Badass Agile

Start with the approach that you co-create agility WITH your teams.  Its not something you force or install.   Be the living example of embracing and chasing failure as the best way to improve.  Always treat adoption and ’shifting’ as a never-ending journey….but your coaching engagement itself must have an expiry date so you can focus on creating learners and leaders from within.  Help people get...

How Do You Set the Bar High in the culture of hugs and trophies for everyone? Start With YourselfCreate Team CreedsFocus on setting progressive and selective goals that move the dial ever forward

The main problem with "Better, Faster, Cheaper" is that everyone can sense 'cheap'.   When you're trying to cut corners, you aren't fooling anyone.  That includes your people, projects and products.

Please join me in welcoming the first official Badass Agile Chapter! Marianne and Laurens from the Netherlands will lead this community - stay tuned for details.  If you're in the Netherlands, you'll want to stay connected for events, discussions, and resources! A sincere thanks to you guys for helping grow the community, the philosophy, and the practice!  I'm so honoured to be working with you!

It’s easy to act with integrity when your environment doesn’t challenge your standards.   But how do you teach others to act with integrity when it matters? You must lead by example, and simply show integrity first.   Act like an owner, be transparent, ask for help, communicate, lean into the hard challenges, and be most accountable when the failure is most costlyCreate low stakes for others to re...

Its all too common to have 'agile' teams that work on 5 or more projects at the same time.   In theory, more is better; but spread too thin, a team loses immersion, continuity, and momentum.  Know the upsides and downsides so that, if you can't convince leadership to create committed, co-located teams, you can communicate the tradeoffs, and set expectations accordingly.

Why Is ‘Make Work Visible’ one of the three Scrum artifacts?  Why does it matter and how can you apply it to non-technical and non-scrum initiatives? Making Work Visible doesn’t seem like an artifact, but in fact is a way of thinking about delivery and status that eliminates the overhead of collecting and producing status reportsThe easiest way to make work visible is to publish done things, but t...

“Looking on the bright side” may seem like an empty practice - putting a cheap paint job on a crappy situation - but actually, learning to see the wisdom and opportunity in challenges is a very powerful way to get unstuck when things are sticky.   In this episode, we’ll uncover a simple set of statements that can help you put the right spin on current events to make a very real difference in your...

Projects and teams can involve frequent and sometimes painful change. How does a leader lead through change by example? Make sure you have been listening to my episodes on fundamentals and the ‘Badass Way’.   Learn the basics of Agile Leadership and practice, practice, practice. When dealing with change, especially traumatic change, you’re going to need to lean on lessons learned in studying the B...

This week, we explore two very different questions submitted from two different listeners: how do you measure and describe ‘capacity’ when you have teams working on non-technical (or just ‘other’) issues, and….who wrote your theme song, and where can I download it?

One common question I get is how to become more influential.   If you want your massage to have impact - to resonate and to stick - just follow the example of those who have gone successfully before you. Impactful people and messages anchor their messages to existing powerful emotional or cultural touchpoint, repeat and spread the message, and then amplify the resulting waves.

There are two sorts of people you meet in the halls of a large enterprise; those who want to learn specific job skills so they can meet their targets, impress their bosses and get a particular job done. And then there are those who want to learn the skills of change and influence. Or those who simply want to be a part of something much bigger. On the one hand, it's easy to believe that there can't...

Everyone loves retrospectives. This is where we get to improve. Everyone loves demos… Because this is where we get to show off our finished work to the customer in waiting. But nobody ever mentions backlog grooming as their favourite scrum ceremony. But I think it should be. Often done poorly, grooming is the refining work that allows a backlog to remain current, relevant…and agile Proper grooming...

There's been a change in how people organize in enterprise. But with flat hierarchies, and self-organizing teams, has the concept of leader or even team captains become obsolete and forbidden? You know what we should teach more of? How to respond to mayhem - rapidly changing expectations in unstable conditions. What I’ve found - and what’s helpful to communicate to clients - is that the first 3 sp...

There's been a change in how people organize in enterprise. But with flat hierarchies, and self-organizing teams, has the concept of leader or even team captains become obsolete and forbidden? Here are just 4 reasons why, despite the levelling of roles within teams, we still have - and need - captains and leaders…at least at times. Sometimes, people just need a little pushSomeone needs to hold the...

Seeking perfection is a major source of wasted effort; particularly if you are seeking it BEFORE taking action. There’s no such thins as perfect output, only perfect effort. Perfection is sought literately over time.  Modern business requires that we move ideas from vision to backlog to executed Iteration One quickly.   In almost all cases, perfection is neither required nor desired out of the gat...

Forget Sprints and Standups - Business agility is about travelling light so you can go faster.   One important way to do that is by taking small, frequent experimental risks, also known as placing small bets. Test with small investments - Rent or borrow equipment,Copy other success stories and replicate them in unrelated domainsGet volunteers or part-timers to help.   Use gigstersLearning and rese...

Do you take an existing team and ‘make’ them agile?  Or do you build teams of agile people - people who have, or are likely to have, the right mindsets and openness to new practices? Here is where the rubber hits the road when it comes to executive support;  do we do the easiest, most convenient thing, and expect them to squeeze the square peg of legacy mindsets, rigid thinking, and antiquated pra...

Hey friends, time for a bit of a wake up, a bit of inspiration, a bit of a refresh. It's time to reclaim the Badass. Get clear on your vision.  If you haven’t created one for yourself, the time is now.  If you have, time to revisit it….does it need updates? Remember that service is a key component of a compelling visionA distinguishing quality of a leader is the courage to stick to your vision….no...

Your unique value in this world is the unedited, uncensored, unfiltered you.  Be exactly who you are, and don’t let anyone tell you it’s wrong, or not good enough. The thing that makes you unique is also what allows you to connect, resonate and influence others.  Do whatever, and be whomever, you truly want.  Being authentic is true freedom.

A career as a Scrum Master or Agile coach can be very rewarding, and an incredible opportunity... But many who are new to the field have difficulty getting experience when the job description requires….experience.  What are some things you can do to help ensure your successful job interview? Know your whyKnow your superpowerMap your value to theirsDo the research - company and interviewerThink and...

A brief summary of this episode

Most people follow the herd, we are told what to buy, how to act, how to speak, how to think, and what to believe.  But either you belong to the herd, or you behave in like a hero. Let me explain the difference. People who follow the herd derive their value from staying safe and certain.  It’s difficult to add massive value, to bring your One Thing or to bring radical action to your life and busin...

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...