The Agile Daily Standup - AgileDad

Growth Is Not Becoming Someone Else, It's About Becoming More Fully Who You Actually Are Lena was the kind of person who could organize a project, a pantry, or a party with military precision—but she could not organize her courage. At work, she was reliable, steady, always the one staying late to fix last‑minute mistakes. Her boss trusted her, her teammates liked her, and her performance reviews w...

Outcome Mapping for Agile Teams: A Simple Way to Connect Stories to Value What is Outcome Mapping? Find out today... How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠ - [instagram]  ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠ - [facebook]  ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠ - [Linkedin]  ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Want To Win Big? Focus Small - Mike Cohn Something momentous happened on December 20, 2020. Becky Hammon made history as the first woman to ever coach a men’s team in a National Basketball Association professional game. Coach Hammon took over coaching the San Antonio Spurs when head coach Gregg Popovich was ejected in the first half. After the game, the press asked Coach Hammon what her thoughts h...

The Future of the Scrum Master Role In 2026 The Death of the Ceremony Manager AI Won’t Replace You — But It Will Replace the Version of You That Stops Learning The Role Shifts from “Team-Level Support” to “Delivery System Architect” The Rise of the “Hybrid Delivery Leader” The End of Framework Fundamentalism A New Career Ladder Emerges The Future Scrum Master Is a Culture Engineer What Gets Left B...

Most Leadership Courses Are Broken... Mine's Not Companies weren’t asking for more mentoring , they were asking for transformation. For someone who could walk into a room, change 12 minds, and walk out with measurable impact. That’s why I created a system that supports leaders at scale based on where they are now, and what potential they can grow into. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]...

It's Okay To Start Again - Mental Health Episode At the end of 2025, Maya felt like the year had wrung her out and left her on the floor. She was sitting alone in her car in a grocery store parking lot, hands wrapped around a coffee that had gone lukewarm an hour ago, staring at the dashboard but not really seeing it. Her phone was full of unopened messages: friends checking in, her manager as...

The Future of Agile in 2026 - My TOP 3 Predictions! This video WILL BE the number ONE MOST listened to episode for 2026 and beyond! Here I make three predictions about the future of Agile in 2026 and beyond. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠ - [instagram]  ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠ - [facebook]  ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠ - [Linkedi...

The Top 5 Daily Standup Podcast Episodes of 2025 Poltergeist Meetings — When Meetings Throw Things - October 29, 2025 The 5 Stages of Leadership - September 30, 2025 Agile Contracting Models in 2025 - June 10, 2025 The 1-Minute Introduction That Makes People Remember You Forever - August 21, 2025 Start With No... Why Most People Should NOT Be Managers - March 27, 2025 How to connect with AgileDad:...

Why Shipping One Thing Beats Planning Ten Good processes don’t look impressive. They quietly help you move forward. And when you’re building real-world products, that’s what actually matters. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠ - [instagram]  ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠ - [facebook]  ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠ - [Linkedin]  ⁠https://www...

Finding Your Fit as a ScrumMaster Here’s something nobody told me when I started as a Scrum Master: the most important interview isn’t the one where they ask you about impediment removal or sprint velocity. It’s the one you have with yourself. Everyone talks about whether you’re a good fit for the role. But what about whether the environment is a good fit for  you ? How to connect with AgileDad: -...

The Day After Christmas: Carry the Light Forward Hey everyone, and welcome to today’s Agile Daily Standup. If you’re listening to this on the Friday after Christmas, chances are things feel… a little quieter. The presents are unwrapped. The calendars are lighter. The pace is slower. And honestly? That’s not a bad thing. Because the day after Christmas gives us something rare — space . Space to bre...

The Christmas Story - by V. Lee Henson Merry Christmas from the team at AgileDad. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠ - [instagram]  ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠ - [facebook]  ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠ - [Linkedin]  ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Be Here Now - Mike Cohn One of my favorite books is one I’ve never completely read. It’s called  Be Here Now . A friend’s older brother was reading it when I was 10. He let me page through his copy. The book caught my attention because it was square, an unusual shape for a book. Many of the pages inside the book were hand-lettered and illustrated. I next came across the book when I was a college f...

A Vision Should Be Actionable Most companies have a vision statement. Few have a vision that actually matters. Too often, a vision ends up as a vague slogan on a PowerPoint slide or painted on the office wall. Inspiring? Maybe. Useful? Rarely. But a real vision isn’t decoration. A real vision is a service. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠ - [instagram]  ⁠https...

When to Synchronize Sprints Synchronizing sprints isn’t about control, it’s about rhythm. And knowing  when  to bring teams into sync is what separates  “we’re delivering together”  from  “we’re just drowning together.” How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠ - [instagram]  ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠ - [facebook]  ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/...

The Christmas Tree With One Light Snow fell in soft, quiet sheets over the small town of Willow Glen, covering rooftops and porches with a gentle white blanket. Every house on Maple Street shimmered with lights—blue, gold, red, and green—each one competing to outshine the next. Every house… except one. At the corner of the street stood Mrs. Alder’s home, dim and silent. No garland. No wreath. No w...

How I Turn Around a Struggling Scrum Team in 90 Days People often assume you can “fix” a struggling Scrum team by tightening ceremonies, updating Jira / Azure Devops, or pushing velocity. It’s a nice idea, but it’s not real. Teams don’t turn around because you run cleaner standups. They turn around because the system around them becomes clearer, more aligned, and more stable. After coaching and le...

Why Teams Matter More Than Ever for Innovation - Mike Cohn A few years ago, I worked with a product team that was stuck. They were smart, experienced, and deeply committed to building something meaningful. But despite their talent, their work felt...flat. They were completing tasks, but they weren’t creating anything truly innovative. They weren’t challenging each other’s thinking. They weren’t im...

The Secret Ingredient Every Agile Team Needs I still remember the sprint retrospective that changed everything. One of our quietest developer, had been silent for three retrospectives straight. But this time, she raised her hand. “I think our deployment process is broken,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “And I have an idea to fix it.” The room went quiet. In my previous teams, this wo...

5 Agile Project Management Red Flags That Scream “You’re Doomed” 🚩 Red Flag #1: Nobody Knows Who Owns What 🚩 Red Flag #2: The Plan Lives in Someone’s Head 🚩 Red Flag #3: Deadlines Keep Moving… And Nobody Knows Why 🚩 Red Flag #4: Meetings = Group Therapy 🚩 Red Flag #5: “We Don’t Have Time” for Risks How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠ - [instagram]  ⁠https://...

Light The World - Giving Machines 🌟 The Red Tag That Changed Everything A Short Story Inspired by the “Light the World” Giving Machines Emily had passed the red Giving Machine twice already that afternoon. Once on her way into the mall for Christmas shopping, once again as she hurried out with bags on both arms. People were gathered around it—smiling, taking turns, scanning cards. It looked like...

Definition of Done - More Than Just a Checklist After one too many release debates (and a few emotional retros), I realized the problem wasn’t our process — it was our  definition . “Done” meant 10 different things to 10 different people. Developers meant “code merged”. QA meant “tests passed”. Product meant “feature shipped”. Ops meant “logs don’t scream”. So I built a checklist — not to create b...

We’re doing Scrum. Why does everything take so long to finish? For many teams, delivery bogs down because of the way individuals approach the work itself. Most teams are still working in a sequence: one person finishes their part, hands it off, and then the next person begins. Designers wait for analysis to finish. Developers wait for designs. Testers wait for the code to be done. Everyone’s optim...

4 Steps to Building a Product Strategy This is the process I use and have taken dozens of product leaders and founders through to build their product strategy. It’s deliberately designed to be lightweight, flexible but not a checklist. This means there’s a lot of work that you still need to do. Rather than trying to ask you to fill-in-the-blanks like “what’s your unique value prop” or “target cust...

Sprint Planning or Sprint Guessing? Welcome to  sprint planning  — that magical 90-minute meeting (that always becomes 3 hours) where: Developers turn into psychics Product managers become game show hosts Product owners stare into a backlog like it’s a crystal ball Sound familiar? For many Agile teams, sprint planning isn’t the crisp, focused ritual described in books. It’s often more ambiguous, c...