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.
Newly formed organizations have the benefit of hiring teams, forming culture, and building structure from scratch. Mature organizations do not have this advantage and to stay competitive with newer startups will rely on change initiatives for a rebirth to bring back the spark they once had. Many of these companies are attempting to become agile, […]
In an earlier post I discussed collisions and conflicts which may occur within an Agile environment. A common collision on Agile teams occurs between testers and developers so let’s dig into this scenario a little deeper. When we begin introducing agile into organizations, the impact is often strongly felt by the testing community. Testers are an […]
The words we use with our people will leave a lasting impact. This will always be true for leaders and there is no way around it. When we use critical, demeaning, or harsh words we leave “scar tissue” and it may never go away. This scar tissue often takes the shape of guilt, fear, or […]
Becoming an organization with agility at its core will require a natural pull and flow between leadership and product teams. Especially as companies grow larger, this conduit between the organizational vision created by senior leadership, strategic planning by mid-level leaders, and the product vision created by the product owner has a tendency to become smaller […]
If a product has been flagged as “invest” during planning, the product owner and team should be in a continuous flow of discovering valuable features to deliver for that product. They should be learning everything about who is (or could be) using their product. The output of learning and discovering our users is captured in […]
One of the most challenging situations an Agile organization will encounter will be the coordination of dependencies and releases across product teams, operational or support groups, and areas of the company not using Agile methodology. With the organizational vision in place and agile teams established, product owners will begin to determine the features to be […]
While mid-level leaders are planning how to build out the vision  (part two of the series) and when the product owner and teams are creating product roadmaps (covered in the next post), senior leaders should play a supporting role. Depending on the size of your organization, the planning (or portfolio management) for your product teams […]
While the product teams deliver the vision and mid-level leaders are removing big impediments for them, now is the opportunity for senior leaders to show transformational leadership. Transformational leaders have shifted from day-to-day command and control tactics to a focus on aspirational and directional vision. They set up networks and connect the organization in ways […]
Our first three posts in this series established the foundation for leadership engagement in an agile organization: senior leaders create the long-term vision, mid-level leaders build the implementation plan and establish agile teams, and the product owners and teams deliver the vision using an agile discovery and delivery techniques. As the product teams are building […]
A compelling vision is in place, agile teams have been established, hopefully filled with amazing and fully dedicated agile teammates. Using an Agile methodology, the teams begin to build product roadmaps and backlogs geared towards delivering on the organizational vision and meeting customer needs. All sounds perfect…or is it? Often missing in a transformation to […]
If you are a director, senior manager or manager in an Agile organization, this post is for you. With an organizational vision in place, you will be expected to plan and build the teams and systems necessary to deliver on that vision. You are the conduit between vision and implementation…not an easy task! The challenge […]
Many books and articles have been written over the years advocating the need for leaders to provide a vision or to be a visionary. While it’s easy to read and talk about vision it can be elusive for some to create and even harder to effectively communicate. But in our Agile Leadership Engagement Model it […]