Technology Lesson: March 2015

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

What I learned about agile teams from 8 9 year old girls basketball

I am a very fortunate daddy. I am one of the coaches for my eldest daughters basketball team. The community league she plays in has a rule designed to promote team work that at first glance may seem counter intuitive - "No double teaming". This means that in most circumstances when playing defense each girl must cover her own check and can not help out her teammate. To explain this a little more, Ill give you two examples.

Example 1 - double teaming:

Mary is new to basketball and is tentatively dribbling the ball over half court. Ann is playing defense on Mary and is doing a pretty good job of limiting where Mary can go and who she can pass to. Laura is a very strong player on Anns team and notices that Mary is struggling and that she has an opportunity to make a play. Laura leaves her own check, runs over to Mary (who is now double teamed), steals the ball and races to her own basket where she scores an easy two points. Her team cheers loudly.

Example 2 - helping:

Amber is an experienced basketball player and is dribbling the ball over half court. Kari is playing defense on Amber but is having trouble limiting where Amber can go and who she can pass to. Deanna is a very strong player on Karis team, but because she is not allowed to double team, she does not immediately race over to help Kari. Amber makes a quick move that allows her to get past Kari and race towards the basket. At this point, Kari knows she is in trouble and yells help. Deanna races over and gets in front of Amber to slow her down just enough so that Kari can catch up. Once Kari has caught up, Deanna races back to her own check and Kari resumes playing defense on Amber. No baskets are scored and mild applause is heard.

The nature of community led basketball leagues is that there is a combination of inexperienced but willing coaches and inexperienced but willing referees. This means that most times example 1 occurs without the ref or the coach interfering. While our team has been mostly executing as example 2, many of the teams we play against have been executing mostly as example 1.

Over the course of the season, the result has been interesting. Teams that were beating us at the beginning of the season by taking full advantage of the skills of their best player through double teaming are now struggling to even have a chance to score against our girls. The girls on those teams are trying just as hard, but the double teaming strategy that worked so well early in the season is no longer effective.

We have a team of 10 girls who have each improved. Some of the girls are more skilled than others, but each girl has improved noticably from the beginning of the season. The net effect is that our team has also improved noticably from the beginning of the season. Maybe more importantly, this team supports each other, learns from each other, and trusts each other.

Note: It would be easy to credit our brilliant coaching strategy, but that would clearly discount the effort, teamwork, and skill of the girls on our team. They are a wonderful group.

The parallels for agile teams are pretty clear to me. If you expect your team to perform at a high level, you need to let them improve at every role and reinforce team ownership of the project.

If you are the PM, dont take sole responsibility of the budget, tasks, project goals etc. Make these visible to your team and help your team own them and make decisions about tasks and priorities together.
If you are the DBA, dont get upset when the database design is insufficient, teach the team how to improve their design the first time. Work with them rather than fixing their work later.
If you are a tester, dont assume full responsibility for testing, teach your team how to be better testers by testing every day and pair testing with the developers.
If you are the UI expert, involve your team when designing the UI. Lead the exercise, but dont steal the design for yourself.

Of course, the converse of all of these is also true:

If you are a developer, take responsibility for the budget and priorities
If you are a tester, learn how to code a little
etc.

There are other lessons to be learned from 8/9 year old girls basketball, like how to ask for help when you need it, but those are for another day.

Occasionally I meet former co-workers who inevitably ask me what Im doing. When I announce my agile and lean passions and talk even briefly about the differences between traditional teams and agile teams, I often am greeted with a response something like "But someone still has to manage the team and the budget right?" My answer is usually "Yes, but it doesnt need to be you anymore. It should be the whole team."

As the African proverb says, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

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ORGANIZER

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For more details:

Program & Speakers
Online Registration Form
LIT History
FAQs

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Informal Learning 3 Free Chapters Jay Cross

Link to Informal Learning Book (chapters 1-3 are free. More soon?)
Informal Learning Blog

JAY CROSS?
Jay Cross has challenged conventional wisdom about how adults learn since designing the first business degree program offered by the University of Phoenix thirty years ago. "I am dedicated to making people more effective in their jobs and happy in their lives," says Jay. "My calling is to change the world by helping people learn to learn."

Jay coined the term eLearning. He co-authored Implementing eLearning, founded Internet Time Group, served as CEO of eLearning Forum for its first five years, and writes a column on effectiveness for CLO magazine. An internationally acclaimed strategist, speaker, and designer of corporate learning and performance systems, Jay is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School (Source).

INFORMAL LEARNING?

MORE JUICE?
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Chapter 1: Out of Time.
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Chapter 3: Show Me The Money

If you really like what you are learning, you can always read some of his great articles:

Informal Learning - Low Hanging Fruit
Informal Learning: A Sound Investment
Not Without Purpose
Web 2.0 and the Evolution of Instructional Design
Knowledge Flows
The Learning Mixer
Changes Ahead
Learning in the Real World
Informal Learning research findings, presentation

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Technology Lesson