COVID-19 Calls for Agile Practices
Lauren Leslie, BCG Consulting & Marita Decker, FutureCourse Education
As the situation around COVID-19 rapidly evolves, organizations face critical decisions to prioritize the safety and health of their employees. Teams and co-workers may find themselves working remotely for the first time. To reduce stress and concern, and increase confidence in uncertain times, you might want to share best practices around virtual teaming to add support and help effectively navigate office closures.
Here are a few Agile practices we can leverage in this time of remote teaming
Implement a daily standup to keep things on track
The Agile Standup is a 15 minute, daily meeting, in which team members share an update on high priority work, raise any potential risks, and coordinate support across the team. Implementing a standup is a great way to stay connected, and systematically make up for the loss of impromptu touch bases when team members are no longer co-located.
Tactically, you will want to schedule this standup for the same time each day. The standup should be no more than 15 minutes for 5-12 people. To compensate for lost face time, leverage an online meeting tool, and enforce the use of cameras.
The standup must follow a structured cadence. In general, each team member should communicate about four things:
My high-priority progress since our last standup has been...
The high-priority progress I will make today is ....
At this time, I see (or don't see) a potential risk/barrier...
I could use help from X to...
As a leader of the daily stand up, you should set and enforce a time limit for each person, usually around 1-2 minutes per individual. This practice drives focus, clarity and directness across team members. Communication requirements that extend beyond the allotted time are handled after everyone has completed their initial sharing. This means that everyone provides their succinct, high-level assessment with a focus on brevity, specificity, and top-priority updates, before diving into details or additional content. This will ensure that everyone remains engaged and gleans value from the practice. Once everyone has shared and the high-level synopsis is complete, the team lead can decide to stay on the line with select individuals facing a challenge or requesting help for more detailed triage.
Emphasize good virtual meeting etiquette (netiquette)
Remote meetings require even more facilitation discipline to maintain engagement. The shared space and connectedness of in person meetings often makes it more difficult to multi-task or check out. To ensure team members drive productivity in remote meetings, consider creating the following practices:
Set a specific cadence for team meetings, and cancel if it is not needed. It is important to hold the meeting time as your top priority, not fit it into available slots as an afterthought. This will allow everyone working remotely to better plan for the workday, given the greater number of distractions or conflicts they may face joining from off site locations.
All participants use cameras for during meetings (no exceptions). This increases the feeling of being together, the engagement in the task at hand, and the accountability to stay engaged.
Use a virtual whiteboard to track the conversation and recognize people’s contributions. This will help document progress being made in the session. But, resist the temptation to ‘group wordsmith’ the virtual white board; it’s a record of the conversation, not a final deliverable.
All participants join from a space that is quiet and free from distractions. Don’t distract the team with stuff happening in the background of your location.
Agendas with clear meeting objectives are sent prior to each meeting. Consider specifying roles and responsibilities for each participant, so everyone joins the meeting prepared to participate in a particular way.
Consider implementing pre-reads and requesting participants to share questions or concerns prior to the meeting. This will ensure you focus conversation on topics most relevant to the group, and avoid time on content that everyone agrees on.
Summarize actions taken and required in the meeting, or as an immediate follow up.
Implement a weekly retrospective to align and improve
During this time of elevated volatility and disrupted work practices, it is important to acknowledge tensions and expectations. Leaders can support their teams by creating a dedicated way to recognize inconvenience, vent frustrations, share concerns, and support one another. The Agile practice of Retrospective is a dedicated time to reflect on what is working well and what is not working well across a team. By jointly listing specific actions and behaviors that drive value or hinder value, the team works together to generate behaviors/practices for improvement.
As we navigate COVID-19, set a weekly Retrospective Meeting for teams. This will be a valuable feedback loop for the organization, and a great tool for teams to feel connected and supported during this time of separation.
Tactically, leaders may facilitate this session using the following structure:
In a round robin, ask each team member to share a specific action or behavior that created value for them in the past week. They may thank a team member who was extra helpful. They may reference a particular meeting that effectively moved the answer forward. Each positive contribution should be specific and recent.
The manager or facilitator should share a screen and capture the positive comments from each team member in a list.
In a second round robin, ask each team member to share a specific action or behavior that hindered value for them in the past week. They may reference delays in feedback. They may reference poor digital teaming technology. They may reference their anxiety for their health. Each challenge contribution should be specific and recent.
The manager or facilitator will capture the challenge comments from each team member in a second list, side-by-side with the positives.
Now, that both lists have been captured and presented back through screen-share, open the floor for any team member to propose an action that will mitigate the challenges or better leverage the positives. The actions should be specific, and within the team's control. The goal will be to implement them in the next week of working together.
The manager or facilitator should help the team create 3-5 specific action items and verbally prompt shared accountability to follow/complete these actions during the next work week.
The actions should be captured and shared to all team members - they may also be shared upwards with leadership. Refrain from sharing the positives and challenges verbatim, as these should be held in the confidence of the team. However, abstracting key themes for leadership may be a benefit of this practice.
More Tips and Suggestions for Effective Virtual Work
Beyond the Agile framework, there are some best practices that deserve attention in these days of adapting to virtual collaboration.
Foundations and Netiquette
Test all technology before each meeting; respect everyone’s time
Everyone: Read the agenda, and come prepared with questions and issues, be proactive
Clarify who from the team is on the call; introduce new comers
Start with something informal, before jumping to agenda; keep camaraderie alive
Everyone on video – so that you trust you’re all in (try to make this work!)
Set context more clearly, create shared understanding
Don’t interrupt other people when they’re speaking (or attempt to speak over them)
Resist the urge to multi-task, (like email, or phone) during the virtual meeting
Turn off all notifications and make sure your cell phone is on silent
Make sure all team members are in a quiet areas free from unnecessary distractions
Engagement
Ideal virtual work sessions should be 60-90 minutes; think of frequent ‘timeblocks’
Ideally, every team member should contribute or support in every meeting; every team member plays a role which keeps them engaged
Rotate leading meetings – let others help to keep the team energized
Create new ways to work in sessions, add informal activities to energize the work
Create new rituals that help cement informal bonds to ease working together
Ensure that everyone has a chance to contribute; keep track of contributions and ask people for their input
Find ways to have fun and laugh together!
Same Page
Prioritize: Stay focused and keep things simple; think minimum viable product
Identify how to communicate what messages in which ways (channels): limit your tool set; standardized documentation; keep it simple, but keep it consistent
Use online logs to stay in synch: communications, stakeholders, decisions, etc.
Build your work habits to align with the virtual team processes – lean in
Content By: Lauren Leslie, BCG Consulting & Marita Decker, FutureCourse Education
For more info: mdecker@future-course.com