Thiago Trivelato

https://management30.com/practice/meddlers/

Introduction

Management 3.0’s Meddlers Dynamics, created by Jurgen Appelo, is very useful for discussing how to allocate people at different times.
The allocation process becomes exponentially complicated as the number of people increases.
A collaborative and interactive dynamic that allows for multiple investigations in a short time.

We’ve been experimenting with Meddlers to discuss the odds with the dozens of people assigned to different projects.
It always results in a better configuration than the starting point.
I know “always” sounds a little strong, but it actually happened in a dozen different companies, but maybe someday it won’t work.

This game offers players to visualize and discuss organizational structure and improvement opportunities.
Use the participants’ intellectual capital to find alternatives to optimize available human resources.

Download below

✅ Meddlers Game

✅ Game Instructions

Explain the Practice

We use this dynamic to contextualize it with real situations as a way to generate a creative and constructive debate.
We raise generic situations with some real projects and work together to define the professionals involved.
We used the long-range thinking technique to see how resources would be used on that project and others.
In the company we have several squads which can request us and provide resources (collaborators).
In this new project in common agreement we apply the technique to demonstrate in a playful way where each resource (employee) will be involved.

Why did you decide to use this practice

We were at the beginning of a new project and after applying some Management 3.0 dynamics.
We decided as a team that it was cool to use the Meddlers dynamics as this new project would involve several other squads.
So that the allocation of unnecessary professionals or hours that would not be used would not generate conflict.
We decided to apply the Meddlers game so that everyone was aware of the professionals involved and allocated to the project.

How did you use this practice

We met with the various squads involved in the project.
We define a 1:30 timebox for this dynamic.

Before the dynamics, we made a quick presentation of our backlog and the skills that were needed using the:
Team Competency Matrix

We then drew together all the steps of the project and the professionals who would be involved.
In addition to the competence (professional), the name of the collaborator and the team to which he belonged was defined.

A preview of the time that this professional would be allocated to the project was also defined.

That resulted in several drawings of Meddlers Game on our miro board.

Your learnings as facilitator

Meddlers Game has the server in a practical way, because with it it is possible to define which professional is involved in the project and which squad he is.
It is useful as a dynamic link between the various squads, in addition to the professional (employee) knowing in advance which projects will be involved, managers have a simple way of knowing where employees are and what skills/professionals and workload are lacking in their teams .

https://management30.com/practice/competency-matrix/

Introduction

The Team Competency Matrix is ​​a simple and powerful Management 3.0 tool.
The purpose of the tool was to verify which skills the team needs versus what the team already has, managing to identify the gap between the two.
It’s simple because you classify these skills into 3 categories: beginner, practitioner and expert.
Red, yellow and green colors are generally used for these categories.

A competency matrix is ​​a team and project management tool that helps you make the most of your internal talent and quickly and easily identify the needs of your workforce.
This will help you define recruitment and selection standards, for performance appraisal or employee behavior/knowledge standards.
Knowing the knowledge we have at home, it is simpler to know the knowledge that is needed to leverage, whether hiring or training existing collaborators.

The Team Skills Matrix is ​​a perfect tool to give a team or organization an insight into the skills they have and/or need.
Through The Team Competencies Matrix, we have a vision of how the team is currently, and we can define how it should be, what knowledge they should acquire.

Explain the Practice

The payments team(agile) together with its agile coach defined a set of skills necessary for self-organizing team evolution.
Below we define the colors of the knowledge level:

Red: I don’t know what this is. – (Beginner: What is this?)
Yellow: I know what this is – (Practitioner: I can do this)
Green: I’m an expert at this – (Expert: I can teach)

In the first column we list the skills that are present and those that are needed to build the future product, together with the team.
We explained the next steps of the project that was being addressed and included technical and functional skills, technologies, tools, processes, practices and may also include.

In a board(miro), we leave the dynamic frame and ask collaborators to be honest with the team and with themselves about the knowledge they have.

Contributors added the colors to the requested knowledge.
With this we know which needs are met and which are not, so we can draw up action plans to address the gaps, having a better understanding of how we can proceed.

Why did you decide to use this practice

The goal of dynamics was to align the team’s skills with the skills needed to build the product.
We added the necessary skills for evolution as a self-organizing team.

As we agree on the order of items, we already know the priority of the action items (eg when to hire an external coach/external resource etc.).

A competency assessment matrix has three main objectives:

A-)
First, it helps to assess the skills needed for a project or team.
This is a useful exercise when building a team or deciding whether to hire new talent.

B-)
And second, the matrix provides information about the skills available within a team or organization.
If, for example, a project requires business and data analysis skills, we will have a “database” of internal skills where we can start looking
The right person.
What’s more, this is an excellent way to locate and discover inner talent.

C-)
A third purpose is also mentioned in a Forbes article: training. Thanks to
Competency mapping, we can create learning programs that enable employees
develop all its skills and acquire the new ones the company needs.

We did this dynamic to organize the team, promote (give increase/benefits) and guide knowledge.
From this dynamic came promotions and coaches (internal employees who have a lot of knowledge) for training.

How did you use this practice

We generate a table in (miro) with the names of the collaborators and the necessary skills to increase the team’s self-organization.

We define the colors:

Red: I don’t know what this is.
Yellow: I know what this is.
Green: I’m an expert at this.

With the previously defined list of knowledge, together with employees, we assess the experience of each team member in each of the listed competences and understand our diversity.
During the dynamics process, we set goals proposing solutions on how to guide knowledge.

With the data present, we draw personal development plans for each team member, and the Competency Matrix is ​​helping you to understand the gap and see where people (and the company) can invest in training and education.
The technical skills that require the most attention are clear to everyone.

Our team is going through a technological upgrade and a differentiation of performance, between “continuity” and “innovation”.
The matrix helps to better target these efforts, putting the right people on every front and initiative, while everyone knows why things are being done that way.
It is also helping to train technical leaders within the team, who become a reference and disseminators of knowledge in each competence.

Your learnings as facilitator

The Team Competency Matrix can increase team self-confidence (“look how good we are already, we’ll improve even more if we develop…”).
We were able to reveal hidden abilities from team members (“I didn’t know you also had a strong Agile background…”).
We generate transparency for management and show how skill building is needed to develop the future product. This makes it easier to get approved training, coaching, and others.

If we don’t have a skill gap in the team, we can go after it to resolve it or not.
We can support team members in developing their skills or perhaps by hiring consultants;

If you need some skills and they are not on the team, you will also need to ask team members if they want to develop them.

This dynamic brought us the path to guide the training path of team members and promote employees.

Have you ever used a Team Competency Matrix? If yes, what did you learn?

https://management30.com/practice/team-decision-matrix/

Introduction

Everyone is talking these days about empowering teams. In most cases, organizations want to distribute decision making to teams. Teams are doing the real work and are generally better at making work decisions than managers. So far, nothing new.
Different situations require different decision-making processes within teams and there are a variety of ways in which decisions can be made. They can be done by one person or performed by the entire team. The question is when to use which approach and how will the team decide? This is where the decision model comes in.
For decisions about what is done by whoever uses the team decision matrix dynamics.

Based On	Decision taken by	Explanation	Example
Aristocracy	One	One person decides on certain topics. Team delegates the decision to this person.	Legal counsel makes changes in the non-disclosure-agreement.
Democracy	Majority	Majority of team decides on certain topics.	Location of the hotel for the next team retreat.
Sociocracy	Some	Team member(s) can make a decision after discussion with people who have knowledge, are involved, or are affected. It is also called Consent decision making.	Marketer proposes a new marketing tool
Unanimity	All	All team members should agree, full consensus.	New hire in a team.
Randomly	Dice	Any decision is OK as long as a decision will be made.	Roll a dice to decide if a bonus is paid out.

Download the Team Matrix cards here.

Explain the Practice

Similar to delegation poker using the OKR process we selected the following activities:

How Deploy Will Be Done
Kaizen
Capabilities
Opening access tickets
Hiring of resources
Definition of processes and projects
Resource allocation

Together with the team on the miro board, we define who is responsible for making the decision:

With selected tasks which depended on a lot of management.
Together with employees in a virtual team meeting, we explained the concept of the ceremony and the options that could be selected:

Aristocracy
Democracy
Sociocracy
Unanimity
Randomly

To make this process, you can use the “Team Decision Cards”:

We make room for each employee to give their opinion.
Votes will be cast openly.
We add up the amount of votes for each task and add it to the team decision board.

Why did you decide to use this practice

Continuing with the process of increasing the team’s responsibilities using Management 3.0 together with the dynamics of delegation poker, we applied the dynamics of the team decision matrix. Our goal is to empower the team in decision making.

We use the ceremony as an effective process for decisions that the payment team was in doubt about how to proceed:

How Deploy Will Be Done
Kaizen
Capabilities
Opening access tickets
Hiring of resources
Definition of processes and projects
Resource allocation

With the answers given by the team itself, it was jointly defined how the processes will be carried out.

With Delegation Poker, we leave with the answer of how the tasks will be delegated. But we felt the need to know how the team would vote on decisions. We used the ceremony to document how each task would be voted on in the team.

How did you use this practice

Along with the delegation poker activity, we brought the team together on a miro board.
We separated some activities which still had top management and together we voted on how it will be carried out.

I used the matrix during a meeting with the development team (payments).
We decided on the “discussion” area first (using OKRS, we arrived at a to-do list).
After thinking individually about the path we would like to follow, finally, with a shared sign, we show the cards, our choice.
After a brief sharing, agreements were made and rules established:

Your learnings as facilitator

We work with delegation poker is a very similar activity and brought us the answers of who the team is responsible for what.

Very useful as a group to define responsibility and co-create a sense of ownership.

Learning that, in some cases, reaching a decision is easier than expected.
We always imagine complexity, arguments and fights, but with a structured process it is easier to converge.

Thinking about a specific topic, first individually and then as a group, helps to focus on one aspect at a time, without diverging on other unnecessary aspects at that very moment.
From that moment on, roles and responsibilities are clear, shared and it is possible to move quickly towards achieving a goal.
Above all, I understood the power of delegation, necessary, fundamental, without which people’s motivation collapses.

https://management30.com/practice/delegation-poker/

Introduction

Maybe you already know the Delegation Poker game by Jurgen Appelo. We differentiate the following 7 levels of delegation:

1. Tell: I will tell them
2. Sell: I will try and sell it to them
3. Consult: I will consult and then decide
4. Agree: We will agree together
5. Advise: I will advise but they decide
6. Inquire: I will inquire after they decide
7. Delegate: I will fully delegate

Download the new Delegation Poker cards here:

To request delegation poker cards click here

Common conversations in many companies about delegation:

Manager: I wanted my team to have more initiative.
Team: I wanted the manager to give us more autonomy.

If both have similar desires, why doesn’t it happen? In practice, there are more doubts than certainties.
Who hires is the Product Owner, Scrum Master or Development Team?
Who fires?
What training will the team do?
Can we change our tools?
Scrum, being a framework, does not prescribe these attributions.
They vary according to the organization and culture of each company.

Traditionally, these responsibilities reside in the figure of the manager who is not a role handled by Scrum.
However, when we look to have a high performance team, we want it to be truly self-organized and self-managed.
Consequently, autonomous.

There lies the question: how much can a manager delegate his attributions to the team?
We tend to think of delegation of responsibility as something like this: all or nothing.

Explain the Practice

Let’s consider an example for 6 activities that we would like an answer on how it will be organized.
Examples of activities:

New projects
Technology adoption
Ceremonies schedule
Definition of solutions
Exhibit Results
Choose supplier

(1=Tell, 2=Sell, 3=Consult, 4=Agree, 5=Advise, 6=Inquire, 7=Delegate)

In the table below, as a team, we can define how the tasks will be organized/delegated by the team:

This makes communication fluid and everyone feels responsible for the decisions made for the company.

Why did you decide to use this practice

With the mentality of the dynamics inserted and embedded with the employees, we decided to take the next step and together with them define how the tasks will be delegated to the team.
With the dynamics of delegation poker, we are able to make our collaborators co-create and feel responsible for the whole.
Our main objective was to engage employees and make communication fluid.
The group becomes responsible for the whole.

We held the ceremony with the payment team to decide how the following tasks will be delegated:

New projects
Technology adoption
Ceremonies schedule
Definition of solutions
Exhibit Results
Choose supplier

How did you use this practice

We join the team on a board(miro) already used for other dynamics exposed here.

After defining the task groups with the support of OKRS:

New projects
Technology adoption
Ceremonies schedule
Definition of solutions
Exhibit Results
Choose supplier

We organize the tasks and, together with the team, we delegate.

In this case, the payment team was being used for the tasks.

It is essential that all parties involved are in the dynamic. Otherwise, there will be no engagement of the absent party.
There will be two rounds. The first will define how we are and the second, how we want to be.

As we are

Here, there is an important decision that must be made by all those involved in the dynamic: whether or not to maintain the traceability of the parties involved.
If they decide to keep it, the main advantage will be: clarity, everyone will know what each part thinks.
The downside: it can inhibit employees.

If you decide to keep the traceability, use different colors for the parts.
For each process, ask contributors to decide the level of delegation they believe they have over it.

If there are disagreements, ask the collaborators to explain the reason, especially those that are at the extremes.
Make a note of what they are talking about. Repeat the dynamic until there is a consensus.

Once you have the process delegation level, go to the next one and repeat the dynamic until the last item in the table.

How we want to be

Let’s repeat the entire procedure described in the previous section. What changes is the question: what level of delegation would we like to have?

Important point! The goal is not to reach level 7 in every process.
In some this is not feasible.
For example: hiring and firing it is reasonable for the manager, at the very least, to be informed that there have been changes in the team.
Therefore, the maximum level in this case would be 6.

Viewing current and desired state

In the end, you will have a picture more or less like this.
Delegation Board with combination of states

How We Are (Current State) color red and How we want to be (desired state) color green.
Hiring, Current Status = Level 3, Desired Status = Level 5.
Dismissal, Current Status = Level 3, Desired Status = Level 4.
Promotion, Current Status = Level 2, Desired Status = Level 5.
Choice of Tools, Current State = Level 6, Desired State = Level 7.
Trainings, Current State = Level 5, Desired State = Level 6.

Questions to Answer
Should we consider the current state of the task? how is this delegate currently?
Show the current status and the new delegation status to the team, should we really change this status?
Is changing the delegation state of this task a point for change action?
By changing the delegation status of this task will I impact the team? will generate impediments?

Your learnings as facilitator

It is helpful to think about high level activities before using Delegation Poker.
It is highly recommended for sharing perspectives and creating common understanding.
It is necessary to set aside some time and leave enough space for discussions.
Allowing the team to delegate their own work and tasks makes them accountable and co-creates resolutions.

The next step in the dynamic is to define the actions we will take to get out of the current state to where we want to go in each process.
It is not enough to define the actions, it is necessary to execute them.
It is better to have few actions that you can perform than to have dozens of actions planned and nothing accomplished.