What is the goal?
I seem to lead with that question a lot these days. Is the goal to practice Scrum? Is the goal to apply SAFe? Is the goal to use some other Agile delivery framework? Is the goal to uphold the values…
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…
Learning Lego Serious Play
Three months ago I stumbled upon a question which needed an anwer: Could Lego be used for business strategy development? I just had to go to London to find out the answer. With a group of 12 I spent the…
Why Being Agile Matters
If you're reading this blog chances are you're more than a little familiar with Agile. Maybe you've been experimenting with Scrum on a project team, or maybe you're doing SAFe™ release trains in your sleep. Maybe you don't even call…
Move Fast, with Stability
By now, you've probably heard about the impending breakup of HP into two separate companies. Some are calling the division of the 75-year-old business a “watershed moment for one of tech's most iconic companies." Here’s something we thought was worth calling…
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…
A good decision process
A fundamental component for fluid operations is an organization’s ability to solve problems and make decisions. Any change or transformation cannot move faster than it’s ability to make decisions and communicate these. This is key if we realize that living…
How to sell the idea of Lean to Managers
What I have learnt is; don’t. Lean is counter intuitive, ill-defined*, and a tough concept to sell. Instead, ask them what outcome they want to improve: efficiency, speed, quality, innovation, morale or reliability. Use Lean Thinking to determine what Predictor could…
Transforming the Scrum of Scrums and Delegating Release Co-ordination
“The agile manager’s scariest move; handing over responsibility”Once we* had our Delivery Teams regularly delivering increments of valuable working software; the management team made the tough call of pushing the responsibility for co-ordination of releases to the Delivery Teams. This…