of Scrum at the company I worked for, resulting in better software for their customers. Very soon after, I decided that
Sharing Knowledge and Making Decisions Together to Reach Goals and Get Better
Auteur Stephan van Rooden
Sharing Knowledge and Making Decisions Together to Reach Goals and Get Better Introduction
Take a look at these two pictures below:
STEPHAN VAN ROODEN AGILE CONSULTANT When asked which one of these two pictures you consider being a group? Most likely you chose the photo on the left over the photo on the right. But why? The reason behind this is you implicitly, accept a definition of the term group close to the ones adopted by social psychologists. A group consists of two or more interacting persons, who share common goals, have a stable relationship, are somehow interdependent, and perceive that they are in fact part of a group (Paulus, 1989) 1
Why do people join groups?
People join groups to pursue a common goal or to satisfy a mutual interest. This allows individuals to achieve things that would not have been possible alone. Making groups makes a lot of sense. Consider an organization for example; this is a perfect example of a collection of individuals focusing on achieving a mutual goal. However, there are other reasons why people join groups. Next to satisfying mutual interests, being part of a group provides a sense of security. Finding safety in numbers. The more you are, the better you stand. Why would we have unions that represent a collection of individuals against the power of corporations? Paulus, P.B. (Ed.). (1989). Psychology of group influence (2nd ed.) Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
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With lots of energy, enthusiasm and ambition Stephan helps organizations, teams and individuals to further improve software development. Biography I have always thought I was destined to become a project manager. After being a Business Intelligence Consultant and project manager, I started as Scrum Master for several Web Content Management projects. Since I wasn’t experienced in this subject, I naturally acted as a servant leader for the team. I tried to adopt Scrum the best way I could at the organizations I worked for, but only after following a Professional Scrum Master course, I really understood what Scrum was about and why these few simple rules were there. This resulted, not only in a better understanding for me on the power the Scrum framework has, but it immediately resulted in better adoption of Scrum at the company I worked for, resulting in better software for their customers. Very soon after, I decided that I would like to help other organizations and its employees see the same power the Scrum Framework has to offer like I did.
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Groups also serve basic psychological needs. People are social animals; they have a basic need to interact with others. As Maslow’s need hierarchy describes, the need for interaction, there is another need that is fulfilled by being part of a group. Being part of a group also nurtures selfesteem. Belonging to a successful group boosts self-esteem of the individual’s that are part of the group.
Difference groups and teams
Before connecting the characteristics of a group to a Scrum team, let’s clarify the difference between a group and a team. The difference isn’t really that big. In fact, a team is also a group but it makes a coordinated effort to reach a goal. This means that they work more closely together over a long period of time to accomplish a goal. This also applies to for a Scrum team who, being selforganizing and cross-functional, work close together in short iterations towards a goal, commonly referred to as a Sprint Goal. To optimally function as a team they are typically working together for a longer period of time. This whitepaper discusses some of the goals Scrum Teams share and provides a background from social psychological research on how to optimally use the potential power of a Scrum Team. Goals Scrum Teams try to accomplish by:
Sharing Knowledge and Making Decisions Together to Reach Goals and Get Better.
Sharing Knowledge
One of the main purposes of having groups: Sharing Knowledge! Knowledge sharing has been around for centuries. For example, parents transferring knowledge to their children, or workers exchanging best practices. In traditional models of education, copying the knowledge and experience of a fellow classmate was generally considered a bad thing. However, nowadays in the ‘new economy’, the reuse of a colleague’s knowledge and experience is considered necessary in order to survive.
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Definition and type of Knowledge
Defining knowledge as a“…fluid mixture of experience, values, contextual information and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information.” Davenport & Prusak (1998) Polanyi divided, already in 1966, knowledge into two types; tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is knowledge in people their minds and is complex to transfer. It is deeply rooted in people their actions, commitment and involvement. Explicit knowledge on the other hand is structured, codified and more easily transferable. Both types you want to be able to transfer to other people in a group. However, transferring tacit knowledge requires a more rich communication method in order to be successful. [link].
Social Exchange theory
Why do people share knowledge? What motivates people to share what they know? Do they share it because they feel they must, or perhaps do they share it because it makes them feel good about themselves? One of the theories explaining this knowledge sharing behavior is the ‘social-exchange theory’. In short, this theory states that we only help one another after weighing the costs and benefits. People try to maximize their benefits and minimize the costs. This theory seems to imply that helpful acts are non-altruistic. This does not mean that people do unselfish acts; satisfaction is a byproduct of this act. However, social norms influence people in doing more unselfish acts. Motivating people to do so will result in more sharing of knowledge.
Motivation
Creating a culture that promotes sharing knowledge will influence the willingness to share knowledge. According to the social exchange theory, people are not willing to share their knowledge when they cannot get something out of it. People need to get motivated to share knowledge. This is confirmed by studies showing that, when people are motivated by moral obligation, they are less likely to act out of self-interest. Self-interest reduces the willingness to share knowledge when sharing knowledge face-to-face. People can be motivated intrinsically or extrinsically to share knowledge. In the study of McLure Wasko & Faraj published in 2000, people share their knowledge from a sense of moral duty. This intrinsic motivation of people, who want to ‘give something back to the community’, is perceived to be more successful than extrinsic motives to share knowledge. Extrinsic rewarding only gives temporary benefits, but on the long term is less successful.
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The ‘crowding out effect’ is the effect that extrinsic motivators decrease the intrinsic motivation of a person, resulting in a devaluation of the intrinsic motivations to share knowledge. Besides this, the other aims; making knowledge visible and make the role it plays clear, have a huge influence on interpersonal knowledge sharing.
Common knowledge effect
Based on the previous paragraph, being part of a group would make sense, because this may increase the intrinsic motivation to share knowledge. However, this isn’t always the case! Other studies have shown that it isn’t obvious people will share their knowledge to others. In fact, when asked to share knowledge in a group, the basic tendency for people is to share on that knowledge that is already known to others in a group. This effect is called the ‘common knowledge effect’. People will not automatically share knowledge in a group. This effect is proven to decrease as time goes by and the group is together for a longer period of time. So, that is why also in the Scrum Framework it is stressed that having a stable team for a longer period of time is absolutely crucial.
There is a cure!
Not only time can help you with overcoming this knowledge effect. There is a relatively easy way to motivate a group to actively share knowledge. When facing a problem, if you indicate to the group there is a solution (regardless of the fact if you know what it is exactly), but that they have to figure this out themselves. At that very moment the group will start sharing knowledge. This makes sense because you are presenting them a challenge and you present them with a common goals/interest to find this solution. Basically what you are trying to achieve is that they get the feeling they have to beat you to come up with a better solution. So you are triggering the social exchange theory.
Making Decision Together Group decision making
There is no better feeling than being part of a group that is able (or at least feel they are) to solve every problem that is thrown at them. Our society now is so complex that one individual can no longer possess all the knowledge; he cannot oversee the entire picture. The necessity to organize us in groups has never been higher. Scrum tries to achieve that as well. Assemble a group of individuals who together are able to win the game. To solve any problem thrown at them by the product owner. This also means that we as a group have to make decisions together as well...and that is not that easy! Bezoekadres Postadres Prowareness Postbus 2903 2601 CT Delft 2601 CX Delft Brassersplein 1
Benefits of decision making in groups
Despite its not easy, there are some major benefits for teams to make their own decisions. First, the information and knowledge present in a group is more complete than in smaller groups. Two heads are better than one! Second, when a group comes to a decision they tend to accept the solution more often than when an individual makes a decision for the group. The last thing is hard, especially nowadays because the hierarchical structures in organizations are under pressure. Those lower in the hierarchy are no longer uneducated individuals but high skilled and knowledgeable, so they are less willing to blindly follow their leader (into the abyss). This is why books like ‘Our iceberg is melting’ from John Kotter are so popular. You have to go through great lengths to convince a group to take over your point of view. Wouldn’t it be easier to let the group decide for themselves? Just give them the boundaries and they will solve the puzzle. Third, and last, benefit of group decision-making is that it increases the sense of legitimacy of the group. Making a decision as a group gives them the confirmation that they are in fact a group! However, where there are benefits there are definitely some disadvantages to group decision-making.
Downsides of group decision making
One of the most straight forward and most visible downside to group decision making is that is takes a lot more time. We all have been in those endless meetings where discussions go on and on for…well it feels like hours sometimes. In a Scrum Team, the Scrum Master plays a huge role in facilitating the Scrum events (i.e. Sprint Planning) in such a way that they are as efficient and effective as possible. Also when making a decision as a group, questions may arise who is accountable for the outcome of this decision. Should one person be accountable or is the entire group accountable. This is a thin line and a solution if different for almost every situation. You see this happening is sports very clearly. If a team is winning, the team is celebrated for this but when results get bad we try to shift the blame to an individual (usually the coach). In organizations, you see that when a manager is held accountable he is almost obligated to take the decisions as well. This has become part of our DNA so much that we are having trouble letting this go. And when you start adopting Scrum you immediately get in trouble. I believe that if a group makes a decision, they should be accountable as a group as well. Delivering in small increments limits the impact of decisions made by a group and therefore makes this discussion less relevant.
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The biggest disadvantage of group decision-making is that it nourishes conformism. So people in a group tend to match their attitudes, beliefs and behavior to group norms. Two interesting sociological phenomena arise here; groupthink and groupshift
Groupthink and Groupshift
Groupthink is the phenomena where group pressure leads to conformism. So any critical, unpopular or minority interest will not be taken into consideration by a group in their decision making process. So what can happen in a Development Team during a sprint planning meeting is the following: an ops-engineer makes a very good point related to the monitoring of the item under discussion. However, since the rest of the team didn’t had any feeling regarding that topic the comment from the engineer was put aside and never came up again. Groupthink, a minority interest wasn’t taken into consideration by the team. Groupshift is where members of the group exaggerated their initial toward a more extreme position. So risk averse individuals will propose an even more risk averse approach and the opposite happens with risk seeking individuals. This is caused by the feeling of safety a group provides. As a group you stand stronger against other external elements then when you are alone. So teams will tend to take more risks. In group decision making, this will lead to decisions being made that are more extreme. So when in a group, individuals are far more willing to make riskier decisions. Shared risk makes the individual risks less.
When talking about Sprint Retrospectives there is one book that cannot be ignored. “Agile Retrospectives. Making Good Teams Great” by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen. Their book revolves around a model for running effective retrospectives that in fact is exactly the same as the nominal group technique. So we do retrospectives to facilitate group decision-making and in order to amplify the benefits of this approach to improve group decision-making and to reach our goals easier.
Reach Goals
If having a common goal makes you a group and having a coordinated effort towards these goals makes you a team. Achieving this goal might be one of the most fulfilling reasons to be part of a group. However, many organizations and teams starting adopting Scrum tend to focus on the wrong goals. It is not how good you follow the rules of Scrum that makes you successful and is not the goal in itself. Real goals tend to expect a certain result from a certain effort. Like an organization wanting to reach a market share of 10%. A great goal but it is a result of other things the organization does. Using the Scrum framework is not a goal, it is a mean that has been proven to help organizations reach goals. In fact, every Sprint in the Scrum framework has a specific goal; the Sprint Goal. And to become better at reaching greater goals there are means to help you become better like the Scrum event, the Sprint Retrospective aiming to facilitate teams in getting better.
Why we do retrospectives?
Getting Better
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Cohesion
So how to deal with these two phenomena? There’s a way to improve the group decision-making process and to limit the impact of groupthink and groupshift. The ‘nominal group technique’, where you facilitate group decision making by doing a couple of things:
• • •
Get everybody involved together Let people think for themselves first about the problem at hand Share the thoughts Discuss on how to solve the problem Order the ideas and decide
Establishing the stage of being a team making team decisions, or nowadays in most organizations, being a Scrum team, comes with some challenges. How to get this team constantly improving themselves? The Scrum Framework believes it is that important to continually improve, that there is even an entire event devoted to this; the Sprint Retrospective. Bezoekadres Postadres Prowareness Postbus 2903 2601 CT Delft 2601 CX Delft Brassersplein 1
How is setting goals related to productivity? Extensive research has been done on the correlation between goals and productivity. To be more specific, the alignment between organizational goals and team goals versus a team’s productivity. An important factor here is group cohesion. Cohesion is more or less the glue that keeps a team together. Each individual in a group has the feeling they are part of this group. Cohesion is those forces that make sure people want to stay with this group. There are a couple of factors that increases cohesion. First, the effort people have to go through to become a member of the group. A very nice example is the means someone has to go through to become part of a fraternity, full of traditions and sometimes even some questionable activities are required to be performed by those wanting to become part of this exclusive group. Becoming a member takes quite some effort and results in a group membership for life. Second, external threats can increase the cohesion in a group.
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Like stated earlier, being part of a group provides a sense of security against external threats. Third, smaller groups then to be more cohesive then larger groups.
Productivity
The relationship between goal alignment and cohesion on productivity can be found on the image below.
So why have Scrum Teams?
In order to reach your organizational goals you need to have teams that have goals of their own aligned with that organizational goal. If these teams feel they are empowered to make decisions as a group they will not only feel more like a team. They will be more willing to share knowledge and continuously work together to get better. Using the Scrum Framework gives your teams a framework enabling them to get the most out of them.
Obviously productivity increases when group cohesion is high and the goal of the group is aligned with organizational goals. More interesting is that a group with a lot of cohesion but the alignment between their goal and the goal of the organization is low results in a decrease of productivity. This is very interesting but also perfectly explainable. Imagine a team working on a legacy application. They have been working together for years and now everything there is to know about this application. They only need a couple of words to explain to their team members what needs to be done. But this legacy application is going to be decommissioned in a couple of months. Image what this does to the team, cohesion will probably increase (because of external threat) but their motivation will most likely decrease. What are we doing this for anyway, what’s the purpose? So having a stable team that consider themselves to be a group and have strong cohesion, with a clear goal that is aligned with the rest of the organizational goals enables them to be very productive. However, essential is this case is that the goals the team pursues are represented by a product backlog ordered on maximizing value added for customers (or clients or users).
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