Survival Mode
A team in survival mode has no time to learn: every day goes to fighting fires, and the shortcuts taken today become tomorrow's fires.
In the Elastic Leadership model it is the first of three team modes, and the team leader's job is to lead with a firm hand until the team has slack time again.
These articles define survival mode, show its signs and give the first steps that work during chaos.
- Definition: Survival Mode
A short definition of survival mode, the spiral of fighting fires with no time to learn, and how removing over commitments helps break it.
- Signs you might be in survival mode
A list of early warning signs that a software team is in survival mode, such as constant urgency, missing context, no time to reduce risk and long stress.
- Dangers of Survival Mode
Lessons from a LEGO exercise on how leaders react in survival mode, and why deadlines, low quality and team behavior are not givens.
- The Chaos Addiction
How survival mode becomes a self-reinforcing addiction that cuts quality and learning time, and why a team leader must take a risk to break the cycle.
- Elastic Leadership Team Survival Vs. Team Chaos Vs. Cynefin
Why the first phase of Elastic Leadership was renamed from chaos to survival to avoid clashing with Cynefin, and how the three team phases are defined.
- On time, with quality - why is this mostly failing?
Why teams fail to ship on time with quality while stuck in chaos, and why team leaders must remove commitments to make time to learn and practice.
- Step #1 – Claim Your Territory, Own your team
Why a dev lead must claim the team's territory: keep implementation decisions inside the team, be its single entry point, and ask why outsiders interfere.
- Step #2 – Use a big visible board with post it notes
How a team lead can use a big visible whiteboard with sticky notes to track tasks, expose developers juggling several tasks, and show management the load.
- Daily Standup Meetings - Introduction and 5 useful tips
How to run a daily standup meeting with the three questions, why each question matters, and five hard-learned tips for keeping it under 15 minutes.
- Step #4 - Start doing code reviews – Seriously
A team leader's guide to serious code reviews: what to look for, reviewing every check-in yourself at first, then training the team to review its own code.
- 12 Behavior Anti Patterns You Will Face As a Software Team Leader
Twelve team member behavior anti-patterns and three outside disruptions a software team leader faces in survival mode, with how to respond to each one.
- Elastic Leadership in Devops Survival Mode
A look at a DevOps Guys post in which command and control ended production fires and freed time to learn, read as Elastic Leadership in survival mode.
- Do new startup leaders need to grow their teams?
Why early-stage startups are usually in survival mode with no time to grow people or use TDD, and why learning should start once the direction is proven.
Every post in the category First Steps during chaos (30) · Other topics: Learning Mode, Team Leader Manifesto, Scrum Master · All articles