to your team, make surethey tell you when they will do somethingby. Apparently, just by making thecommitment in the words they use, they willbe more motivated to deliver on that

    commitment. Roy suggests that when youhave a meeting, end it by asking peoplewhat theyre actions are, and make surethey answer in the form I will do X by Y.However, people should only commit todoing things that are under their control,theres no point committing to doingsomething that you have to get someone elseto do. Also, as soon as you know that youreunable to deliver on time, let the team knowand they might be able to help you out andmaybe then you will be able to deliver ontime.

    Questions and Answers You need to recognise when to

    change your leadership style youneed to stop being a chaos teamleader if the team moves on the beinga learning team

    Theres no such thing as a chaoticlearning team. The 2 cannot co-exist,however, teams can switch from oneform to another.

    Overseas teams dont work as well ashaving everyone in-house. If yourein this situation, you need to changeyour reality.

    Agile teams should be 2 pizza teams[6] i.e. only as large as can be fed by2 pizzas.

    Good teams are grown, not hired Scrum sometimes doesnt fit teams in

    chaos mode Theres no difference between a team

    leader and a manager if theyre thesame person, which they can be.

    Protect your team from projectmanagers if your in the chaos mode

    Source URL: http://agile.dzone.com/news/10-mistakes-software-team

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