Polishing the Diamond: Participatory Decision Making Model
I’ve been working lately to acquire my A-CSM, that is Advanced - Certified Scrum Master through Scrum Alliance. The certification is the second on the Scrum Master track. I started pursuing this after completing the Product Owner track to get my CSP-PO, Certified Scrum Professional - Product Owner. I enjoy the courses and continuous learning and have real-life applications for Scrum on all of my projects. I’m a big fan of Agile as we’ve covered, but we’ve yet to go deeper into Scrum. Scrum is a lightweight framework for teams to accomplish complex work and much more, but we’ll get into that in later articles. I’m particularly talking about Scrum in terms of SaaS as that’s my line of work. The model covers the diamond model of participatory decision making outlines the process groups go through to make decisions. For such a simple model, I found it summarizes quite a lot. Let’s review it further and look at the applications within a Scrum team building SaaS apps.
Building SaaS isn’t an easy thing to do even when the team is technically able to get it done. There are emotions and relationships with one another, the work, the business, the market and so much more that can skew perspectives. The difference in frames of reference between individuals can halt decisions in their tracks or lead to quick conclusions that aren’t the best for the product. That being said, the difference we’re talking about is pervasive and unavoidable. Good teams still have a conflict; they just get through it quicker with less impact than other teams. This creates a cycle of decision-making and eventually innovation when paired with other agile product management practices.
Effective decision-making and collaboration in Scrum teams and teams, in general, is key to success. It sounds obvious but if it were easy then every team, department, company, state and so on would get along just fine. Conflict occurs because we’re human or some other philosophical reason that we don’t have time to explore here. The point is teams need to get along and collaborate through difficult decisions to learn and continue to provide quality products and services, that’s where Sam Kaner and his diamond of participation come in. The model attempts to frame the general process in which groups reach decisions, and it does a pretty great job at it.
The model breaks decision-making down into five stages.
1. Business as Usual
2. Divergent Zone
3. Groan Zone
4. Convergent Zone
5. Closure
Business as Usual is as it sounds. This is when decisions are easy or agreed upon by the group across the board. For this zone, decisions are made without any kind of group dynamics gymnastics. This forms the leftmost point of the diamond model.
The Divergent Zone is where things get interesting. This is the point where the path forward is not clear. At first, groups may begin in familiar territory and give safe opinions, and in the absence of critique, it should lead to brainstorming. The brainstorming then gives way to differing perspectives, agreements, and disagreements. Enter Zone 3.
The Groan Zone, aptly and oddly named, is where things get tough. When decisions are truly complex, they reach this point where frustration can emerge in a group. This can lead to irritation and where collaboration begins to tread into conflict about a decision or some detail of the outcome.
With patience, practice and facilitation, a group can get through the Groan Zone to reach Zone 4 the Convergent Zone. Here is where the team is coming together again settling on some of the main differences and hearing each other out to level-set perspectives. Now, refinements can be made to decisions to meet any requirements and eventually reach the next zone.
Zone 5 is closure. The decision has been made or at least the next steps have been agreed upon by the major stakeholders. This could be the group deciding, a vote being taken or the accountable stakeholder making an ultimate decision as the right point and end of the model.
Each decision is like a little diamond that the team works through in those stages. In one call or conversation, it may happen multiple times and in others it happens endlessly. The shape of the model adds to the understanding here that making decisions is valuable for teams. Scrum trusts the Scrum team to accomplish the work they’ve committed to and to ask for assistance or subject matter experts when needed. Each decision is the team exercising this process in a microcosm, but it adds up over time to create true value. In creativity, divergent thinking is where imagination takes over and new ideas and possibilities are explored.
Some organizations have a culture that avoids the Groan Zone for one reason or another. By avoiding it, they end conversations early and don’t get through the cycle. This can drag a team down, followed by the culture then the company. When entering into the divergent zone, there’s a need for psychological safety because this is where new ideas are thrown out and brought up. The speaker may be explaining something they’ve only just thought about in a recent conversation. Critical members of a team will shut down initial ideas immediately and try to poke holes in them or find edge cases to invalidate them. The issue with this is no fresh idea is bulletproof, but you need to explore them and let them be heard before deciding. A team that reverts to “that’s how we do it here” or “that’s the way it was done in Legacy” is cutting itself off from true innovation and improvement as a team which will directly impact its product.
The convergent zone at the end represents the team or an accountable individual making a decision based on known information. At this point, the “known” is more than it was before because of the divergent zone. Essentially, the divergent zone is when groups are expanding the boundaries of “known”, exploring and innovating. To get here though, the groan zone is waiting, and that’s where working agreements, patience and good meeting facilitation come in to save the day. Although, no matter how good your Scrum master may be this still relies on the individuals on the team having respect for one another and their work.
Groups need to embrace the groan zone as it means the boundaries of possibility related to their current decision are expanding, which is a good thing. In other words, reaching the groan zone means some new things are being introduced to the decision that may lead to something better than expected. Creating shared context to ease differing perspectives can help with this and start to reduce the difference in perspectives that form during divergence. Strengthening relationships is also key to getting through the groan zone with as little pain as possible. There’s always some degree of discomfort to be found here because it’s hard to defend young ideas and potentially give up on them in the same conversation. It’s also not easy at times to consider different perspectives. Working within the groan zone is a lifelong practice for everyone, so it’s more about working together through it quicker than avoiding it.
With stakeholder feedback and a decent release frequency, a team that moves through the diamond of participation decision-making efficiently will create good results. The facilitator plays a key role in moving teams from one zone to another. Recognizing the current zone of a conversation is inversely correlated to your emotional stake in the outcome of the decision. The more you care about the decision, the less apparent it may be that you’re moving through the zones. A good Scrum master will help out with each zone.
In Zone 1, the decision-making is all about balancing the need for speed with daily decision-making of simple things. In the divergence of Zone 2, diverse perspectives can be embraced and explored, and brainstorming conversations involving key stakeholders is also helpful. If you build a safe team, then most decisions and conversations will lead to brainstorming but some teams may need to have scheduled times to approach this outside of critique.
Zone 3, as we mentioned before, can be helped by enforcing relationships and creating a shared context in the group. Easier said than done, but baby steps and continuous improvement is how it's done along with a good deal of patience and understanding. Zone 4 is where a Scrum master can help the team refine good ideas and include any other operational requirements. Then, Zone 5 is closure where the decision is reached and that diamond of a decision is ready to go.
Making decisions efficiently is the core of agile product management, Scrum and life. The diamond model of participation has been there all along. Watch your teams move through this model and look for the movements from one zone to the next. Over time, you can use this to make suggestions and help coach the team to a decision.