AgileTHIS

I saw a session by Ronen Bar-Nahor, AMDOCS, Learning Services from Israel some time ago. The session was about Why Scrum Projects Fails – and not that Scrum fails – only the projects themself. The main fokus was ofcause on the team and how they interacted with the project, the backlog and eachother. But on a small note he mentioned a very important thing that I often see breaking the teams in Scrum – Primadonna’s!

So what is a Primadonna in my world – we all know them – you might be one yourself - you might be married to one?  Well, they are often very visionary, highly creative, skilled within their profession, and they don’t have particularly good communication and interpersonal skills. The primadonna is often the person who is very good at his or hers job, and this keeps his or hers employer hostage. But the primadonna is also a person, who can deliver on time on even the most critical deadlines – it might be a salesperson who is breaking the records month after month – so on one hand you really need this person for the fast pace and results – on the other hand you might not need the often selfcentered behaviour in a teambased environment! So what can you do with a primadonna in an agile project?

I read an article about building business leadership were they address some issues that fits well within the thoughts about building a team, and they came up with 5 solutions for managing primadonnas – I have used their headlines and writen my own comments:

1. Feed the need – are you ready for making this person special? Would you be doing the same for any other person on the team?

2. Find the key – everyone of us tick at something – find out what ticks the primadonna – home-work, bonuses, special assignments – pick out the ones that you can imagine will work also for the rest of the team – so if it’s a bonus then award the entire team and not just one individual!

3. Build fences – keep the primadonna on their own tasks – the tasks might be longtermed that lasts the entire sprint – it might be isolated tasks – but you have to bear in mind that you shouldnt at any point give more credit to their work compared to the rest of the team – its the fact that their are producing a result themself that ticks them!

4. Check the heart – This isnt really a way to controlling primadonnas but more a point of direction of what their real intensions are – where does their heart belong – what is their heart filled with – Do they want the team to fail? Do they want the team or organisation to succeed? There are no excuse for not shifting people in and out of the team, if you can see that it jeopardize the success of the rest of the team – what are you waiting for?!?

5. Make them accountable – It’s all about integrity of your organisation – it’s about the primadonnas shouldn’t ruin your team or organisation – try to meet with the person - talk with them  - play ball with them without ever crossing the center of the field – tell them what their behavior results in but don’t show emotions - tell them the consequences of their act and have a plan ready for the changes you want – give a deadline – give them some isolated tasks – and again remember that when you go out of the room there are no difference between the primadonna and the rest of the team.

(You can find the article within Microsofts business leadships plan.)

No matter what solution you find suitable in your case, you should always have in mind that many of these people actually don’t know that they are doing this – so watch out for not going into a personal attack and stay on your side of the field at all times.

Evaluation is also very good – especially if you find common ground with the primadonna and have set some goals for them. You might wanna do a Meyers-Briggs test on the team when starting up – you might wanna do a 360´ on the them as well – but remember to do it again afterwards – otherwise people wont learn from their mistakes!

These days we – well most of us – live in an hightech and information-based society where the battle for attention is going on all the time. We are all blogging about our daily lives, and just because you have a blog it doesnt mean that you are a primadonna – but a primadonna without attention is NOT a primadonna.

I hope you enjoyed reading!

/Chris.