How to Use an A3 Report
What is an A3 An A3 is more than an 11 x 17 inch piece of paper that is structured into several sections and not all A3’s are created equal. An A3 is a structured problem solving and continuous improvement approach, first…
Failure Modes of an Agile Transformation: Congruency
To this point, I’ve covered topics around failure in leadership and failure in workflow. It’s now time to dig a bit deeper into the question, “How does your organization “show up?” That is, “What’s the overall sense of how people…
Impostor Syndrome: Why Some ScrumMasters Feel Like They’re Faking It
Geoff Watts is one of the leading Scrum thinkers in the world, and one of the few to hold both the Certified Scrum Trainer and Certified Scrum Coach designation. In addition to his book, "Scrum Mastery: From, From Good To…
12 Failure Modes of an Agile Transformation
The year? 2015. The setting? An Agile transformation near you. The problem? You’ve hit a wall. Despite all your best intentions, you’re still not getting those promised benefits of Agile: speed, quality, value, sustainable growth across your organization. And your…
Coaching intervention during a team conflict
Every team goes through some stages of conflict before they stabilize. Leaders need to be conscious of intervening during such conflicts. The knee-jerk reaction of a typical leader observing a conflict is to jump immediately to “fix” the problem. It…
What Makes a Good Disciplined Agile Delivery Coach?
We are often asked what makes a Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) coach effective. The features to look for in a DAD coach include: People skills. First and foremost, effective DAD coaches need solid people skills. They need to be prepared to work…
Cancel Your Executive Status Meetings (Do This Instead)
Last week I met with a strategy leader for an Australian financial services organization, who was trying to work out how to bring his executive team together on a regular cadence to align around strategy. He’d built a great Kanban…
Funnel Task Board helping agile teams delivery more
Many agile and Scrum teams struggle to limit their work in progress. This results in task switching, delays and other wastes, overall reducing how much the team delivers. Physically limiting space on a team task board asks as a mental…
Waterfall Iterations softening resistance for the transition to Scrum
Switching from traditional waterfall development to Scrum is a very big mental change for many people. These people can be resistant to the change and potentially lead to a failed transition. It you have detected resistance to the transition to…
Choosing the correct type of feedback can improve your coaching
Helping people to grow and improve is very satisfying. Hence constructive and re-enforcing feedback seems natural to me and I use it often. However there is a continuum of behaviour that prompts me to give feedback and unfortunately it should…