One of the main causes of Agile failure is an organizations refusal to get behind (ie, to ‘value’) Agile values. When there is no living instance of these concepts in the organizations, they don’t get modelled, and subsequently don’t spread. You also need to actively promote and reward right behaviours based on those values.
Interactions with other people can be complex and challenging because people do things differently. Here’s a tool to add to your toolbox… When you want to simplify communications, create rails. Rails are all about providing lightweight structure – just enough to promote right action and effective communication Scrum is full of examples of simple rails – story formats (“as a _ I want to _ so I can _ ”), and stand-up 3-question protocol, for example The secret to good rails is that they do not inh...
There are two things you always need to be doing consistently – getting coaching, and coaching others to make them better. It starts with surrounding yourself with people better than you. The people you spend the most time with have a profound impact on your life and success Minimize the time you spend around people who complain, blame, and quit Seek out mentors – you can look within the agile community for writers and other leaders you admire. If you don’t know any, create some community action...
In this episode, I’ll ask you how you stretch….how do you get out of your comfort zone and do things that make you bigger and better? Look for your weaknesses and uncomfortable moments, because the opportunity to grow and become more live within them. Public speaking, networking, journalling, working out….what do you struggle with? Don’t neglect the signs and signals in the form of little failures and peeves–they are gifts….if you choose to give them your focus. Try it today–this could be an imp...
100 Episodes in, I thought it was a good time to stop and express my gratitude and to reflect on what we’ve accomplished so far….and what I’ve learned.. Our growth and reach after 2 years has been truly staggering. THANK YOU ALL!!! I’m still very attached to my original vision of creating 1) A resource for fellow agilists and leaders on how to become more agile, not necessarily on how to do scrum and 2) Creating an elite tribe of leaders who understand how to be successful in the board room and ...
In the second part of my interview with Artida Karaj, we get specific about the How of frameworkless transformation. She drops a ton of cool wisdom in this part, including: Start with leaders. Without C-Level buy-in, its just talk. Co-create goals – internal team members and leadership Create the environment for innovation by creating an outcome culture – the solution matters less than the results. Allow collaboration, decision making, trying and learning, people growth Allow that this will take...
This week, I meet with coach, colleague, and friend Ardita Karaj to discuss her take on large enterprise transformation. Ardita is very well known in the international Agile community. I’ve had the pleasure of working with her in the past and I admire her enthusiasm, intelligence and empathetic approach to Agile. She also has a no-nonsense approach to and instinct for business. My favourite quote from the day is “It used to be ‘the big eats the small’. Now, ‘the fast eats the slow’. This is a tw...
When you’re slumping, your normal routines and methods don’t work (hence the slump). Try this the next time you’re struggling to get your energy, enthusiasm or creativity going: Surround yourself with inspiration Break your routine to get some flow going – knock something off your list, even if you break the rule of ‘highest value targets first’ Lean on your network – talk to people who inspire and support you, and let them know you’re slumping
“How can a financial institution bring regulators along the Agile journey, to help them realize that Agile actually reduces risk?” – Julio Sanchez Tough one. No quick fix. Finserv doesn’t like to shake up longstanding regulations and traditions. It’s a highly regulated industry. The problem is that you have no levers to influence regulators. They don’t have to change, at least not just because you want them to Influence will happen slowly and over time, but a lot of people read that to give them...
An easy way to accelerate learning and development – not to mention your effectiveness as a leader – is to do more scary things. If you don’t flex the muscle of acting the face of fear, you’ll never get better at being courageous, and you’ll never be able to lead others – especially if you’re asking others to take risks and let go of certainty and safety. Choose something you fear this week and take deliberate action!
What helps Agile scale and spread even more than practice excellence? How you evangelize. It’s not enough to to be Agile amid your teams – a transformation demands ongoing and deepening conversation at every level, in every area. Have your elevator speed ready, and start meeting people Create situations that increase contact with the people in every corner of the org – lunch and learns, events, Q/A, attendance at town halls and other corporate events, and through digital means...
Question 1 – When coaching teams when should you have one on ones with the individuals and when could having one on ones impact self organizing teams and creating silos? Team coaching is about coaching performance in the room: How they interact, operate, flow. Can you make that flow more efficient? Individual coaching – Should always do it for executives and individual agile leaders because: Some conversations might need to be private Great coaching sometimes brushes up against the root of inter...
This week, let’s remember one of our most important fundamentals….the ability to leap. It’s a skill we don’t teach in school – to be ready when you’re not ready, to forget all of your doubts and fears and just GO. It’s a habit, in the sense that the more we do it, the easier it becomes, so what can you do to leap this week? What have you been avoiding?
Collecting our lessons learned and sharing them with others is a tribal behaviour that predates formal education. Let’s talk about how to apply this in our team practices In experimental cultures, you are always accumulating learning. Long before the internet and even formal education, we had a tradition of sharing that wisdom among the tribe – at work, we have largely lost that tradition Learning eventually leads to wisdom; knowledge that guides action We should always collect, refine, and shar...
Notice, Do Differently, Reflect Drown the Fear and Reduce the Fear Reducing means rehearsing, exposing, inoculating Part of exposing and rehearsing is about skill building You must also rehearse the skill of being courageous – knowing when you have to leap and LEAPING.
People love to complain and blame. Learn to see from the other’s perspective. We are all doing the best we can. Leaders do not gossip. Realize that as a leader others follow your example, so it is important for you to go first. Be the exemplar of refusing to gossip, to hate, to blame. Be elegant and powerful.
So what did we learn from the practical yet unofficial use of Agile at the small business level? To disrupt like a startup, you have to act like one. Focus on value, plan and invest lean for effective, rapid cycles The minute you execute you should be adjusting Make commitments and investments (including decisions) at the last possible moment You literally have to break the cycle of traditional planning and analysis You can now bring these techniques to different parts of a large scale business,...
The cinematic antihero is in possession of mythical, almost unattainable qualities that make them larger than life. But…if you look more closely, there are a few lessons to be learned from our big-screen idols – what to believe, how to carry yourself, and how to act in the face of opposition.
There’s such a thing as too much. At this point, there’s only so much discussing and explaining around Agility that i can handle, after which point, I’m kind of over it. Now, I feel the need to take the conversation someplace else. But where? • Like Driving a car, i don’t need to focus on fine motor skills anymore. It’s time to use my skill to go new places • The space is crowded with too much education • Being nice is nice, but its time to zoom in on how elite teams behave
This is a long one, so make sure you’re on Wifi! Had a great time at Agile and Beyond this year, and as I was chilling with the speakers Thursday afternoon, we decided to record some cool conversations and thoughts from my colleagues. A real privilege to get some rapid insights from this crew. Here Are the Interview Notes in order of appearance: Nayan Hajratwala, Agile And Beyond Co-organizer and Speaker Coordinator http://www.agileandbeyond.com/2019/ Holly Bielawa – How To Hire An Agile Coach T...
You bring too many people to low value meetings You don’t push decisions and accountability down, so ‘decision makers’ are in high demand and block teams – they can’t get where they need to be fast enough to enable a willing group, if there is such a thing You don’t celebrate, reward and otherwise encourage willing people As a result, things sit around, largely undone, with really great intentions and a satisfying status of ‘working on it’
If you expect Agile, and your message, to spread, you need to be very good at setting targets and crushing them. You can’t do that using traditional big-business time management. You’ll need to: – Decline meetings or limit them to 30 minutes OR LESS unless its team time – group work, facilitation – Block time IN YOUR CALENDAR to do your most important work – uninterrupted. No exceptions – Get Good at Saying NO
Recently, I sat down with Carl Oxham, Tax Partner with PwC Canada about the topic he is most passionate about – emotional intelligence and it’s growing importance in leadership. In this discussion, we get specific about why EI is becoming a hotter topic, how to get good at it, and why it matters for Agile. Carl is an engaging, knowledgeable and gifted speaker – this was a fun conversation for me, and I hope you enjoy it!
“What else might work?” is to customer delight what “Yes, and…” is to improv. Great solutions are the result of breaking rules; forays into unknown, even forbidden territory. This flies in the face of compliance with established conventions and designs. Finding or making new ways is neither cost nor risk-free, but if you want the payoffs of Agile thinking and doing, you must accept these commitments.
In this conversation, Matt Comand of Consistent Elite Performance joins me in my home studio to talk about something that they don’t teach you in scrum master school….how to build elite, high, performing teams. Matt is a performance coach in the sports and business domain, as well as a post-secondary instructor, and brings incredible insight and skill into building trust, training versus planning, and the mental aspects of team performance.
In much the same way that technical evolution makes old tools and techniques unnecessary and extinct, it is time for us as leaders to shift fire away from the mechanics of agility to the logistics of applying and spreading agile properly – not just in the IT realm, but to all of business, work and life. Agile is no longer new and fresh; it is a tool in the toolbox, and everyone should know and understand the basic ideas and practices; freeing us up to advance the craft and apply it to new and ex...
