All articles about Agile

Leadership

Fear, Slack and Agile Transformation

By
leadership headstone

So, if there are any “leaders” out there looking to make significant changes in your organization, like an agile transformation, please pay attention. If you want change, you must first remove fear. In its place, install some slack. Give back some time. Allow people to learn. Allow people to reflect. Allow people to change. Allow people to fail gracefully. You want to lead? Give them a reason to follow, something that aligns with their own intrinsic motivation. Stop using motivational junk food. Stop using fear.

Agile Development, Agile Quality, General Agile

We Must Inject (not just inspect) Quality

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Not sure where I first heard the phrase “you can’t inspect quality into a product” but I have certainly used the phrase myself all too often in my consulting gigs. After a quick Google search, I found the originator of the quote was Harold Dodge and it was first used in a manufacturing context. While I generally eschew appropriating manufacturing analogies for comparison to software development, in this case, it is certainly apt.

Agile Transitioning, Blog

The PMO is Dead. Long Live the PPMO!

By
letters, typewriter

One of the most enjoyable parts of my work and my life is delivering presentations or giving talks to outside groups. During one particular Q&A session I was asked a question along these lines – “If you had unlimited power in an organization, what would be the very first thing you would do to ensure agility?”

My answer, “Oh that is easy. The very first thing I would do is get rid of the Project Management Office.” At which I unfortunately took a pause. The collective gasp from the crowd filled that void and the ensuing murmur drowned out my next statement. You see, I was addressing a PMI group, and my statement proved to be provocative to say the least.

Agile Management, Agile Team, Blog, General Agile, Leadership

The Gang of Four – How Optimization Perseveres

By
room, lights, black and white

The impetus for the gang of four was the desire of four agilists (coaches) to try to do the right things with regards to implementing agile and scrum – to do things that were generally acknowledged as good agile practices but things that were not necessarily politically palatable. In other words, we were something of a clandestine organization.

Agile Coaching, Agile Management, Agile Team, Agile Transitioning, Leadership

Managers from Hell and Agile Transformation

By
larry apke, whiteboard, agile

A few months back I stumbled onto some research done by Gallup on employee engagement quoted from above. I would like to say that their findings were shocking, but having been an Agile Coach at many large organizations, I find the statistics (and conclusions based on the statistics) to track quite close to my own experiences.

For example, Gallup found that only 30% of all employees in the United States are “engaged and inspired at work” and about 20% are what have been defined as “actively disengaged” employees who “aren’t just unhappy at work; they’re busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish.” The remaining 1 out 2 workers are defined as “not engaged” and “essentially ‘checked out.’ They’re sleepwalking through their workday, putting time — but not energy or passion — into their work.”