AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Course 4. Agile Leadership Principles and Practices

Module 3 of 4

John Johnson, PMP CSM SPC,

A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park

Copyright 2018, All rights reserved

Week 3. Agenda
Empowering the Mind
• Agile Leader’s Challenge
• Understanding Decision Bias
• Managing Decision Bias
• Harnessing Hidden Powers
• Protecting Focus

Slide 2
 Empowering to Align
Agile Leader’s Challenge

Slide 3
Agile Leaders Support Complex People Systems
• Agile Leaders must be excellent at sensing and communicating
– Able to identify & meet needs
– Able to listen and act with little bias

• Only then can you successfully engineer the people system!

Slide 4
People Systems Engineering Drives Performance
Professional Development
• People Systems are complex (Growth & Opportunities)

and overlapping
Individual External
Motivation Trends
• Agile PMs must sense and (Self) Stress Changes
(Environment)
Happiness Politics
align individuals, teams, and
stakeholders
Team Dynamics Culture Stakeholder Management
(Loyalty & Engagement) Creativity (Trust & Excitement)
Process

Internal
(Team)
Slide 5
Learning to Lead by Listening with Control
• Deputy JM of MARFORRES Strategic Planning
– 20+ Consultants, 5 Execution Areas
– Developing siting and investment support system

• Great Success and Stress

– Gained lots of experience and reputation for delivery
– Developed new GIS-Based Planning System
– Gained weight and had conflicts with boss (who I managed)
– Nearly fired by boss at annual review

• Learned ESI & got promoted by boss one year later

– Realigned team to reduce conflicts, support not manage boss
– Learned to control my responses, especially on Fridays
– Learned to listen and solve problems with a little less ego
Slide 6
The Perfect Person for Automating
• Senior Agile PM of National Archives ERA 2.0
– 50+ People, 4 Teams, 30 IBM, 20 National Archives
– Developing system to store nearly all federal electronic records (>100 PB) on AWS

• Great Opportunity but Needed Scaling Capability

– Team developing cutting edge big data and cloud systems
– Needed to speed up testing variety & volume at enormous scale

• Aligned Team Member to Lead Automated Testing

– “Nate” was into home automation, but not really a coder
– Needed a bigger challenge than just testing
– He learned and led Automated Testing on project
– He became Center of Excellence lead on Auto Testing

Slide 7
People Systems Engineering Drives Performance
Professional Development
• Both Stories relate to this driving (Growth & Opportunities)
performance, aligning people to
empower them Individual External
Motivation Trends
(Self) Stress Changes
(Environment)
• Personal Empowerment at Happiness Politics
MARFORRES was about
empowering myself
Team Dynamics Stakeholder Management
(Loyalty & Engagement) Culture
• The Perfect Person for Creativity (Trust & Excitement)

Automating, “Nate” at the Process

Archives, is an example of Internal

empowering others (Team)
Slide 8
Agile Leaders Must Sense & Manage
• Requires empowering yourself
(what we’ll cover in this chapter)
– Awareness
– Habits
– Focus

• Requires empowering others

(what we’ll cover in the next chapter)
– Establishing systems of ownership
– Sensing & influencing the system
– Resolving of conflicts
Slide 9
But You Can’t Know It, Because You’re Biased
Understanding Decision Bias

Slide 10
Identifying and Overcoming Distortions

• All perception exists with both the precept (other) and concept (self)

• We cannot remove bias, but we can be aware of it to adjust our thinking

• Many sources of bias distort our view

Slide 11
Sensing Bias: Understanding & Deciding
1. Anchoring Bias (high-ball, low-ball)
2. Availability Bias (it’s on the news!)
3. Bandwagon Effect (everyone does it)
4. Blind-Spot Bias (never saw that)
5. Choice-Supportive Bias (mine is best!)
6. Clustering Illusion (looks like a pattern)
7. Confirmation Bias (just as I thought!)

What Major Bias is Always There?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEwGBIr_RIw&t=189s

Slide 12
 There are so many biases….over 190 or more…
1. Lack Memory 2. Too Much Info
So Save Space by… Only notice..
- Editing (cut) memories - Changes
- Generalizing - Bizarreness
- Keeping an example - Repetition
- External memory use - Confirmation

3. Lack Time 4. Not Enough Meaning

So assume that… So fill in the gaps with…
- We’re right! - Patterns
- We can do this - Generalities
- Easier is better - Benefit of doubt
- Easier problems

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#/media/File:The_Cognitive_Bias
_Codex_-_180%2B_biases,_designed_by_John_Manoogian_III_(jm3).png

Slide 13
Summary There are many biases that come into play in different
situations

Primary drivers are

• Not enough time
• Not enough memory
• Not enough meaning
• Too much info

Slide 14
Is Thinking Clearly even Possible?
Managing Decision Bias

Slide 15
Managing Bias Requires Special Skills

• Emotional-Social Intelligence (ESI) helps identify and remove bias

• It is difficult to improve, but can be done with focus via “mindfulness

practice”

• Focus is a primary driver of performance in schools, sports, and the

workplace

Slide 16
Three of the Four ESI Competences Remove Bias

Self-Awareness Social Awareness

• Self-Confidence • Empathy
• Emotional Self Awareness • Organizational Awareness
• Accurate Self Awareness • Environmental Understanding

Self Management Social Skills

• Self-Control • Influence
• Trustworthiness • Inspirational Leadership
• Conscientiousness • Developing Others
• Adaptability • Building Bonds
• Drive and Motivation • Team Work, Collaboration
• Initiative

Slide 17
ESI Improves Leader Performance
• Original work by Daniel Goleman “Leadership that gets results,” HBR ’00
– Emotional Intelligence Business Leaders
– High ESI executives earn more and get better results

• Based on Research conducted by consulting frim Hay / McBer

– Observed sample of 3,871 Executives
– Measured impacts across six dimensions of “climate”
(flexibility, responsibility, standards, rewards, clarity, commitment)
– Accounted for one-third of financial results in organizations
– Leaders impact climate positively or negatively

Slide 18
Mindfulness Practice Builds ESI
Competencies Mindfulness
Practice
Why Mindfulness Is a Superpower: An Animation

Emotion Attention Self-

Regulation Control Awareness

Mindfulness is..
“the ability to know what’s going on in your head
without getting carried away by it” Beneficial
Outcomes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6T02g5hnT4
Slide 19
Summary All biases, especially decision-making biases, can be managed
with ESI skills

ESI is proven to improve leader decisions and results via a

better business “climate”

You can improve ESI daily with focus via mindfulness

practice

Mindfulness competencies impact three out of four of the ESI

skills for leadership
• Self-Awareness, Self-Control, & Social Awareness

Slide 20
Driving Truth into Every Day
Hidden Power

Slide 21
Mindfulness Requires Serious Practice
• Mindfulness enhances everything you do with emotional regulation,
attention control (focus), and self-awareness

• There are many types of mindfulness practices that build these skills
– Journaling
– Some games on your phone
– Meditation (and prayer)

• The most effective and widespread is mediation

Slide 22
Habits & Adaptive Unconscious
• Most of the time, we work via an “adaptive unconscious”

• This creates a powerful mapping how the world works, an efficient set
of routines
– Gives us great power, but easily fooled
– Need is to “tune” this unconscious self
– This tuning can be done by developing habits

• Mindfulness gives us the window and focus to change our behavior

Slide 23
Mindfulness about the Mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTA0j8FfCvs

• Our thoughts are driven

by neural connections
– Most are unconscious
– 98% are the same each day
– 80% are negative
– Habits are strong connections
• Meditation improves your brain
connections and your personality: Only 10 -20 minutes to train the brain!
• Reduce cortisol (stress hormone)
– Greater memory and focus
• Reduce amygdala size (fear center)
– Better emotional regulation & control • Changes posterior cingulate (focus)
– Higher intelligence and creativity • Changes TPJ (empathy & compassion)
Slide 24
Focus! Modern Neuroscience Agrees!

“Attention drives neural activity and growth], you can literally change the
structural connections in your brain with what you do with your mind.”

-- Dr. Daniel Siegel, Author of Mindsight

Slide 25
 Creating the Cocoon
Protecting Focus

Slide 26
Designing Your Decision Making Environment
What helps and hurts cognition?

The killers of focus (we’ve covered): Distraction

• Negativity, stress, and anxiety Kills Focus!

• Interruptions
• Multi-tasking
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d
The builders of focus: BC6R75IE2U

• Drive positive thinking through small wins! Again and again!

• Gain flow with a safe, secure, and empowered workplace
• Ability to productively play in a “Cocoon of Time….”

Slide 27
Flip the Script on Micro-Reinforcements:
A Rolling Wave of Small Reinforcing Wins!
Agilists use multi-level planning, called
“Rolling Wave”
- Long term, low detail
- Short term, high detail

Highest-level planning is capabilities,

but features and stories are written as
Business Requirements

This continuous delivery model results

in delivering small win after small win –
building a positive, focused team!
Slide 28
Agile Replaces Fear, Giving the True Self a Cocoon
• Do It Wrong - Enables faster learning by more quickly testing designs
• Reject Good Ideas - Sprints limit number of objectives per “batch”
• Simplify and Accelerate Everything - report all progress in a minute or less
• Limit Innovation - Reduces the “Knowledge Gap” so limit innovation needed
• Failure Is An Option - fixes are cheaper and faster if it goes wrong

Knowledge Gap

Slide 29
Protecting Focus Means Protect the Sprint!
• Drive out fear!
– Stress, Anxiety, and Negative thoughts
– Multi-tasking and Distractions
• Drive in “just enough” safety to “play” to get creative
– Do It Wrong
– Reject Good Ideas
– Simplify and Accelerate
– Limit Innovation
– Failure Is An Option
• Reinforce your drive with many small wins!

Slide 30
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Agile Leadership Principles and
Practices

Thank You!

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