The 16 Rules of DMAIC

07/17/2022:

This multi-part article is the last in a series of five serialized parts that explores why all businesses, all

organizations, and all enterprises should consider daily standups as an integral part of their overall

project and operational communication planning.

Despite the adoption of the Agile framework globally, having a daily standup seems to have been thrown

to the side as a waste of everyone’s time. This article asserts the contrary, that maintaining a disciplined

daily standup regimen is absolutely necessary from a communication and conflict resolution perspective.

It explores eleven common reasons why projects - and by extension, daily operations - fail, and how daily

stand-ups are a necessary first step to achieving overall outcome success.

Go to Previous Part 4

Eleven Good Reasons for Daily Standups - Part 5

Conflict and Communication

Cultural change, by itself, is neither good nor bad; it is a reaction. It is how humans are hard-wired by the

DNA we share in common. From a sociological perspective, it allows the group to adapt to changes in their

external environment, and to solve new problems that require individual and group action in cooperation and

coordination with others, both internally and externally.

Figure 1: The Cultural Change Process

Initially, cultural change is always an internal challenge to the group’s status quo by an individual, or group of

individuals, within the group. The challenge is in response to some change or condition that demands action

that cannot be satisfied or resolved within the current status quo structure. Whether initiated by formal

leadership or internal thought leaders, the response always leads to conflict and -- if not adequately resolved

-- escalating conflict behavior.

By one means or another, the change that is sought is brought to the attention of a sub-group of the whole. If

received positively, it will be considered, exemplified, encouraged, engaged, and enabled. If negatively

received, it will be ignored, mocked, rejected, or punished. Most attempts to change or modify culture will

result in both positive and negative responses within the group. Invariably, this leads to internal conflicts that

may in turn lead to external conflicts.

It is the conflict generated by cultural change that makes it problematic. In a truly ironic dichotomy of

complementary opposites, humans are equally resistant to change, as well as having the innate ability to

adapt to change. To quote Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, “there’s the rub”; to adapt to change it is necessary to

initiate internal change at the appropriate interface points. Initiating internal change often creates both

internal and external conflict that demands resolution.

Most managers -- most individuals -- are ill prepared to deal positively with conflict in the work place

because so much of it is covered by employment law and multiple strata of hierarchal authority. Almost any

organizational friction that escalates beyond a “tolerable level” can easily fall under the very large umbrella of

Human Resources. Ultimately, a very complex and expensive process, regardless of outcome.

To resolve these issues before they escalate into something disruptive and dysfunctional, facilitation is

required.

Facilitation is nothing more than a deliberative, cross-communication process guided by a third-party,

preferably a neutral third party; someone who has no stake in the conflict’s eventual outcome, other than a

Win-Win solution for all. Short of that outcome, a negotiated agreement by all parties to take joint action that

will further clarify the options to move forward together. And short of those outcomes, a negotiated

agreement by all parties to refrain from any action that will prevent the parties from moving forward

separately.

Cultural change, and the inevitable generation of interpersonal, role, and resource conflicts that often result,

are always best resolved at the lowest level possible. It is always best to resolve conflicts well before they

become project and operational impediments. Before they become section and departmental food fights.

Before they come to the attention of high-level leadership, and certainly well before they require the

intercession of human resources and legal action. Matters of law are about advocacy and winning. Dispute

resolution and facilitation are all about controlled communication flow, discovering areas of mutual need,

and negotiating an agreement framework where all sides feel that they have gained enough of what they

require to move forward.

This requires more than a one-size fits-all approach. Individuals, the various groups they belong to, their

institutions, and their situations are different, if for no other reason than shifting circumstances and fluctuating

context. Groups within same organization often have very different work cultures and subcultures. What

worked with one group may not work with another. What worked in one situation may not work in one that

appears to be similar.

Fortunately, much of the basic thinking and codification of conflict analysis and dispute resolution techniques

have been crafted and tested over the past half century. It is well past time when these basics models and

techniques be acknowledged as basic every day skill sets that ought to be taught, practiced, and

encouraged as an industry best practice by all.

For an abundance of social and business reasons, we need to finally start the movement away from merely

managing interpersonal and group conflicts, and start the much more efficient and effective task of actually

trying to resolve them.

Why Daily Standups Matter

When everything is said and done, groups and organizations accomplish common goals through

cooperation and communication. Communication can be accurate or inaccurate. Depending on the

circumstances, the roles and responsibilities involved, and the context, any combination of communication,

miscommunication, or lack of adequate communication can often create both internal and external social

conflict. Where, when, and how the conflict presents itself, and the issues and the parties involved, will

determine on how the conflict should be approached.

The phrase “conflict management” has a specific meaning in the lexicon of conflict theory. It refers to

processes that have proven to be efficient and effective in bringing a conflict to a truncated end; where the

details of how and why the conflict has been concluded are often less important than the fact that it has been

curtailed. Within the context of business disputes, a lawsuit is the domestic equivalent of warfare. Walking

away from conflict despite a specific party’s strong feelings of aggrievement is the domestic equivalent of

surrender. Of course, in both cases, the conflict may be “managed” though accommodation, avoidance,

compromise, or tacit collaboration, but in many instances, its underlying causes remain unresolved.

Under such circumstances, a rekindling of the underlying conflict between the parties is likely.

Depending on circumstances, the phrase “external conflict” can have two meanings: either a conflict with

another individual or group within the organization, or a conflict with another individual or group from outside

the organization.

Whether you call it a standup, a daily standup meeting, a daily scrum, a scrum meeting, or even a morning

roll call, the modern purpose of this event is generally the same: to periodically convene a brief meeting at

the beginning of the workday to establish who is available to do work, to review the status of efforts from the

previous day, to review the current day’s activities, and to seek assistance in the removal of any constraints

that impact the timely completion of those tasks.

There has been considerable complaint about daily standups being more dysfunctional than functional.

Complaints abound that it is a waste of time, arguing that its only purpose is to make managers feel the

team members are working hard and under their control, rather than provide actionable insight into how well

the team is progressing against their short-term goal.

I disagree with those assessments. Rather, it suggests a failure to adequately communicate the purpose of

standup meetings to the team, or to its newest members. It is a leadership issue.

If a daily stand up takes more than fifteen minutes to accomplish, either the team is too large, or the incorrect

kinds of information is being shared. As illustrated in Figure 2 -- barring technical difficulties and with a five-

minute cushion to allow managers to get to or to dial into their next higher tier daily standup -- the entire

upward communication path, from the teams to Leadership, can be accomplished within a time duration of

an hour-and-a-half and two hours; with no individual needing to spend more than a half-hour of their time in

the entire daily process.

Figure 2: Daily Standup Use Case

One need only consider the amount time and resources wasted in the various daily combinations of

communication, miscommunication, lack of adequate communication, and unnecessary conflict Daily

standups are a small price to pay for clarity.

The purpose of a daily standup is not task status. Rather it is problem identification, constraint identification,

and the status and initiation of action items and remediation efforts to clear bottlenecks and. Task status can

easily be updated by utilizing a team Kanban. Daily work status and progress updates can be maintained by

updating individual task progress at the end of the workday, available for a quick pre-meeting review by

each successive tier lead.

It is not uncommon for a standup to take far less than the allotted fifteen minutes to accomplish, with

individual reports taking far less than a single minute to complete. This leaves a sizable portion of the

allotted time to focus on the real purpose of the daily standup: workflow issues, shifts in priorities, and the

removal of constraints by managers and leads.

Constraints generally mean that groups of individuals are not, cannot, or will not work together cooperatively.

This leads, inevitably, to conflict.

If there are no issues to discuss, it will be a short meeting. If issues do exist, then collaborative work

meetings can be quickly scheduled to discuss and assign individual action items, trigger communication

flows for information and clarifications, and always to keep in the forefront that projects and operations

ultimately fail because of people, no technology.

Conclusion

So long as humans make decisions about key pathway choices that impact internal and external processes,

communication and the likelihood of escalating human conflict will continue to be relevant to business

operational and project success.

Each of the eleven factors contributing to project failure require efficient and effective daily communication.

Its purpose should be to detect and report any issues or constraints that are preventing tasks or operational

responsibilities from moving forward as planned.

One of the weaknesses of current process improvement theory and implementation is that it completely

ignores the human element; it tends to treat individuals as replaceable parts in a larger machine. This is a

typical managerial, top-down, tunnel-vision perspective that leave line-supervisors and managers -- who

eventually become executives -- completely unprepared to be either efficient managers or effective leaders.

When implemented at all, communication and conflict resolution tend to be mechanical and uninspired.

Communication between individual teams, and collaborative team networks need to be dynamic and

proactive. Short, focused daily standup meetings for all is a necessary first-step toward that end.

(Note: The full article can be downloaded at MCL's published articles page.)

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