Scramble, Scramble, Scramble

This is a game I've just made up after reading this: Bruce Tuckman - Developmental Sequence in small groups. 
The game is called scramble scramble scramble (apologies for the military metaphor - let me know if you can think of a better one) and it goes like this:
The claxon sounds, over and over.  You know it's time for you and your crew to pull on your flight gear as fast as you can and fly the mission.
1. Your Crew
As you walk out on to the tarmac you notice the rest of your crew - you relax a little bit when you see all the familiar faces.  Everybody knows what they need to do and everybody knows what everybody else is supposed to be doing.  Jobs get handed off seamlessly from one to another.  When things get sticky (as they often do) everybody feels free to speak their mind.  Your look over at the navigator, your co-pilot, the gunner and the bomber - you know you couldn't be going up with a better crew.

Do you need these guys?

2. Your Mission
You've flown this mission a hundred times.  You know the way out and the way back like the back of your hand.  You know where to expect flak  you know where you can take it easy.  This is going to be - as they say "a piece of cake."
3. Your Rig
She's a beauty of an airplane - you see her standing there on the tarmac, the moonlight glinting off her.  You know all her quirks and foibles.  You know that she can do the job and your team know how to get her to do it.
Above describes a perfect "dream scenario" - a hyper-productive team.  Now the game is to change either the crew, the mission or the rig to make things slightly more exciting and then say what would happen.  For example, here's some ways you could change the crew.
1. Your Crew (scrambled)

As you walk out onto the tarmac, you notice that you don't know any of your crew.  After some discussion you find out that you've been assigned an experience navigator, bomber and gunner who claim that they know what to do, they just don't know each other...
How would that change the dynamics of the team?  How about this?
As you come out onto the tarmac you see that not only are your team a bunch of strangers, they are dressed in strange uniforms - one looks like he might be a sailor.  Another is covered in camouflage, you think he might be some kind of commando - he's quite scary.  The third is dressed in civilian clothes you've no idea who these people are, or how you're going to fly the mission with them.  Oh well, there's a war on, what can you do but your best?

Or these guys?

Unfortunately when you try to find out who is who and who can do what, a fight breaks out.  The navy guy clearly thinks he's in charge.  The civilian is complaining that the commando has already stolen his wallet and has threatened him with violence if he doesn't get more money.
2. Your Mission (scrambled)
You come out on the tarmac and you're relived to see your old team.  But when you open the dossier that contains the mission documents you see that the mission is much more difficult and tortuous than the missions you're used to.  You're very unsure that your team can do it.  You think they might need time to retrain, or maybe bring in some more experts. You might need a different plane.  If you have to do it tonight, even with your good old crew you're going to be very worried indeed.
Or how about this?
You come out onto the tarmac and you're relieved to see that alongside you is your good old crew, but when you look in the dossier for the mission documents, they aren't the normal set of documents you expect.  Rather there are just a couple of slogans about "Doing your duty" a few beer mats in a foreign language, and a note from your commanding officer, saying sorry for giving you such an innappropriate mission but no one else was available and he was sure that you would do the best you can.
3. Your Rig (scrambled)
You rush out onto the tarmac to find that your plane has been upgraded to the most modern model. The gun controls and bombing sights are far more complicated than they were on the previous plane.  On the other hand, the navigation instruments and the fly by wire systems are so effective that you're not sure you still need a navigator.
Or how about this?
Your team come out on to the tarmac only to find a ride-on mower. You'd heard that there was an equipment shortage, but this is ridiculous!You seriously doubt that your team is going to be able to complete the mission.

For further information, contact mark@agilelab.co.uk (07736 807 604)

What's the difference between a team and a group?

Very interesting chat on Wednesday with Dave Dawes (http://www.entreprenurses.net/) about the difference between a group and a team. I think what Dave was saying is that a team has a fixed number of members who stick around for a long time. A group has members that come and go.

Think this is very interesting with regard to the whole "forming storming norming and performing" account of team formation. If you have a group where the members are constantly changing, you will never get past the forming/storming/norming phase. So the amount of self-organisation and the level of performance you can expect from a group as posed to a team would probably be less. Similarly, the amount of management involvement required reduces as you move from forming to performing as this article explains.

I got thinking about all this forming, storming, norming and performing stuff after doing Rachel Davies' fascinating coaching exercise at minispa2009.

For further information, contact Mark@agilelab.co.uk (07736 807 604)

Notes on Rachel Davies workshop "The Role of the Agile Coach"

Rachel Davies ran a very interesting workshop yesterday at MiniSPA2009 on "The Role of the Agile Coach."

I won't give away the details of her workshop, but suffice to say that it involved some people working on a task and other people taking management roles. It looks like a very simple activity, but to me it felt like a re-run of the Stanford Prison Experiment with non-toxic glue and feathers.

Some observations from the experience:

• Even though Rachel's an Agile coach and this workshop was supposed to be about Agile coaching, everybody, especially those in management roles seem to treat this as a waterfall project, even down to trying to treat the instructions that came with the activity packs as a fixed spec.
• I was a worker, and as a worker my main motivations were to bond with my other workers and to make myself useful. I didn't really take any notice of the coach who was there supposedly to ask questions.
• Comments from the two people who were asked to take on management roles were almost all critical. In a sense, this was an artefact of the task - what else did they have to do but point out what they thought was going wrong?
• The spec for the task was very loose, but that didn't stop some people who were in management roles adding in extra assumptions, assuming spec where there wasn't any. And assuming that part of the task was to hammer down the spec.
• I found myself saying "We thought we were being creative, but management just thought we had no idea what we were doing." Oh boy did this chime! To some degree with my experience at Xerox, but especially with my experience working in research at Universities.
• We got fascinated with the task and missed a (perceived to be) crucial aspect of the spec. In the end I fixed this as I walked up to submit our entry. "Management" on our team perceived this to be a grave failing, even though my last minute solution worked.
• As a team of workers, we instinctively seemed to understand that we had to feel each other out and understand what we capable of - I think this is what's called the "Forming and Storming" sections of team building. Management focussed instantly on the "Norming and Performing" and fretted and criticised as it watched our "Forming and Norming" activities.

For further information, contact Mark@agilelab.co.uk (07736 807 604)