Last month I blogged how agile is finding relevance outside the process of software development. Now its also becoming apparent that other disciplines – particularly behavioral science is becoming more relevant in Agile thinking. Linda Rising in two of her insightful sessions –on the topics of estimation and retrospectives showed how being empathetic with Agile Team members will go a long way in improving efficiency in agile teams.
Estimates become goals – and finally decide the efficiency of any Agile Team. Asking a developer to estimate based on limited information puts psychological burden. Developers often have to make tacit assumptions as there is no time or information available to explicitly validate them. According to Linda this amounts to lying. Smarter people are better at justifying their lies. They offer logical reasons and have others believe them. We need to admit that we lie while estimating. In fact it’s the worst kind of lie because we are lying to ourselves. Like all lies our estimates come back to bite us. When it does happen a team that has admitted that an estimate is after all a lie won’t produce more lies to defend it. Such a team will also avoid multiplying the risk by using these “lies” in mathematical calculations. Linda advised Agile Teams to re-estimate instead of justifying an estimate or blaming others. Once every one understands that estimates are guesstimates- the psychological burden on individuals reduces and they can work better.
Agile Team members also carry the baggage of pent up feelings if they aren’t allowed to air their views. Often chronic personal conflicts and team imbalance drag the team down. Linda wants us to understand that people feel good – a lot lighter if they simply express their feelings. She demonstrated a tool called as “The Time Line”. It’s to be used when Agile Team meets for end-of-sprint retrospective. The team identifies certain significant events that happened during the sprint and mark them on the timeline. Each individual is then allowed to put anonymous feedback about how he felt when an event happened by putting sticky notes under relevant events on the timeline. Its important for all to believe firmly that each team member did his or her level best under the given conditions. There should be no finger pointing- only understanding and empathy. The team is thus ready to move on to the next sprint with a fresh mind.
“Synerzip team is very responsive & quick to adopt new technologies. Team naturally follows best practices, does peer reviews and delivers quality output, thus exceeding client expectations.”
“Synerzip’s agile processes & daily scrums were very valuable, made communication & time zone issues work out successfully.”
“Synerzip’s flexible and responsible team grew to be an extension to the StepOne team. Typical concerns of time zone issues did not exist with Synerzip team.”
“Synerzip worked in perfect textbook Agile fashion – releasing working demos every two weeks. Though aggressive schedules, Synerzip was able to deliver a working product in 90 days, which helped Zimbra stand by their commitment to their customers.”
“Outstanding product delivery and exceptional project management, comes from DNA of Synerzip.”
“Studer product has practically taken a 180% turn from what it was, before Synerzip came in. Synerzip cost is very reasonable as compared to the work they do.”
“Synerzip makes the timezone differences work FOR the customer, enabling a positive experience for us. ‘Seeing is believing’, so we decided to give it a shot and the project was very successful.”
“The Synerzip team seamlessly integrates with our team. We started seeing results within the first sprint. And due to the team’s responsiveness, we were able to get our product to the sales cycle within 7 months.”
“Product management team from Synerzip is exceptional and has a clear understanding of Studer’s needs. Synerzip team gives consistent performance and never misses a deadline.”
“Synerzip is different because of the quality of their leadership, efficient team and clearly set methodologies. Studer gets high level of confidence from Synerzip along with significant cost advantage of almost 50%”
“Synerzip’s hiring approach and practices are worth applauding. Working with Synerzip is like
“What you see is what you get”.”
“Synerzip has dedicated experts for every area. Synerzip helped Tangoe save a lot of cost, still giving a very high quality product.”
“Synerzip gives tremendous cost advantage in terms of hiring and growing the team to be productive verses a readymade team. Synerzip is one company that delivers “co –development” to the core!”
“Synerzip is a great company to work with. Good leadership and a warm, welcoming attitude of the team are additional plus points.”
“Our relationship with Synerzip is very collaborative, and they are our true partners as our values match with theirs.”
“Synerzip has proven to be a great software product co-development partner. It is a leader because of its great culture, its history, and its employee retention policies. ExamSoft’s clients are happy with the product, and that’s how ExamSoft measures that all is going well.”
“They possess a great technical acumen with a burning desire to solve problems. The team always takes the initiative and ownership in all the processes they follow. Synerzip has played a vital role in our scaling up and was a perfect partner in cost, efficiency, and schedules.”
“As we are a startup, things change on a weekly basis, but Synerzip team has been flexible in adapting the same”
“Synerzip team has been very proactive in building the best quality software, bringing in best practices, and cutting edge innovation for our company.”
“We’ve been working for more than six years with Synerzip and its one of the better, if not the best, experience I’ve had working with an outsourcing company.”
“My experience with Synerzip is that they have the talent. You throw a problem at them, and someone from that team helps to solve the issue.”
“The breadth and depth of technical abilities that Synerzip brings on the table and the UX work done by them for this project exceeded my expectations!”
“Synerzip UX designers very closely represent their counterparts in the US in terms of their practice, how they tackle problems, and how they evangelize the value of UX.”
“Synerzip team understood the requirements well and documented them to make sure they understood them rightly.”
“Synerzip is definitely not a typical offshore company. Synerzip team is incredibly communicative, agile, and delivers on its commitments.”
“Working with Synerzip helped us accelerate our roadmap in ways we never thought possible!”
“While working with Synerzip, I get a feeling of working with a huge community of resources, who can jump in with the skills as needed.”
