Illustrated Agile
It was the day I realized just how hard it would be to unwind old organizational habits. Even though it was over 10 years ago, I remember as if it was yesterday. I was a relatively new manager and was about to attend my first leadership offsite meeting. One of the topics of discussion was […]
My entire mission as a coach can be summed up by answering one question: How fast can I make myself no longer necessary? Well, it’s not as extreme as it sounds but from the first moment I begin coaching in an organization, I’m working to foster an environment where the momentum of change and growth […]
Legacy is planting seeds in a garden you will never see grow. – Hamilton, The Musical For those of us who are practicing Agile coaches, you know the truth in this quote. We are often gifted with a short window of time to be a catalyst for change and create enough of a spark to […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
It’s that time of year again…performance management review season. The topic of performance management seems to be in the spotlight more than usual with recent news from Yahoo! and Microsoft. For many of the early years in my career I was an independent consultant but in 2004 I joined a large company as an employee. […]
Have you ever been assigned to multiple projects or teams at the same time? If so, I’m sure you have experienced the “curse of allocation.” You know how it goes. You are assigned to be 25% on this project and 50% on another one. Let’s throw in 20% to support an existing product and another […]
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 […]
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 […]