Agile Development Blog

Yesterday evening, I was listening to “Marketplace” on National Public Radio and a segment on “Choosing the Best Business Books”.

Kai Ryssdal, interviewing Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten, asked the two if there is one book they’d recommend to survive a downturn economy. The two have just authored The 100 Best Business Books of All Time so they seemed like the right people to ask.  Their answer surprised me in a particularly wonderful way. SPOILER: it wasn’t my book Collaboration Explained :-)

But before I tell you which book it was, let me tell you a little about what made me so happy and amazed.

I teach a class called “Collaboration Explained” through Rally’s Agile University. In this class about facilitating Agile software teams to be truly collaborative, I also touch into how to tell when I team really isn’t collaborative. It could be about the project’s or organization’s leadership; it could be a fundamentally toxic environment.

Whatever the cause, I talk about (1) recognizing certain dysfunctions, (2) why we should care about them in Agile software development, and (3) what to do about them.

This brings us back to the book recommended by Covert and Sattersten. Both my source on Agile team dysfunctions and the business book they recommended for this difficult economy are the same: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni.

What? A book about teams and their dysfunctions as THE business book for surviving a downturn economy? Yes.

Teams in dysfunction can’t perform. And teams that can’t perform can’t be productive. Non-productive teams eat away at organizational performance.

Think about a team you have been on that just never seemed to gel. Stuck in what is sometimes called “Storming”, it just never seemed to be able to pull it together.

Thinking about that team, do some of these descriptions sound familiar?

• Absence of trust
• Fear of conflict
• Lack of commitment
• Avoidance of accountability
• Inattention to results

As Lencioni in his fable will tell you, these dysfunctions build on one another; that is, until you resolve a fundamental absence of trust, you won’t be able to tackle a fear of conflict. And so on.  Individuals on teams stuck in these dysfunctions  “act out” in ways that evidence just how pernicious the damage can be from these untreated team ailments:

• Invulnerability
• Artificial harmony
• Ambiguity
• Low Standards
• Status and Ego

So, back to “Marketplace”, Kai Ryssdal, Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten. Covert and Sattersten believe in the power of this business fable during this downturn economy because of the power and importance of teams in bringing economies back to life. If you are looking to Agile and how it can cut costs for your organization, consider the power of your teams. Work to engender trust and promote an ability to have constructive conflict. Empower your teams and amplify the learning that teams bring to organizations. And, consider that THE book recommended for all businesses by Covert and Sattersten, not just for software teams, in this downturn economy is a book that directly addresses team dysfunctions.

Cut costs, yes. But don’t just cut groups without consideration of Lencioni’s advice. Work to move dysfunctional teams to becoming high-performing. Maintain and nurture those teams that continue to gel and perform. That is how to survive this economy.

Further Reading:

• Lean economic times call for Lean, Agile software development
• Brutal Prioritization in Agile: cut costs by NOT building the fluff stuff