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.
Organizational change will always be an endless journey and this journey will always be personal and unique. This post from a couple years ago mapped out a possible path people may navigate through an Agile change journey and just how unique this experience can be. Many organizations expect a “point a” to “point b” route […]
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he discusses the need to deliberately practice for 10,000 hours before becoming an expert in a chosen endeavor. Ten. Thousand. Hours. If all you did for the next year was practice something non-stop, without sleep, you would be about 90% of the way there. There is however, a raging debate […]
When I enter an organization as a coach, I often find people (and sometimes whole teams or departments) suffering from low confidence. For individuals, this could stem from being in a new role, a history of not being given a chance to speak what is on their mind, or a mistreatment after they made a […]
This was a question posted as a reply to the post Make Performance Reviews Meaningful. If you have questions of your own, feel free to reply to any post or submit your question on our Ask Anything page. One big question though: what do you do in the big reviews if an employee has had […]
The following question was posted to the Ask Anything page. Feel free to ask your own questions here or contribute your thoughts to this question in the comments section below. From: A New Scrum Master Location: England Subject: Important but uncooperative team member Hello. My company is new to scrum and agile, and I am […]
Having worked with many Scrum Masters, I am beginning to recognize patterns and behaviors of some of the best. It appears to me that the Scrum Masters having the most impact with their teams and throughout the organization establish strong rituals for themselves. These rituals provide the momentum to overcome the challenges and busyness of […]
The role of product owner is both a rewarding and challenging experience as those who are currently functioning in the role can probably attest to. There are highs and lows but the opportunity to shape and influence a product vision and see it come to life is a gratifying experience for most. Over time, however, […]
For many leaders, the sprint review (or demonstration) is one of the few chances they have to see their direct reports functioning with their Agile team and to witness the outcome of their work. My recommendation would be to attend as many sprint review sessions as you can. Everything you need to know about the health […]
In Part 1 of Help! My Company is Stuck, we discussed a few of the stagnating scenarios found when organizations are attempting transformative movement towards greater agility and improved culture. In part 2, we’ll dig into a few of the more challenging situations you may be experiencing. Admittedly, many of these will require a coordinated, herculean, […]
At the beginning of each of the past three years, I have compiled a small list of resolutions for Scrum Masters to consider for their own personal development journey for the upcoming year. It’s hard to believe 3 years have gone by already – time is flying. You can read the resolutions from the past […]
My coaching engagements often bring me to organizations well underway with an Agile transformation or have attempted, with little impact, an Agile transformation in the past. After a short time of observation, it becomes apparent some of these organizations are stuck between the old and the new…and the strong pull of the old provides easy […]
Complications, contention, and complexities will often emerge when attempting to integrate a non-Agile vendor implementation within an Agile organization or team. From my experience, many vendors already have a phased project plan template established for their portion of the work and this can seem somewhat. What is an Agile team to do if they are […]