About

len-lagestee-illustrated-agile

My name is Len Lagestee and I am currently an Agile Coach and Consultant based in Chicago. I began my own personal journey with Agile in 2002 and since that time I have been practicing or coaching Agile practices everywhere I have been. In 2010, I became the Agile Practice Leader at Cars.com and in 2011, I started writing this blog, Illustrated Agile. It started with some sketches I drew to explain our approach to business agility, the Scrum Master role, and an approach to developing an Agile Framework. It has since evolved…

One of the first things our Agile coach and friend, Si Alhir, said to me during the Cars.com Agile Transformation Journey was to keep a journal. Not thinking of myself as journalist (or a writer), I reluctantly agreed and began writing. First one or two sentences a day, then a few paragraphs, and before long, pages were filled.

So emerging from the ramblings in my journal are the posts you will find on Illustrated Agile. The posts are generally aligned to three topics I find crucial to a vibrant Agile organization.

Incredible Teams. From childhood, I can remember the feeling of being on incredible teams. From baseball in grade school and high school, to 12″ softball teams in my 20’s, to development teams at work, to climbing mountains with friends, I have loved being a part of teams that do amazing things together. Many of the posts will focus on how to become a vibrant Agile community and team and how the Scrum Master can help.

Organizational Change. Some organizations will wrap their software develop processes in time boxes, start having stand up meetings, and claim “We’re agile!” I believe it is so much more than that. Enterprise agility focuses on the entire organization rallying around a shared vision based on the needs of our customers. Experimenting and testing. Inspecting and adapting. When enterprise agility becomes a part of the DNA of an organization, change is a part of everyday life.

Transformational Leadership. An often overlooked element of Agile transformation journeys is the role of leadership. Much more than just leadership “buy-in”, there is very little discussed around how leaders will need to change as well. They are not just observers in the process but participants. Many of my posts will describe ways leaders can be involved in an Agile organization.

Hopefully, you will find the site informational and thought-provoking. If so, please comment or share with your social network.

You can email me at len -at- illustratedagile.com or connect on LinkedIn.

Illustrated Agile Published:

InfoQ – Interview with Ben Linders about the book, Becoming a Catalyst: Scrum Master Edition

Projects @ Work – Where Do the Scrum Masters Report? [original post]

Projects @ Work – Agile Sessions and Authority [original post]

Projects @ Work – Team Trials [original post]

InfoQ – How Individuals Can Adopt an Agile Way of Working by Ben Linders [original post]

InfoQ – Improving Collaboration of Testers and Developers in Agile Teams by Ben Linders [original post]

Agile Weekly Issue #76 – Agile, The Amplifier [original post]

Agile Weekly Issue #61 – Make Your Agile Transformation Personal [original post]

VersionOne Agile Chronicles Newsletter January 2013 – Make Building Incredible Teams a Focus in 2013 [original post]

Agile Weekly Issue #59 – Becoming an Indispensable Scrum Master in 2013 [original post]

Agile Weekly Issue #51 – Becoming a Transformational Leader [original post]

VersionOne Agile Chronicles Newsletter October 2012 – How to Measure Team Agility – October 17, 2012 [original post]

Projects @ Work – How to Measure Team Agility – October 16, 2012 [original post]

About Project Management – Measuring Team Agility – October 12, 2012 [original post]

VersionOne Agile Chronicles Newsletter September 2012 – It Only Takes One (Handling a Bad Team Member) [original post]

Scrum Expert – Helping a Scrum Master with a Struggling Team – August 27, 2012 [original post]

Projects @ Work – Testing Your Agile Process for Simplicity – August 22, 2012 [original post]

Agile Weekly Issue #40 – Coaching a Scrum Master on a Struggling Team – August 22, 2012 [original post]

Agile Weekly Issue #31 – Scrum Master Interview Questions [original post]

VersionOne Agile Chronicles Newsletter May 2012- The Strongest Words in Leadership [original post]

Agile Weekly Issue #15 – Agile Leadership Principles [original post]

The Illustrated Agile Company is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

7 replies on “About”

I have really enjoyed your blog. You have a great way with words! I am struggling with the format/ content of performance reviews for members of agile teams. I would really appreciate your thoughts about how the performance of agile team members could be measured, in a way that reinforces the agile mindset. You did an awesome job with the SCRUM master role.
We really need this for the team members. Thanks!
sue

Thanks so much for the kind words Sue and thanks for reading! We definitely need a new approach and new thinking on how we can make performance reviews much more meaningful, relevant, and timely. A couple blog posts related to performance reviews will be posted in the next couple weeks. In the meantime, feel free to email me any specific questions you may have. Thanks!

Hey there,

I just signed up for the newsletter, looks good. Problem: the link to the Agile Team Health Dashboard is broken. Looks like it’s not got the full path in the link. Thought you might want to fix it.

– Andrew

No, I wasn’t. Let me know if there’s a different way to get hold of it, I’d be interested in taking a look.

Len, this blog is awesome! And your illustrations are the best! You should be a proud Blog Master :-)

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Share This