Software Process and Measurement

Punishment after poor behavior does not keep kids off the cliff!

Feedback is a tool to help teams stay on track not only in terms of functionality, but also in terms of meeting organizational expectations of quality and delivery rate. Rewards, as discussed in Daily Process Thoughts, July 1, 2013 can enhance commitment. When rewards are discussed, or used, someone will voice the idea of punishments as a mechanism to enforce commitments. Punishment and its cousin, blame, create a team environment where making commitments is at best dangerous.

Agile teams make commitments based on the needs of the Product Owner (prioritized backlog) and their capabilities. All teams will occasionally miss a commitment because “things” do happen, but “things” should only happen occasionally. When teams fail to deliver on their commitment more than occasionally or missing their commitments becomes the norm, something is broken. Consistently missing commitments reflects a team problem (people, capabilities or process), or an organizational issue (for example, a mandate versus a commitment). A well-oiled Agile team will tackle team-related issues either during their periodic retrospective or in an impromptu retrospective, however a well-oiled Agile team will not fail to meet their commitments on a regular basis. Punishing a team for missing a commitment does not help them solve the problem, but rather puts pressure on the team to react by finding someone or something to blame. Enter  the Agile coach. When teams can’t help themselves, an outsider can be very helpful to get the team back on track.

Many IT organizations have had a history of fixing the triple constraints, i.e. dates, scope and resources, then dictating or “negotiating” with IT to meet those dates. The act of dictating the date and scope draws a hard line that teams can be measured against and performance judged. When teams feels that the pressure is artificial, team motivation and commitment is damaged. Even where the triple constraint is “negotiated” the negotiation is often subject to power mismatches (for example consider the organizational power of a project manager and a business executive or CIO) or based negotiation biases (such as anchor bias, I will tell you when I want it and then we will negotiate). Regardless of good intentions commitments in these environments are much closer to mandates than they reflect team capabilities. By stepping away from commitments based on capabilities, teams become more inclined to sweep problems under the rug while desperately trying to makeup time until they can no longer hide from impending doom. Once the cliff becomes clearly visible, negotiation starts followed by the official act of pointing fingers in a vain attempt to avoid punishment. An Agile coach (external in this case) is generally needed to help the organization recognize and find solutions for the systemic problems that cause teams to consistently miss their commitments.

Drs. Larson and LaFasto^[1] found that the many of the characteristics of highly effective teams revolved around being goal and principle driven. As we have noted in previous Daily Process Thoughts commitment, motivation and teamwork are highly inter-related. The fear of of punishment generally does not improve a team’s performance in meeting their commitments, but can generate a number of negative behaviors that include: sweeping problems under the carpet, trying to negotiate away the commitment or spreading the blame. None of these behaviors delivers more value to the organization. Punishing teams  has drawbacks, whereas rewarding good behavior provides reinforcement. When needed coaching teams and organizations through bad behaviors gets teams delivering value faster and more consistently.