Effective Product Development
Lessons from the Gridiron
During the product development process, teams can waste a lot of time spinning their wheels. Sometimes, the requirements are not clear enough. Other times, priorities keep changing. In today’s world, it could even be due to lost productivity from COVID cases. There are many possible reasons why your sprints aren’t humming along like clockwork and sometimes, the true reason isn’t anything to do with the process itself. It’s emotion.
I was reminded of the human factor while watching my son play pickup football this weekend. He was throwing the ball around with two friends when a group of three older boys walked up and asked to join. And so began the most excruciating pickup football game that you could possibly watch. It wasn’t excruciating in the sense of physical pain that you might associate with football. The problem was that every time I looked over, nothing was happening.
Before they could start playing, they had to pick teams. Somehow, the complex way that they decided to pick teams resulted in the same teams that they were already grouped in to begin with. Then the older boys needed time to warm up. At last, they were ready to start.
The excitement soon faded. After every play, the older boys would claim that it didn’t count because of some rule:
One hand touch doesn’t count, it should be two hand touch.
Two hand touch doesn’t count, it should be a hug.
You stepped out of bounds.
There was a lot of stopping and starting, and not a lot of playing. I was tempted to step in and say, “Come on, boys, just play the game!” I wanted to halt the endless stream of excuses, but thought better of meddling and let them run their course.
It was obvious to me as an outside observer that the issue wasn’t that the rules of the game lacked clarity. The issue was pride. The older boys were looking for excuses to discount the achievements of the younger boys, who were more skilled than them. The older boys wanted to save face.
In the pickup football game, the emotional needs of the players created lots of stops and starts that prevented them from really playing the game. Similarly, in a product development sprint, the emotional needs of team members can hinder the effectiveness of your sprint. For example, I had an engineer who wanted to look smart but instead came across as condescending and rude to other team members. I pulled him aside and helped him see that how he delivered his ideas was counterproductive. His rudeness turned off the team from being receptive to his ideas, so that, in turn, they didn’t recognize how smart he was. Changing his behavior would help him look smarter.
The next time you want to make your sprints more effective, consider both process and people. The best way to explore the people side is to talk to your team members 1:1 and ask them:
How are you feeling about the work that we’re doing?
What do you think is going well?
What can I do to help support you better?
Try to understand the motivations of your team members, what they’re thinking or feeling, and how that impacts their actions. By digging into the emotions of your team and talking to them 1:1, you may find that simply acknowledging their needs and making them feel heard will be enough to move the ball a few yards down the field. You can become a stronger product development team by unpacking the emotions of your team.
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