Illustrated Agile
It is hard to believe 2015 is almost over and it’s even harder for me to believe that this blog has been around long enough to have a Scrum Master resolution post for the 5th year in a row. In case you’ve missed any of them here are the four earlier New Year resolution posts. […]
As a leader in an organization one of your many expectations would be to determine when one of your direct reports are ready to be promoted into a leadership position or deciding who should be hired from the outside into an open leadership position reporting to you. When promoting internally, this often means deciding when […]
I have been asked over the past couple of months by a variety of folks to share a template to use when creating a job posting for hiring a Team Agile Coach (or Scrum Master). I’ve had a few versions over the years but here is the latest compilation of my thoughts. Share any suggestions […]
I’m writing this in near total darkness during a planned power outage (called load shedding) in a time zone 7 hours ahead of my home in Chicago. Hang on battery…hang on! It’s been almost 8 weeks since I landed abroad to start an Agile coaching assignment. Admittedly, I was nervous. Would I be able to […]
After many conversations and observations over the past couple of years, it would seem a substantial number of organizations aren’t experiencing a meaningful improvement after a move to Agile. Sure, stories are being written, work is being done within sprints, and planning sessions are being facilitated. Perhaps a scaled framework has been introduced, full of […]
As a part of the Scrum Master Performance Review series of posts, an emphasis was placed on obtaining feedback for the Scrum Masters reporting to you. Step 5 focused on receiving feedback from the product owner while step 6 focused on gathering feedback from members of the team. In the past, I have used a […]
The impediment. As a Scrum Master, you know you are supposed to remove it but how do we even know your team has one? The standard practice is for the Scrum Master to spring into action after a team member has raised an impediment at a daily stand up. A list of impediments is usually […]
If you were to ask a Scrum Master what they do a common response is “we protect the team.” From the context of protecting the team from themselves or an aggressive product owner as Mike Cohn describes, I would agree. Protecting the team from complacency or overwork is a worthy endeavor. For many Scrum Masters, protecting […]
An agile team was recently asked by a manager to prepare and distribute a weekly status report. What is your reaction when you read this? For some, this may seem quite normal. For others, you may need more context behind the request before reacting. If your reaction is anything like mine, you’re probably thinking something […]
Organizational change will always be an endless journey and this journey will always be personal and unique. This post from a couple years ago mapped out a possible path people may navigate through an Agile change journey and just how unique this experience can be. Many organizations expect a “point a” to “point b” route […]
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he discusses the need to deliberately practice for 10,000 hours before becoming an expert in a chosen endeavor. Ten. Thousand. Hours. If all you did for the next year was practice something non-stop, without sleep, you would be about 90% of the way there. There is however, a raging debate […]
When I enter an organization as a coach, I often find people (and sometimes whole teams or departments) suffering from low confidence. For individuals, this could stem from being in a new role, a history of not being given a chance to speak what is on their mind, or a mistreatment after they made a […]