Illustrated Agile
As a Scrum Master for an Agile team, you will need to bring new team members onto an existing team from time to time. Make them feel welcome, included, and productive by considering a couple of these ideas: Get the team involved. This often happens but if it doesn’t, ask the hiring manager to include […]
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 […]
Every once in a while an Agile team will begin to struggle. High priority stories left unfinished in a sprint, consistent poor quality, and a bickering team has all led to low team morale, sporadic productivity, and an unhappy product owner. Ideally, the Scrum Master can observe and identify the core issues with the team […]
The typical corporate performance review…a fascinating and at times, polarizing topic. Some think there are benefits and others, not so much. Regardless of where you land on the subject of formal mid-year or end-of-year performance reviews, most agree there is room for improvement. So, for the past year I have tried new ideas around performance management […]
Processes tend to become complex and unwieldy over time. Our natural tendency is to continue adding process versus removing it so its important to test the simplicity of your processes every once in a while. One way to test for simplicity is to use your full Agile process with your college interns during their time […]
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 […]
We have all been given feedback while at work. Most likely from a manager or leader but also on occasion, from our peers. How we receive, process, and act on this feedback is directly related to how it was delivered. If you have feedback you would like to share (as a manager or a team member), […]
When making our transition to Agile last year, we moved from an organization focused on delivering projects to an organization focused on delivering value through product development. As part of this move to dedicated product teams, we leveraged an approach to establish a triangle of roles used to create and maintain the vision and roadmap […]
Thousands of books, conferences, webinars, videos, blogs, and training sessions have been developed specifically for developing and improving a leaders ability to lead people. The difference between a great leader and an average leader will make all the difference so I can see why there is so much material out there. For this post, however, […]
I am drawn to watching the Tour de France every year and I’m already looking forward to the event starting this weekend. There is just something about watching people test their physical limits every day in such a beautiful yet challenging environment. I have learned a little about the dynamics of a cycling team and it’s […]
Leaders are tempted to decide on organizational or workflow changes and reveal them with a “big bang.” The reveal will often include a new org chart with the instructions that we’ll figure out the details later. As organizations grow larger and more complex, the success of implementing change in this way becomes questionable. At the […]
While writing my earlier post about Coaching Pull, I started to use a mountain climbing analogy but after a few edits it just didn’t seem to fit. But it did get me thinking… Having personally climbed a large mountain (or two) and being active in organizational change initiatives, it seems to me there are some […]