Harness the power diversity can bring to your team or organisation. Exploring tools and techniques. Slides from public session presentations, including Agile Cambridge 2015.

1. Unleashing Diversity
Harness the power it can bring to your
team or organisation.
Glenn Smith

2. About me
• Techie at heart, started
out writing embedded
code for Motorola.
• Help people create
better products and
services using agile and
lean principles.
• Get a kick when people
‘get it’ and their product
and service improves.

3. What does diversity mean to you?
In groups of 3-4, take 5 minutes to discuss what diversity
means to you.
• Are there any commonalities?
• What isn’t it?

4. Diversity can mean different
things to different people

5. Locale diversity
Geert Hofstede.com 6-D Model

6. Behavioural diversity

7. Generational diversity
• Traditionalists
• Boomers
• Generation Xers
• Generation Yers/Millennial
• Generation Z

8. It’s not always the
‘big ticket’ items

9. Constellation Game

10. Why is unlocking
diversity the key…

11. “[when] solving a problem,
cognitive diversity can trump
ability, and when making a
prediction diversity matters as
much as ability”
The Difference, Scott Page

12. On innovation
70%
45%
more likely to see their
organisation to capture a new
market
more likely to see their
organization improve market
share
Centre for Talent Innova.on 2D Leadership Study

13. On teamwork
“nobody comes with
an instruction book”
“we must get inside our
team member’s tincan”
Mihaly Nagy, Stamford Global

15. On society
diversity
ideas
economic growth
ideas
economic growth
better schools and
hospitals

16. “It is hardly possible to overrate the value, for the
improvement of human beings, of things which
bring them into contact with persons dissimilar to
themselves, and with modes of thought and
action unlike those with which they are familiar…
there is no nation which does not need to borrow
from others.”
John Stuart Mill, 1848

17. What resonated with you?
If you had to explain to a colleague about the different
types of diversity and what might be most relevant to
them what would you say?
• Take 60 seconds to think
• 5 min share with your neighbour
• Be prepared to share with group

18. Unlocking diversity…

19. “Progress depends as much
on our collective differences
as it does on our individual
IQ scores”
The Difference, Scott Page

20. Beware of assumptions!

21. Explore your assumptions
In groups of 4-5 people spend 10 minutes discussing the
steps you go through to get up in the morning and leave
the house.
• What do you do that you assumed everyone does?
• What surprised you about what others did?
• How might your assumptions on this process
hamper working with them on a project?

22. Building a speak up culture
• ensuring that everyone is heard
• making it safe to propose novel ideas
• giving team members decision-making authority
• sharing credit for success
• giving actionable feedback
• implementing feedback from the team
https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation

23. Building a team
• Actively think about the diversity in the team you are
forming
• Go beyond I need a developer, tester, business analyst
• Will people fit in? Will they raise their hand?
• Be mindful that new teams will not resemble what they
will look like in six months
• Co-create ways of working/manifesto/norms/rules
• Undertake and share behaviour analysis (DiSC)

24. “gang up on the problem,
rather than each other”
Thomas Stallkamp

25. Five dysfunctions model

26. Explore your diversity
In groups of 4-5, spend 15 minutes exploring the diversity
and how it would help you deliver a project.
• What diversity exists within your group? What is the
most unusual thing you’ve found?
• How will this diversity potentially get in your way?
• How can you harness it to exploit the power
to create a better deliverable?
Feedback a summary of your discussions.

27. Questions?

28. Further Reading
• The Difference, Scott Page
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt9UeknKwZw
• The Culture Map, Erin Meyer
• Change the Culture, Change the Game, Roger Connors and Tom S
• http://geert-hofstede.com/united-kingdom.html
• https://www.manager-tools.com/2011/05/first-steps-with-disc
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/11002767/Gen-Z-Gen-Y-baby-
boomers-a-guide-to-the-generations.html
• https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation
• http://www.talentinnovation.org/_private/assets/IDMG-infographic-CTI.pdf
• http://stamfordglobal.com/insights/20131120/effective-teamwork-1-
appreciating-diversity-and-differences
• http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/cosmopolitan-masala-diversity-enriches-
us-all
• http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2014/09/03/how-to-
create-innovation-cultures-that-keep-working/
• Tootech Blog
http://www.tootech.co.uk

29. Keep in touch…
• Twitter: @gupster
• Email: glenn@tootech.co.uk
• Blog: www.tootech.co.uk
• LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/glennpsmith
Drop me an email if you’d like the slides or
complete the survey http://bit.do/acdiversity

30. Other techniques
• Speed Dating
• Low tech social map
• Beware of stereotypes – another form of assumptions
• Build Tribes from Tribal Leadership