If you're new to light-touch leadership you may find yourself focusing on the big events (stand-ups, retrospectives, planning games, showcases, beer). However it's the little-noticed gardening work that happens over the course of an iteration that really helps a team work together and deliver effectively. Here's a few examples, some of which may be specific to our environment:
Pair-Programming: Given that your team holds pair-programming as a norm, look around and see if people are actually pairing, if not, why not? Are the pairs that are settled working well? Perhaps someone has disengaged and 'gone dark'. Maybe they need a break or maybe they haven't swapped around in a while (short-term marriage syndrome). Is a pair being disrupted by one party repeatedly fiddling with their PDA or mobile, taking calls, disappearing frequently, or floating back to their machine to IM or email? Perhaps there's an inexperienced pair that have reached a impasse and could do with a fresh pair of eyes.
Builds: Is the build broken? Obvious I know, but you'd be surprised how often this is missed, even with lava lamps and flashing screens or audible alerts. If it is broken, can you tell who's fixing it? If the build appears to be constantly failing, find out how many times it has failed so far today. Maybe the team could do with a timeout to address it.
Cards: Are the cards, boards and other information radiators clean and up-to-date? You'll probably find that quite a lot of your time will be spent maintaining them. Are cards in play being sliced as they're developed? Has the customer been in the bullpen for review at all today? Are QA involved and getting builds to test? Keep an eye out for typical scenarios that may need attention, for example a card that has been 'almost done' for more than a day.
General Communication: Is the office like a library, or worse, a morgue? Remember that as a faciliator one of your key roles is to protect the team from external interruptions so watch the flow of people in and out of your bullpen. What you really want to hear is the 'ambient noise of continuous conversation' as Simon 'walking thesaurus' Baker would say :)
Gardening needs a light touch to be effective. Be aware of what's going on with the team and intervene only when you notice something occuring that is either contrary to the agreed norms or disrupting the flow of cards to done. When you do intervene make sure your delivery is well thought out, explain clearly what you have observed and why you think the team should take notice. From here you can faciliate the team to identify any root cause(s) and agree appropriate action. It's useful to keep a log of your observations. It will help you spot patterns over time that can be addressed more thoroughly in retrospectives.
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