Illustrated AgileLen Lagestee is an organizational change coach and blogger at www.illustratedagile.com. As a coach, Len is interacting with large organizations to connect people, revolutionize leadership, deliver results, and humanize the workforce.
If you have led, coached, or participated in an organizational transformation to Agile, it will be just a matter of time before someone asks “How do we know if we are truly Agile?” or “How do we know if our Agile teams are healthy and doing well?” Good questions often coming from leadership. I have […]
During our transformation journey, we have used core teams to be the “guiding coalition” for change initiatives and I know many organizations do the same thing. As we began the expansion of Agility to other areas of the company (and to improve our existing Agile framework), we again selected a small group of people to […]
As leaders, we are often caught up in the whirlwind of responsibility as our focus and attention will naturally shift to strategic endeavors or the issue of the day. While leading a team, department, or organization can consume your day, taking the time to perform small, low energy gestures can make a meaningful difference with […]
As a Scrum Master for an Agile team, you will need to bring new team members onto an existing team from time to time. Make them feel welcome, included, and productive by considering a couple of these ideas: Get the team involved. This often happens but if it doesn’t, ask the hiring manager to include […]
It only takes one. The one person who is not mindful of the quality of their work. The one person who is not respectful. The one person who is not pulling their weight. The one person filled with negativity or cynicism. The one person zapping energy and excitement from everyone on the team. If we […]
Every once in a while an Agile team will begin to struggle. High priority stories left unfinished in a sprint, consistent poor quality, and a bickering team has all led to low team morale, sporadic productivity, and an unhappy product owner. Ideally, the Scrum Master can observe and identify the core issues with the team […]
The typical corporate performance review…a fascinating and at times, polarizing topic. Some think there are benefits and others, not so much. Regardless of where you land on the subject of formal mid-year or end-of-year performance reviews, most agree there is room for improvement. So, for the past year I have tried new ideas around performance management […]
Processes tend to become complex and unwieldy over time. Our natural tendency is to continue adding process versus removing it so its important to test the simplicity of your processes every once in a while. One way to test for simplicity is to use your full Agile process with your college interns during their time […]
I recently stumbled on this video from musician Jack White and it resonated with me. It’s worth the three minutes. In the video, he talks about inspiration, the value of putting in the work, and using constraints to force creativity. Some really insightful stuff. The way he intentionally sets up constraints to force a unique […]
We have all been given feedback while at work. Most likely from a manager or leader but also on occasion, from our peers. How we receive, process, and act on this feedback is directly related to how it was delivered. If you have feedback you would like to share (as a manager or a team member), […]
When making our transition to Agile last year, we moved from an organization focused on delivering projects to an organization focused on delivering value through product development. As part of this move to dedicated product teams, we leveraged an approach to establish a triangle of roles used to create and maintain the vision and roadmap […]
Thousands of books, conferences, webinars, videos, blogs, and training sessions have been developed specifically for developing and improving a leaders ability to lead people. The difference between a great leader and an average leader will make all the difference so I can see why there is so much material out there. For this post, however, […]