Illustrated Agile
You may find yourself a part of an organization faced with what may seem to be daunting cultural issues. Bureaucracy and politics are the norm and bloated, unproductive processes has demoralized a good slice of your workforce. Sooner or later, leaders in the company will recognize change must come or they are forced into it […]
One of the common complaints I hear from teams moving to an Agile approach are the number of meetings they must now attend. Planning sessions, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, retrospectives, and product backlog grooming are now populating their calendar and they wonder when they will actually have time to work. When statements like this come […]
If your organization has recently started a transformation journey to become Agile or if you were recently hired into an Agile organization, it’s important to acknowledge where you are personally with the change happening around you. Your personal journey through an organizational transformation or immersion into an Agile environment will be a unique experience for […]
The need for visionary, transformational leaders becomes more prevalent every day as our workforce continues to evolve, our businesses adapt to change, and workplace culture becomes more important to our people. People deserve leaders who care and who desire to leave a positive leadership legacy. If you are looking for a couple of additions to […]
At the beginning of last year, I posted Three Resolutions for Scrum Masters to bring in 2012. For 2013, let’s go beyond resolutions and emphasize how you can leverage your Scrum Master role to become an indispensable person on your team throughout the year. Focus on Building Community. I recently wrote about how we should […]
I have written in the past how leaders will need to change how they lead and how organizations will need to be structured differently to stay competitive in the future. The demand for talent will continue to grow and only those who can adapt to these changes will thrive. This may not happen for years […]
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 […]
Teams influence individual performance in many ways. In a previous post, we talked about the Köhler effect – the impact of having team members with lesser skills working with stronger teammates to improve performance. In this case, being a part of a team is providing a positive influence. Another potential dynamic may be affecting your team […]
When establishing your Agile framework, there will often be times when you will need to reconcile how roles should interact with each other. This will especially be the case with roles OUTSIDE of your framework such as with senior leadership and operations. To assist in finding role clarity, a “needs-based exercise” was developed to identify […]
Take a minute and think back on the times in your life when you felt really appreciated. What did people tell you? When did they tell it to you? Was it public or in a private conversation? How did it make you feel? While being the recipient of genuine appreciation is an amazing feeling, being […]
A couple of summers ago, while training for some crazy adventure, I was running with a friend of mine who is considerably faster than me on a Saturday morning long training run. Throughout the course of the run we were chatting and moving along at a steady pace but during the last half I noticed […]
In an earlier post, I discussed two phrases leaders should genuinely say to their people as often as possible. In addition to saying those two phrases, there are a couple of things an effective and transformational leader should also be. The role of leaders and managers is evolving – and it must. Future generations of […]