Less is more agile india 2013

Less is more !

Ebin Johnebinjp@hotmail.com

1

What are we talking about!

• Relation between team size and productivity• Some factors affecting “Team Dynamics”• Why we do what we do!

2

How many of you have designed teams?

3

Designing teams for:

• Optimum– Productivity– Motivation– Transparency– Collaboration– Communication

–Size– Etc.

4

Why the team size different?

9

5 11

711

65

The number of people on a team has significant impact on performance

6

People's efforts quickly diminish as team size increases : Ringelmann Effect

Individual contribution is inversely proportional to the size and magnitude of a group.

7

Rope Pulling Exercise

• 4 people pulled a rope • Then 4 more people joined to pull the same rope

8 People didn’t pull as strong as 4

8

Ringelmann concluded this productivity decrease as loss of motivation and

coordination problems.

9

Is it only that?

10

Another Experiment: Alan Ingham

It didn't seem to matter whether people were part of a larger team or simply thought they were part of a larger team

they worked less hard.

11

Not only Co-ordination Issues, Motivation but also Social Loafing is contributing to the

productivity decrease.

12

Social Loafing

The reduction in individual effort when people work in groups compared to when they work

alone.

Team members reduced their effort because they feel less responsible for the output.

13

Parameters Of Social Loafing

• Social Facilitation • Social Influence

14

Social Facilitation

Tendency for people to do better on simple tasks in the presence of other people.

Degrade the performance of less familiar tasks!

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_facilitation15

Any Incidents?

17

Social Influence

Occurs when one's emotions, opinions, or behaviors are affected by others

18

Social Influence

• Compliance : when people appear to agree with others, but actually keep their dissenting opinions private.

• Identification : when people are influenced by someone who is liked and respected, such as a famous celebrity.

• Internalization : when people accept a belief or behavior and agree both publicly and privately.

19

Conformance to the expectations of others.

– Informational social influence : the need to be right.

– Normative social influence : the need to be liked.

Psychological Factors

20

Relation with Agile ceremonies

• Planning– Task break down– Estimation

• Grooming• Demo• Retrospection• ?

21

What is the ideal number?

• Researches suggests that , people tend to prefer teams of four or, at most, five members.

• Context matters.– Tasks variety, Multi skills, Over heads, etc.

22

All other things being equal, that small teams are more likely to optimize their performance when faced with slightly fewer members than

the task at hand requires.

Small teams are more effective!

23

Not doing anything isn't an option

The team members you risk losing aren't the weakest but highest performers.

24

What can we do about it?

What are the other options?

25

Option 1• Divide up a complex task into manageable

bits, where every member of the team is accountable for one bit of it.

Source: http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/scrum/task-boards26

Option 2

Generate a sense of urgency

Provided that people are capable, all one needs to do is to give them something to care about

more than themselves.

27

Option 3Make weaker team members feel

disproportionately responsible for the team underperforming.

The Köhler Effect:No one wants to be the weakest link of any group. As a result,

weaker individuals in the group respond to this by expending more effort than they would had they been working alone.

28

Option 4

Provide greater transparency by opening up your feedback mechanism.

Make things painfully visible.

29

What are the value adds!

30

Questions / Comments

31

Thank you

Email:ebinjp@hotmail.com

32

References• http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/08/why_less_is_more_in_teams.html• http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/04/agile-optimal-team-size • http://www.jrothman.com/blog/mpd/2009/12/ideal-team-size-and-ratios

.html

• http://www.sixsigmatraining.org/miscellaneous/what-is-the-optimum-team-size.html

• http://www.belbin.com/?id=73&pressid=31

33

Appendix

34

• Four "We're well-balanced in our team and good at achieving agreement."

• Five "One of us tends to be the odd one out."• Six "It takes longer to reach agreement, but we get

there in the end."• Seven "Rather too many random contributions float

about."• Eight "People speak freely but no one listens."• Nine "We could do with someone taking control."• Ten "We now have a leader, but their ideas are the only

ones with a chance of acceptance."

Source: http://www.belbin.com/?id=73&pressid=3135

Context

• The purpose for forming the team,• The expectations you have of the team and its

members,• The roles that the team members need to play,• The amount of cohesiveness and

interconnectivity necessary for optimal team performance, and

• The function, activities, and goals of the team.

36