Badass Agile

Sooner or later…I have to tackle estimation. As the debate rages on (estimates versus no estimates), the fact remains that while customers need to know how much of an investment they’re in for, and what they will be getting for their money, we also need to admit that unless you’re repeating some variation of something you’ve already done before, it is very difficult to predict the future when so m...

In order to spread and scale Agile practices, we need to raise up a tribe of elite, influential leaders. Those who know how to inspire the courage to change in others. If you are coaching – whether team members, Agile leaders or executives, it is important to balance their Agile/Scrum education with leader fundamentals. The first of these is the ability to articulate your vision. Helping oth...

A large corporate culture can get to the point where there are so many thoughtless demands on our time that we are forced to ’shut off’ our tools and dim our availability – either to hide from people asking us to do even more work, or just to find 10 minutes of respite to catch up or take a mental break. This can’t be good – have we missed the point?

This week, I interview Scott McCarthy of Moving Forward Leadership. Scott is a leader in the Canadian Armed Forces, and also runs his own leadership consultancy and podcast. In this conversation, we discuss why it’s so critical to trust your teams, planning for your own exit, teaching leadership from Day 1, and how to survive and thrive in the face of fear and failure. It was a great convers...

This week, we take a listener question from a new Scrum Master who struggles with public speaking. Ultimately, public speaking is something that has a good deal of fear associated with it, and the usual suggestions for dealing with it have something to do with imagining the fear isn’t there, or overcoming it through exposure. But there’s something more. Time to fall back to the Badass Agile Princi...

In small enterprise, innovation is almost easy – natural. But what happens when we try to innovate at scale? What forces hold us back and slow us down? In large groups, fear becomes much more pervasive – fear of failure, fear of looking foolish, fear of going first It doesn’t help that management does not create structures to allow people to speak their truth, and to leap However, even...

Stop caring about who likes you Stop caring about who wins Stop caring about outcomes Stop caring about your ego

While we seek to understand patterns of Agile success and failure, we often overlook the impact of human emotion – specifically fear – on adoption and acceptance. This upcoming series kicks off the new year with a multi-part examination of how fears shows up in the workplace – on teams and in management – to effectively create Agile Resistance. The first episode begins with...

Now and then I’ll draw your attention to the best of the best – the great online shows that can really help take your practice to the next level. Check out Chuck Durfee and the Agile Chuckwagon – one of my favourite Agile Podcasts – at Agilechuckwagon.com!!

An introduction to the core principles of agile and scrum.

One of the biggest productivity stealers in modern business is the 1-Hour Meeting. In large organizations, long meetings can often comprise the entire day, and mask a lack of productivity and decisiveness…leaving precious little working day to make meaningful progress on goals. Learn how to hack your way around this well entrenched but ominous black hole!!

Thinking about leadership, there’s a lot of information – of varying degrees of quality and helpfulness – about becoming an effective leader.   The information overload doesn’t really help remove the fog.  Perhaps leadership, much like ‘intuition’ or ‘thinking’ can’t exactly be taught.   The source of all leadership is a mor...

With any other skill, we understand that it takes time to learn the fundamentals, practice them, and gain experience. So why would agile be any different?

Remember to “work your fives” Figure out-“what your style?”. Working as a team? Then build working sessions and have a trigger word. You might like routine. You might like novelty. If you like solitude, be online, or have office hours. Minimize distractions

Another year is wrapping up. Let’s talk about maximizing the next 365 days to truly up your game.

Getting Butt Hurt Actually Costs you Money and Results.   Let’s think about why. • Inability to have frank discussions about improvement areas means that we stay blind to blind spots • Only when we learn to view feedback as an opportunity to improve can we truly serve our customers Happy Holidays to all of you loyal badass listeners!   Please stay safe – I’ll look forward to seeing you...

If you want to know the secret sauce to leadership and success in anything, I believe this is central – service.   It’s time to visit this crucial concept so you can re-integrate it into your ongoing development. • Everyone talks vision, but few talk service • Service is shorthand for connecting with your customer’s value.  Get in their shoes, and figure out what they need and want. •...

How do you choose ‘when’ to use Agile?   I say ‘willing minds and fitting objectives’ but you actually can evaluate Agile fit on a case-by-case basis….but it’s not what you might think. It’s less about a standardized checklist and more about about appetite for adventure, uncertainty, risk, and discovery.

Staying steady and comfortable is easy.  Are you pushing your edges? Growth depends not on a singular moment of glory, but on consistent, repeated action to gently stretch your capabilities and impact. This skill is so important for you and your teams if you are trying to spread agile and deepen your practice.

What is The Real Value of working in ‘Done Things?’ It’s too easy to let ourselves off the hook if we work to vague objectives. It’s even easier to let ourselves off the hook if we don’t have measurable targets at the micro level. We can just say ‘workin’ on it’ When something is Done, it is largely self reporting because it is obvious if something is complete or not. Partial states ma...

Have you stopped to look at the things you do, and questioned the value they add – or subtract – to your ability to achieve? Process is neither good nor bad, but process almost never concerns itself with performance; rather, order, certainty and safety All process has some overhead, and the overhead is more costly when the activity being modelled is simple. For the most part, processes...

Think and act like an owner. The world changes when you act as though you are accountable. Accountable can mean ‘on the hook for’ or ‘in charge of’, but it truly means feeling empowered to enact change or bring about an outcome – and to accept and work around the times you can’t.

How many people do you know that can cite the Agile principles and seem to know the ins and outs of Scrum, but can’t fully embrace the mindsets of minimizing planning, letting go of their need for certainty and safety, or inspecting their own game?  Building up your leaders requires that you know how to inspire and ignite people to do the things they most dread.  Here’s some thoughts on how.

Agile is not meant to be a building up – of process and complexity, or rules, or even ‘methodology’. It is meant to be a stripping away – down to the essential mindsets and practices that actually get things done.