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.
The phrase “servant leadership” is frequently used when current leadership styles (typically command-and-control) clash with an emerging culture of empowerment and self-organization. “We need our leaders to embody servant leadership” is a comment I recently heard. But what is servant leadership? Do people really know what they are asking for? As Patrick Lencioni states “I’m tired of […]
My desk where I’m currently coaching is surrounded by three Agile teams. Periodically, I’ll just watch and listen to each of them and before long, the heartbeat of each team begins to reveal itself. Under “normal” conditions the teams will have a nice steady pulse. They have planned their work effectively, they are having fun, […]
A quick tip for Scrum Masters as we head into the summer months. You may have recognized this in the past but the allure of sunshine and warm weather can impact the productivity of your team. A study by Captivate Network of 600 workers reveal a 20% decrease in productivity during the summer. There are […]
As medium-to-large companies begin to implement Agile, more and more Project Managers are transitioning to become Scrum Masters. Eventually, this question will come up…who should the Scrum Masters report to in an organizational hierarchy? Or, who should be the leader responsible for goal-setting, feedback, and salary administration for the Scrum Master? This dilemma was recently […]
In my soon to be released book, “Becoming a Catalyst, Scrum Master Edition,” I tell the story of a newly formed team working with Agile for the first time. This team had just experienced their first sprint together and, to put it gently, it didn’t go well. When the time came for the team to […]
What do managers really think about the people who report to them? I have been in many conversations with managers about their direct reports and it’s fascinating how the dynamics of the conversation shift based on who they are talking about. Some people are their “rock stars” and when mentioned a manager would often perk up or […]
It has been a few weeks since my last post but the good news is I have been spending this time putting the finishing touches on a book. I plan on getting it off to the copyeditor by the end of the week and will let you know a release date shortly thereafter. In the […]
Some product backlogs seem to meld perfectly with their team while others are more of a detriment to productivity. An ineffective product backlog will impact the team in many ways. Team sizing activities become challenging, creating tasks from backlog items takes twice as long as it should, and frustration and lack of trust will be […]
Last fall the CEO of AOL made the news by notoriously firing an employee during a “company all” conference call. The recording of the audio and transcript of the event was subsequently released to the internet. While the real-time firing made all the news, reading the transcript further reveals the following ultimatum was directed towards […]
As organizations create new products, grow their workforce and add new teams, keeping them in sync becomes difficult. This becomes even more challenging as the demands of a fast-paced marketplace require greater agility and flexibility. Throw in the growing complexity of technical solutions, service-oriented architectures and dependencies between teams to deliver pieces of a larger […]
It will happen to most of us eventually. We are asked (told) to join a team having difficulties and turn things around. The team may be challenged with missed deadlines, dysfunctional relationships and low morale, being over budget or behind schedule, or a lack of discipline and organization – and you are going to be […]
I have always been a proponent of keeping most Agile events and rituals open and transparent. If anyone in the organization would like to stop by a daily stand-up session or experience a sprint review, the more the merrier… …with one exception. If you are a manager with direct reports on an Agile team (you […]