Building Trust in a Team Steve Connolly and Dan Feldman Scrum Masters Guild, Sept. 7, 2016

Scrum Values Commitment Courage Focus Openness Respect Scrum Guide, July 2016. http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html

Self Trust - 4 Cores of Credibility Character Integrity Intent Competence Capabilities Results

Relationship Trust – the Principal of Behavior 13 Behaviors that can be improved to increase trust

1. Talk Straight Tell the truth, be honest, let people know where you stand. Opposite: to lie or deceive. Counterfeit: ‘Spinning’, positioning, posturing and manipulating. Optimize existing processes: minimize disruption, don’t impose a new process on a team. Quality: define what is acceptable at each step in the process. Lead time is directly related to WIP, lower WIP, lower lead time. Some slack in the process is required to allow team members a chance to develop and implement process improvements.

2. Demonstrate Respect Genuinely care for others. Show you care. Respect the dignity of every person and every role. Opposite: to not respect or have concern for other people. Counterfeit: Faking respect or concern.

3. Create Transparency Tell the truth in a way people can verify for themselves. Declare your intent. Opposite: to hide, to cover up, to obscure. Counterfeit: having hidden agendas

4. Right Wrongs Make things right when you’re wrong, apologize quickly. Opposite: to deny or justify wrongs, to rationalize wrong behavior. Counterfeit: Covering up, disguising or trying to hide mistakes. Theory of constraints: throughput is determined by the system’s constraint (bottleneck). Focusing on improving the throughput of the constraint will improve the throughput of the system. Eli Goldratt Limiting WIP has a direct impact on quality. Discuss WIP limits with stakeholders, insure understanding. Identify the constraint (bottleneck). Buffers can smooth out the flow and improve predictability of lead time.

5. Show Loyalty Give credit to others, Speak about people as if they were present. Opposite: To take credit yourself, to betray others. Counterfeit: Being two-faced, appearing to give credit to people when they are present but downplaying their contribution when they’re not.

6. Deliver Results Establish a track record of results, get the right things done. Opposite: to perform poorly or fail to deliver. Counterfeit: delivering activities instead of results, overpromising and underdelivering.

7. Get Better Continuously improve, increase your capabilities. Opposite: to deteriorate, to ‘rest on your laurels.’ Counterfeit: ‘flavor of the month’ improvements that never take hold. Continuously learning but never producing.

8. Confront Reality Take issues head on, even the ‘undiscussables.’ Acknowledge the unsaid (elephant in the room). Opposite: to ignore reality, be ‘in denial.’ Counterfeit: pretending to confront reality while actually evading it. Focus attention on side issues while skirting the real issue.

9. Clarify Expectations Disclose and reveal expectations. Discuss them, validate them. Opposite: to leave expectations undefined or ambiguous. Counterfeit: Guessing, failing to pin down the specifics (results, deadlines, resources) that facilitate meaningful accountability.

10. Practice Accountability Hold yourself accountable first: hold others accountable second. Take responsibility for results, good or bad. Opposite: to not take responsibility or own up. Counterfeit: Pointing fingers and blaming others.

11. Listen First Listen before you speak. Understand, diagnose. Don’t presume you know what matters most to others. Opposite: to speak first, listen last, to not listen at all. Counterfeit: Listening without understanding. Listening only while you formulate your reply.

12. Keep Commitments Say what you’re going to do, then do what you say you’re going to do. Opposite: to break commitments to violate promises. Counterfeit: Overpromising and underdelivering. Being casual about commitments.

13. Extend Trust Demonstrate a propensity to trust. Extend trust abundantly to those have earned it. Opposite: to withhold trust. Counterfeit: Extending ‘false trust’ giving people the responsibility, but not the authority or resources.

First Activity Provide examples of high trust, low trust and counterfeits for each of the 13 behaviors.

Poll of 13 Behaviors Poll Everywhere app PollEv.com/danfeldman946

Second Activity With an understanding of the 13 trust behaviors, please return to the sheet with the behaviors that interest you and describe how you intend to shift that behavior towards higher trust when you arrive at work tomorrow.

References Sutherland, Jeff V., Schwaber, Ken (2016), The Scrum Guide™. http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html . Covey, Stephen M.R., Merrill, Rebecca R. (2006). The Speed of Trust, the One Thing That Changes Everything. New York, NY: Free Press.