Voting Someone Off the Island on an Agile Team
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Agile teams are known to be self organizing and full of energy. They show a high degree of camaraderie which results in high productivity and efficiency. However, at times there might be someone on the Agile team who does not fit well with the team and pulls down the velocity of the entire team. Various members in the Agile community discuss the scenario of “Voting Someone Off the Island”.
Joshua Hoover suggested, in his blog, that the concept of voting someone off the island should be burned into the memory of every Agile team member. He added, since the Agile teams are self managing, they have full right to vote out someone that they feel is not a good fit. The only thing to be kept in mind is that the same rule applies for everyone, hence the decision needs to be taken diligently. According to Joshua,
The point is that self-managed team members have the power to say who is and isn’t on their team. It’s healthy for teams to get an unproductive member off the team after working with that person to address his or her problem(s). If improvements aren’t being made then it’s likely time to consider voting that team member off the island…errr…team.
In a reply to the above post Richard Baldwin added, if a team member is bringing greater tax than value then it does not make sense to pay the tax. According to him, on many Agile teams team members remain silent about a non performing team member rather than professionally resolving the issue. This leads to difficult situations and a dip in team productivity.
In a similar discussion on the Scrum Development group, Brent Barton suggested
We used to use “voting off the island.” This was not a hire/fire event because sometimes it is a team “fit” issue. Some members have had great results on other teams. Too many of these events leads to separations for obvious reasons.
According to Brent it is important to use the concept of voting out in the right way. Some teams get to this without giving a thought to balanced conversation and conflict resolution skills which are also important. On other teams this concept is de-emphasized to the limit that they do not feel empowered.
In the same discussion, James S. Fosdick added, if a person is voted off one team he should be deployed onto another one to see the chemistry there. This would take care of the condition that the person might be a misfit on a particular team. However, at the end of the day if the team is not interested in working with a particular team member then, voting off is fundamental to the principle of self organization and should be respected.
In a similar view on Implementing Scrum, Michael Vizdos shared his view on the reason and the way to vote a team member off the island. He mentioned,
Either this person sucks at their job, has no interest in being on the team, or really is just the type of person who will bitch and complain about anything and likes being heard. A team can be a powerful [good] force. Usually with some one-on-one coaching with this person, and the team — through daily stand-ups, working through user stories or tasks, or other techniques — the person usually can find some other place within the organization where they can make a difference.
Michael tried to look at it from another angle too when he talks about the concept of Self Selection. The principle talks about the ability of an individual to have the maturity to conclude that Agile is not for him. According to Micheal, if a person believes that he cannot work on the team then, instead of moving him away from the team right away he asks the team member to commit to stay on the team till the end of the iteration. This helps in not disrupting the sprint and at the same time the coach can work one-on-one with the person to solve any issues and observe if the person can work in the given environment.
Members of the Agile community agree that voting someone off the island is fundamental to the principle of self organization. The decision need to be taken diligently and teams may want to try out different options but at the end the decision of the team needs to be respected.
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Same as it ever was
by
Kurt Christensen
great...
by
Mr Magoo
Nice to see nasty corporate politics creeping in at every available opportunity. Especially in the very common case where there is no other place/team to realistically go.
I've seen this work well
by
Deborah Hartmann
One player was eroding the codebase with undisciplined hacking, undoing other people's work. After several requests, and even attempts to improve his style through pair teaching, he remained impervious to the team's agreed-upon standards. The team "sandboxed" him - took him off the collective codebase and put him on special "swat" projects. Both team and player were happier, and productivity was improved.
In another case, someone was moved to another team whose style was more comfortable for him.
And in a third case, someone "voted themselves off" before we got to him. Collective code ownership and pairing were so uncomfortable for him that it was less stressful to quit than to stay. We were happy that he'd found more suitable work.
In all cases, frank discussion, guided by a desire to deliver more business value (not personal vendetta), led to better outcomes for all involved.
And, yes, I can also see how it could all go wrong. As always, malicious players make this a whole other game.
Re: I've seen this work well
by
Deborah Hartmann
Re: great...
by
Bruce Rennie
Look, if you're on a team that is going to get rid of you simply because it doesn't like you, then you're already in a world of hurt. Who does the eliminating hardly matters on such a dysfunctional team.
Re: I've seen this work well
by
Bruce Rennie
On "The Best Team I Ever Worked With" (tm), we had a team member that was just basically not up to the job. Steps were taken to try to help this individual but the problems were pretty deep. The team put up with it until it started to affect some of the others. At that point, the senior team members went, together, to upper management and basically said: "We're sorry, but we need this person gone. They are hurting the team".
Senior management trusted the team so much, the person was transferred off the team the same day.
Re: I've seen this work well
by
Vikas Hazrati
Self Selection. The principle talks about the ability of an individual to have the maturity to conclude that Agile is not for him.
has anyone seen that work?
I agree...
by
Jason Little
Sounds Like a Fraternity
by
Irakli Nadareishvili
More seriously - underperforming employee is an issue in itself and has nothing to do with a project management style. If a person does not deliver - no team or style can help. The talk about "fit to the team" can't be serious. After all, it's not a marriage we are talking about, team members to need some "chemistry". We are talking (or should be talking) about a team of professionals.
Sorry, but this sounds too naive, at best.
Re: Sounds Like a Fraternity
by
Bruce Rennie
I'll make an analogy to the army: anyone can be taught to fire a gun. It's a whole other thing to mold 30 guys into a platoon. Developers sometimes hate to hear that because, in our world, technical skill is supposed to be king.
A good team has a wide variety of personalities and people playing different roles: Thinkers, Doers, "Doomsayers", etc. Getting all these personality types to play well together takes a lot of work.
Re: Sounds Like a Fraternity
by
Irakli Nadareishvili
Also, I am not saying that underperforming employee is not a problem, but excuse my skepticism: if somebody does not pull his/her wait off, a different team won't change that, so it's not an issue of a specific team. Underperforming employees should be taken care of by hiring managers in a manner that does not leave the company legally liable. Workplace is not a bootcamp. "Voting off" somebody sounds way too much like ganging up against somebody and you won't like the reaction of a judge if the voted off employee decides to sue you for discrimination.
Re: Sounds Like a Fraternity
by
Bruce Rennie
The army has forgotten more about team building than our industry will ever know. It may be ultimately authority based and hierarchical but the great feats performed by soldiers don't happen simply because someone ordered them to do it.
Also, just because someone isn't a fit for MY team doesn't make them a bad employee. I've seen many instances where a change in team makes a huge difference. It might not work out that way but it's not a slam dunk that a poor fit on a team equates to a firing situation.
Finally, yes, we do have to worry about legal liability in this day and age. Part of voting someone off the team may be working with HR to get it done. Ultimately, I don't really care all that much so long as the square peg is removed from the team.
Re: Sounds Like a Fraternity
by
Mr Magoo
The army comparisons are especially good. :)
Has anyone seen that work?
by
J. B. Rainsberger
Re: I've seen this work well
by
Deborah Hartmann
Re: Sounds Like a Fraternity
by
Deborah Hartmann
For me, implicitly, the "pledge" of a serious team member is: I commit to collaborate with you guys to pull in the same direction or else I will collaborate to help redefine our direction (and, if all else fails, I'll leave you and go off in my own direction, so as not to bother your work). Anything other than this is not teamwork, imo, it's something else. Something that lives quite nicely in cubicles :-)
Sounds like
by
S Ninan
In the IT la-la land where egos are bigger than Hummer H2 or where people don't generally accomodate others and there pace of working, the whole setup slowly descend into ghettos. If you fit into the culture then everything's ok else you are ostracized. I read somewhere in these comments that it is like marriages. And we know that where marriages or families have been heading.
I'm skeptical about the benefits and I surely wouldn't want the teams to be totally self serving. Btw I am not a control freak.
Re: Sounds Like a Fraternity
by
Irakli Nadareishvili
it's all about money, ma friend, and anythin else is just child's play :)
Small realities
by
Andrea Maietta
Sometimes it can be very difficult, for example in small realities: if you work in a little firm and maybe there's just one team voting a member off pretty means having her fired, with all the consequences... but would that be wise? The (ex) team member might be a very good professional, and bring substantial benefits to the company, for example she can have good testing and problem solving skills, thus considerably shortening defect fixing time. She could also be a very good programmer and effectively contribute to the codebase. "Only" she would not fit in the team. In these cases you can be saved by the fact that in small firms you have to do pretty much everything, from screwing a second NIC on to your motherboard to planning for the next release with the customer. It can then be easy enough to factor out something for the "outcast", but you should be very careful dealing with the "human" part of the transition, you just can't say "hey you're a burden for the team, they don't want you to work in their projects, but you should stay in the very same office." After all, even if some technical people would strongly disagree, the most important thing for a team to be a good team is not technological eccellence but the chemistry of the relationships between the team members.
You want everyone to be happy while at work (also when they're off work, but at least that is not your responsibility) so you must act with intelligence and find the right solution.
Sometimes the right solution is just a sacking.
You can find this and other thoughts here.
Total Cost of Jerks (TCJ)
by
Deborah Hartmann
Re: Total Cost of Jerks (TCJ)
by
Deborah Hartmann