Agile world’s a stage

By Jeff Feinman

February 1, 2009 —

Laughing. Overcoming embarrassment. Out-and-out goofy behavior. These are not normally the skills managers seek in their developers. But some agile development advocates believe these skills are critical for successful software projects.

A growing number of artistically inclined corporate trainers are promoting the principles of the Agile Manifesto with techniques from acting, improvisation and other art forms. Such exercises attempt to prepare software developers for changing requirements and other unexpected occurrences throughout the agile development process. Developers learn better ways to work together and how to put the team before the individual.

These trainers assist software teams in interactive workshops to learn how to get the most out of their abilities. They “act” their way out of scenarios, participate in team-building games, make art projects and do other exercises to build concentration and innovation.

“Any artist that’s ever completed anything will tell you that an empty feeling always precedes success,” said Matt Smith, a Seattle-based corporate trainer who teaches improvisational theater principles. “You have to break through something to get to the other side, and the breaking through involves what can be perceived as pain, and we’re trained in life to avoid that pain at all costs. But if we’re going to do Scrum and agile, we have to come to terms with that feeling and stop perceiving it as something to run from.”

Smith got into acting when he was 30 years old after trying his hand at being a writer and a standup comedian. Improvisational theater changed how he communicated with people, and it made him a better person to his friends and family, he said.

Utilizing his improvisational skills, Smith travels the country, conducting keynote speeches and workshops to build team skills and teach mind-expanding exercises. Naturally, many professionals will be suspicious about the relevance of theatrical techniques and how they pertain to their job, and Smith said he is sensitive to that. However, others take to the workshops easily and happily get involved.

In a similar manner to Smith, Certified Scrum Trainer Stacia Broderick, who has theater training and plays classical violin, believes a certain energy and passion can be brought to agile development. A former agile coach with Primavera Systems and Rally Software, Broderick went out on her own and founded AgileEvolution in 2006 to offer what she calls a humane and logical way for teams and companies to deliver their products.

Agile development teams call Hershey, Pa.-based AgileEvolution to alleviate malaise within their standup meetings. Broderick said that, over time, many meetings turn into repetitive updates on the team’s progress with little energy involved.

However, Broderick takes a seven-step approach to combating what she calls “daily standup withdrawal.” She said that a team should believe in self-management, commit to the goals of a sprint and realize the importance of communication. Teams should also embrace the fact that the order of tasks will change on a daily basis, have a leader that empowers them to make good decisions and accept accountability, and look back on the daily meeting to make sure everything is carried out properly.

Additionally, “teams should realize the importance of making work visible,” she said. “Transparency improves the nature of the relationship between the team and the rest of the organization, resulting in higher levels of trust and collaboration.

“In order for teams to truly collaborate, each team member must be free of inhibition, able to speak his or her mind, and willing to throw any idea out there on the table. When collaboration happens, innovation, the creation of a new thing, is guaranteed. We teach a lot about release [by] having team members release into their edges, or their areas of discomfort and apprehension.”

SUBHED: Stepping outside the comfort zone
Smith also said that much of his training involves bringing people out of their comfort zones. He talked about how many professionals in the technology field are rewarded for their “document-driven communication,” and their strength lies in being able to sit at a computer and absorb a lot of information. Many jobs do not require a great deal of social interaction. Agile development, however, requires people to work transparently and in collaborative groups.

“That is absolutely foreign to some people because it feels like they’re giving up control,” Smith said. “It’s like if you’re a golfer, and somebody tells you to fix your swing. It’s really hard for a golfer to fix his swing until he changes his swing and hits it really well.”

Improvisational training teaches the value of surrender and shows professionals what they can get from giving up control. Smith tries to teach people to abandon their own agendas, judgment, control and anticipation, and to instead move the action forward, to be accountable and to listen. His improvisational exercises are about putting people in non-work situations and carrying out tasks that would be more difficult for a team to do than an individual. An example of such an exercise is having multiple people verbally write a letter and alternate words as they speak, as in “Dear…Jerry…how…are…you?”

Smith said the challenge of a simple, silly group task such as this is that people will anticipate where they want the sentence to go, and they will try to manipulate other people to meet the desired end. Once that happens, a problem arises because someone is trying to control the situation. The goal of the exercise is to train people to ignore the desire to control and trust in their teamwork to obtain their goal, which is a key notion in agile and Scrum development.

Another exercise that Smith does with his workshop groups is having everyone walk in a circle, point to something in the room, and call it something other than what it is, like calling a light bulb a giraffe or pointing to a plant and yelling out “nose.” Smith said this exercise throws everyone off and gives them an unpleasant sensation, but this type of disorientation is natural before successfully completing a task.

“For some groups that I work with, they’re trying to figure out what this has to do with their job,” Smith said. “But with Scrum Master training, everybody gets exactly what this has to do with their job. These simple exercises, which are not intimidating because they’re games, can be applied oftentimes to what’s going on with Scrum. Everybody’s interested in figuring out Scrum, saying, ‘I don’t want to be the one who's held back and hanging on to old ideas because it’s not going to help me.’ "

One of the more irreverent exercises that Broderick conducts is the “silly walk,” which requires team members to use exaggerated movements that can sometimes resemble monkeys or drunken dancers, Broderick said. This helps people overcome embarrassment and become energized.

Broderick also has trainees loosen up in more conventional manners with stretching and concentration exercises. She has the class bend at the waist and let their arms and fingers dangle toward the ground until there is tension in the hamstrings. Each team member talks about this tension and discusses the mental equivalent, which could be anxiety, jealousy, boredom or other factors.

“My biggest concern about teaching Scrum is that people don't really understand what they're getting into when they say they want to ‘do Scrum,’ ” Broderick said. “Unfortunately, it is seen as a project management framework, which it is. But it is far more than that. It is an inspect-and-adapt mechanism that will change the organization or stretch it into uncomfortable territories. Teams need to be able to focus and work with the tensions in order to be successful.”

Related Search Term(s): agile programming, professional development

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