Explicit policy

explicit policy is very important to bridge the inevitable periods of uncertainty—and sometimes right-out chaos—that ensue from constant transformation. The team will need these policies more than ever sooner or later. A well functioning set of policies allows you to function in ‘automatic mode’: all decisions are naturally aligned with the unity of purpose, not requiring any involvement from a manager or coordinator. How to select work, how to classify work into different classes of service, when is a work ‘done’, et cetera, becomes second nature, a habit. Of course, you also need to make it a habit of changing habits.

Sources

• • InfoQ » Steve Peha » Agreements-Based Culture
  • so that we can trust each other a little bit more about what’s going to get done and who is going to do it and when it is going to happen
  • to be more intentional about culture—intentional culture, together with the agile dojo becomes instant culture, or instant agile culture (or lean if that is your flavor); intentional culture of agreement
  • explicit agreements between team members give a high sense of trust and an easy way to know that get the work will get done
  • agreements (and thus explicit policy are a natural fabric of our daily work
  • this culture tends do be confrontationally compassionate; confront doesn’t really mean anger or a cause of problem, confront just means meet someone face to face—and a very simple way and say, “Why don’t we do it this way? What do you think?”
  • the interactions between individuals that we all care so much about in the Agile community, are really governed by agreements. And the more explicit and the larger number of these agreements, the greater the degree to which we keep them, the more the interactions become more fluid, easier.
  • know what to expect, you know what to expect and we become a higher functioning team, because we work together in a certain way that we have agreed on ahead of time—no haggling afterwards
  • the set of interactions between individuals can be governed by explicit policy—relates to system thinking: system is the product of the interactions between its subsystems
  • agreements essentially give a form, a way of knowing what to do; it sets expectations; it's a kind of expectation management
  • explicit policy shifts the nature of a culture, from one that is accidental, unintentional, drifting in all sorts of different ways, to one that brings us back into interaction, alignment, conversation and collaboration
  • improve culture by making, keeping, confronting broken agreements and renegotiate and recommit to them
  • see http://cultureengine.net

Related

• culture
• service-oriented organization
• chaorganization