🤝 Do we really have a difficult person? Or do we have a good person stuck in a difficult situation? Nine times out of ten, the circumstances are the problem.

Most people aren't difficult; they're feeling different pressures or have different priorities than we do. Always start from a place of empathy. Until we understand what's at issue, their behaviour won't make sense. We can't improve the situation if we don't first understand why this person behaves this way.

Some of the most common causes:
- Different Priorities
- Lack of Alignment
- Incentives
- Pressure
- Fear
- Lack of Awareness

A developer whose bonus depends on the features they ship is going to push back on anything that might slow down features right now. Or, in a GenAI-influenced world, a performance review might require a person to prove they used "AI" to speed up their work. The senior team member who says don't spend time on improvements until "Sprint tasks" are finished might be feeling pressure to deliver. Even worse, the pressure is often self-inflicted, and that's harder to change because it's a mindset, not a circumstance.

In most cases, you'll find a good person stuck in a difficult situation. Change the situation, and magically the "difficult person" disappears.

Think back to the last time you had a "difficult person", and ask yourself: which of these causes is driving their behaviour? What's one question you could ask to find out?

#TeamWork #ScrumMaster

https://agilepainrelief.com/blog/difficult-team-member-change-the-situation/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

Explore https://scottgraffius.com for unique resources and actionable insights on #technology and #business, including #AI, #Agile, #ProjectManagement, #Teamwork, #Leadership, and more. Here's an example:

🔗 Strategic alignment talk at PMI Silicon Valley: https://scottgraffius.com/blog/files/scott-m-graffius-speaking-at-pmi-silicon-valley.html

The American Management Association features my “Phases of Team Development” IP in its "Leadership Skills and Team Development for Technical Professionals" course

🔗 https://scottgraffius.com/blog/files/ama-23.html

#AmericanManagementAssociation #ProjectManagement #Teamwork #Leadership #Agile #Agility

Businesses, professional associations, government agencies, universities, and publications use my "Phases of Team Development" resource on teamwork tradecraft. I'm pleased to share that Verizon was added to the list!

https://www.scottgraffius.com/blog/files/verizon-features-scott-m-graffius.html

#Tech #Agile #Teamwork #Leadership

Stable teams sound like a nice-to-have until you look at the fields where an error kills someone.

Most of the academic work deals with familiarity, not stability. Roughly: "we've worked together enough in the past to understand each other as individuals".

Cardiac surgeons who worked across multiple hospitals but maintained stable teams had a lower rate of mortality, even with more surgeries performed.

Aviation gives the same signal. 73 percent of the accidents for which information was available occurred on the first day the captain and first officer had flown together. A NASA study found that fatigued crews who had a history of working together made about half as many errors as crews of rested pilots who had not flown together before.

Tired and familiar beat rested and unfamiliar.

Back down to earth: at Wipro increased familiarity reduced defects by 19%, and Larry Maccherone showed stable teams had 40% better predictability.

#TeamWork #Agile

https://agilepainrelief.com/blog/in-agile-where-change-is-valued-why-is-a-stable-team-so-important/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

One of the most expensive phrases in software development:

“Don't touch that. Only Brian understands it.”

That's not expertise.

Expertise is valuable.

Dependency is the problem.

Clear, coherent, well-tested code helps knowledge travel across the team.

The goal isn't making everyone interchangeable.

It's making sure the software doesn't depend on one person's memory to survive.

#Agile #Teamwork #SoftwareDevelopment #BusFactor

🎓 Geeky research moment: a 2022 study found deeper onboarding (months, not one week) meant better new-hire performance and longer retention. Allot 15-20% of the team's time in the first few Sprints to making the new person feel like part of the team.

If you're the new person: ask questions, listen more than you talk, practice empathy if you're replacing someone, and document what you wish you'd known.

#TeamWork

https://agilepainrelief.com/blog/onboard-new-people-without-losing-scrum-team-magic/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

How naming shared values is an effective approach to leading through a crisis.

https://theconversation.com/how-naming-shared-values-is-an-effective-approach-to-leading-through-a-crisis-285459

#values #leadership #teamwork

🛡️ Psychological safety is almost always misunderstood as something it isn't.

It isn't trust. We can trust each other and still not be safe. Edmondson's definition: "the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up." Safety is knowing a mistake won't be held against you.

It isn't the absence of conflict either. Higher safety usually means more open disagreement, not less.

And it isn't a licence to point out everyone else's mistakes. It's about owning your own, and what you learned, without repercussions.

Get those three straight and a lot of "we tried it and it didn't work" makes sense.

#TeamWork #Scrum

https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary/psychological-safety/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

Good development teams don't think, "My part is done."

They think, "Has the customer problem been solved?"

That's a very different mindset, and it changes how people work together.

#Teamwork #SoftwareDevelopment

From the Leanpub Blog: The Leanpub Podcast 🎙 Feat. Denniz Dönmez, PhD, Author of Micro Habits for better Teamwork: Psychological Hacks with Great Impact

https://leanpub.com/blog/the-leanpub-podcast-feat-denniz-donmez-phd-author-of-micro-habits-for-better-teamwork/

#books #leanpublishing #selfpublishing #Teamwork #Leadership #Psychology #MicroHabits #PsychologicalSafety #OrganizationalCulture #Productivity #Collaboration #EngineeringLeadership #Leanpub

NEW! The Leanpub Podcast 🎙 Feat. Denniz Dönmez, PhD, Author of Micro Habits for better Teamwork: Psychological Hacks with Great Impact

https://youtu.be/cNv0Id5ibhI

#books #leanpublishing #selfpublishing #Teamwork #Leadership #Psychology #MicroHabits #PsychologicalSafety #OrganizationalCulture #Productivity #Collaboration #EngineeringLeadership #Leanpub

Explore https://ScottGraffius.com for unique resources and actionable insights on #AI, #Agile, #Teamwork, & more. Examples:

♦ Quantum Computing, Advanced AI, and Exotic Team Dynamics - https://scottgraffius.com/blog/files/quantum-computing-advanced-ai-and-rise-of-exotic-team-dynamics.html

♦ Scrum - https://scottgraffius.com/blog/files/scrum-is-not-just-for-coding.html

♦ More - https://scottgraffius.com/articles-index.html

Explore https://ScottGraffius.com for unique resources and actionable insights on #Agile, #Technology, #Teamwork, and more. Examples:

◾️ Ohio State Features "Phases of Team Development": https://scottgraffius.com/blog/files/ohio-state-university-course-features-scott-m-graffius-phases-of-team-development.html

◾️ Algorithms: https://www.scottgraffius.com/blog/files/algorithms-and-the-user-experience.html

◾️ More: https://scottgraffius.com/articles-index.html

Curriculum at The Ohio State University >> College of Engineering >> Department of Computer Science and Engineering features my "Phases of Team Development" material on teamwork tradecraft.

🔗 https://scottgraffius.com/blog/files/ohio-state-university-course-features-scott-m-graffius-phases-of-team-development.html

#Agile #Teamwork #TeamDynamics #TeamDevelopment #PhasesOfTeamDevelopment

Explore https://ScottGraffius.com for unique resources and actionable insights on #AI, #agile, #teamwork, and more. Some examples:

◾️ Scrum Isn't Just for Coding: https://scottgraffius.com/blog/files/scrum-is-not-just-for-coding.html

◾️ Phases of Team Development: https://scottgraffius.com/blog/files/graffius-phases-of-team-development-2026.html

◾️ More: https://scottgraffius.com/articles-index.html