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 Center for Nonverbal Studies has a fascinating webpage called The Nonverbal Dictionary of Gestures, Signs, and Body Language Cues. While coaching teams, I recently began to intentionally look for many of these gestures and it is interesting to see how often these gestures and cues reveal what people would really want to say or […]
A friend of mine shared a negative experience he recently had with their boss. I won’t get into details of this specific incident but it sounded like this was one in a string of behaviors in which he was left feeling, in his words, “totally unimportant.” The dictionary says we know something is important when […]
In the post, “Working on a Beating Heart“, we discussed the challenge of improving culture and fixing processes while continuing to deliver value to customers. As organizations attempt to move quickly to improve their workplace and remain nimble, competitive, and viable, there is danger in introducing too much change or in introducing change too fast. […]
I have been blessed with many great mentors throughout my career, especially recently. Some of these were formal mentors, while others were informal mentors such as colleagues, bosses or friends. Either way, it is great to have someone you can trust and share your craziest ideas and biggest fears with. After you’ve spoken with a […]
Earlier this year, I published 9 blog posts walking through an Agile Leadership Engagement Model. You can now download all 9 posts in one convenient document. To be a nimble, adaptable, and agile organization facing new challenges and complexities, traditionally accepted leadership practices from the past must be radically changed. This will require more than […]
Perhaps you are thinking of becoming a Scrum Master or Agile Project Manager and wondering where to start. Maybe you are currently working as a Project Manager and your organization is moving to Agile. Would you like to develop the additional skills and competencies to become an awesome Scrum Master in your new role? And […]
This weekend is the start of the 100th running of the Tour de France. I have always been a fan of the race partly because of the beautiful course locations but mostly because of the incredible physical test the cyclists must endure over three grueling weeks. Last year before the Tour de France I wrote […]
Over the past couple of years, I have been able to facilitate or observe many, many sprint review sessions. As you can imagine, many would be considered a success while others did not go so well. Just about everything you need to know about how an Agile team is doing can be discovered by observing […]
Companies are springing up with new thinking about how to structure and lead their organizations. I can think of Spotify, Valve and HubStop just to name a few and I’m sure there are plenty more out there. Every time I hear stories about these companies I am encouraged about what the future holds. I feel a […]
In a previous post, I mentioned how “scar tissue” begins to form in organizations. This scar tissue forms over time as a workforce becomes numbed or even wounded from negative experiences with leaders and co-workers. Organizational scar tissue is very similar to physical scar tissue as it… Can be long-lasting. Just as a simple scar […]
A fascinating topic often emerging from larger organizations is how the business analyst role should integrate with our Agile teams. In 2010, Roman Pichler crafted a blog post with a few options and I’m sure there are many other opinions out there. Even with this knowledge and understanding of what we think could be done […]
It’s a very rare opportunity to be able to stop everything a company is doing to take the time to instill necessary transformational and behavioral changes. There are not many “do-overs” when it comes to company culture. We see it over and over – let’s learn how to work together and fix broken or outdated processes […]