The Daily Standup

18 Cheat Codes to Life, to Put You 10 Years Ahead of Other People Master Your Sleep First Build Your Minimum Viable Day (MVD) Dopamine Detox Every Sunday Ruthlessly Protect Your Morning Focus Follow the Energy - NOT the Money Curate Your Inputs Build a Personal Board of Directors The Rule of 100 Automate the Unimportant Become Addicted to Closing Loops Build a Temple For Focus Ask Better Questions...

How To Defeat The 3 Most Common Arguments Against Technical DebtI once worked on a project where we weren’t able to think about technical debt until five years in. Like many startups, we had to hustle to get off the ground. In those initial years, we didn’t have much time or capacity to even think about addressing the debt we accumulated. And did it ever accumulate. How to connect with AgileDad:-...

Agile Is Broken, So What Should Startups and Tech Companies Do Instead? Look, no matter where you stand on Agile, Scrum, or Jira, no one can name-call their way around the fact that continuous delivery and continuous improvement have, more often than not, given way to  over-management, over-documentation, and over-scrutinization of the software development process , turning development into a joyl...

Are Story Points Helping Your Team? Story Points have been around for a couple decades now. There are countless articles and videos demonstrating their usage. Many organizations mandate their usage and teaching them are part of the standard approach for consulting organizations. For as long as I’ve known about Story Points (SP) and the associated velocity there continue to be far too many teams th...

Scrum Masters Are Useless — Product Managers Should Run Their Own ScrumWe’ve all been there. It’s 10:00 AM. You’re in a standup, sipping your third coffee, while the Scrum Master dutifully asks each developer, “What did you do yesterday? What are you doing today? Any blockers?”Someone mumbles something about JIRA tickets. Another person reports, “Same as yesterday.”Meanwhile, the Product Manager (...

The Time For You to GrowHow 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/

The Job Market Rebound is Going to Catch Everyone Off GuardI’ve got good news about the job market. And some bad news. The good news is that this perennially iced-over and zombified market is finally, slowly starting to thaw. Both  survey data  and anecdotal evidence point to an uptick in hiring in the near future. How to connect with AgileDad:- [website]  https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram] ...

Five Things You Should Know as a Leader Implementing AI There is no playbook... Yet Do NOT be afraid to experiment AI technology advances quickly AI will NOT solve everything Be a responsible leader when implementing AI BONUS - Find the right coach / trainer when implementing AI. Do not go at it alone. You will waste too much time learning outdated materials. How to connect with AgileDad:- [websit...

3 Key Lessons From My First Product RoleMy first product role shaped how I lead. I learned about true ownership, deep business impact, and competition that goes beyond features. Working with a visionary CEO in a product-led company taught me lessons that still guide me. PMs, are you embracing these to drive real impact? How to connect with AgileDad:- [website]  https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagr...

A few years ago, I was in a business review meeting with my team, looking at charts and reports that showed how our business was doing. The numbers didn’t look good, and as everyone around the table shared their thoughts, it became clear that no one agreed on what to do next. There were a lot of ideas, worries, and quick fixes — but not much clarity. I realized then that my job wasn’t just about m...

How Firm a Foundation... 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/

Three Ways to Handle Unfinished Work - Mike CohnOver the past three weeks, I’ve been sending you tips about spillover on agile teams. We’ve talked in depth about the problem of habitual spillover—when a team routinely rolls unfinished work forward from sprint to sprint. This week, I want to share 3 ways to handle the unfinished work that will occasionally be left over by even a great agile team.  ...

Is the Party Over For Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches? Over the past decade, agile adoption in organizations has seen an upswing. Large enterprises—banks, insurance companies, automakers, and many others—have all been at the forefront of launching agile transformations to achieve business agility—the elusive elixir. The promise of increased flexibility, faster delivery, and enhanced collaboration...

Five Most Forgotten Parts From The Scrum GuideScrum. Love it or hate it. There doesn’t appear to be much in between. I like the framework, although I don’t think it is perfect. At the same time, I understand the developers who hate it from the bottom of their hearts. Strangely enough though, they have different problems with Scrum than I have. And zooming in, their problems often are not about Scr...

Dependencies Destroy Agility and PredictabilityWhy do organizations desire Agile? Two of the most common items I hear organizations and executives identify as reasons for adopting Agile methods and practices are to increase their delivery speed and to become more predicable. When will X be done? There are valid financial reasons for these goals such as: when can we expect to book revenue for produ...

7 Tips To Read Someone’s Personality in 10 SecondsPeople think it takes ages to really figure out what someone’s about, like you need to sit with them through a few heartbreaks, swap childhood trauma stories, maybe even get caught in a road trip disaster together. Nah. Give it ten seconds, maybe even less if they’re the loud, obvious type, and you’ll get everything you need to know. And this isn’t...

6 Daily Habits of Highly Effective Scrum Masters Start Each Day With a Quick Review Lead Effective Daily Scrums Make Time For One-on-Ones Keep Communication Open With Stakeholders Dedicate Time For Continual Learning Reflect and Plan For Tomorrow How to connect with AgileDad:- [website]  https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram]  https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook]  https://www.faceb...

Scrum Fails When Product Owners Think They Are The BossI’m afraid that everyone interprets it differently, and that’s the source of problems. For me, the word owner is misleading. As a Product Owner, you own nothing, though you may think you do. How to connect with AgileDad:- [website]  https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram]  https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook]  https://www.facebo...

Why Your Scrum Teams Are Failing - The Hard TruthAgile was presented to me as the ultimate project management approach — promising productivity, transparency, and value delivery in short bursts. However, many teams struggled to effectively implement and scale Scrum, missing the mark on its potential. Waterfall was declared a relic of the past — outdated, painfully inefficient, and completely incap...

Product Owners vs. Product Managers vs. Project ManagersWhile you are knee-deep looking for your next role, I’ve seen endless variations of “product” roles. Specifically, the terms Product Owner (PO), Product Manager (PM), and Project Manager (PjM) seem to be used interchangeably, or even used to describe the same person. Yet, some teams have all three within each individual squad. So, what’s the...

The 5-Second Conversation Hack Learn how to become better in conversation with this 5-second hack! 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/

The Great Agile Reset1. Framework Fatigue Is RealMarty Cagan nailed it recently: “The product model addresses three major dimensions: how you decide which problems to solve (product strategy), how you solve these problems (product discovery), and how you build, test, and deploy your solutions (product delivery). Real Agile can certainly help with this third dimension.” ( Source .)Translation: Orga...

How to Break the Spillover Habit - Mike CohnFor the past two weeks, I’ve been writing about the problem of habitual spillover—when a team routinely rolls over unfinished work from sprint to sprint. So far, we’ve talked about why spillover happens, and why it’s a problem, plus I’ve given steps to start a reduction in your team’s spillovers. This week, I want to share two ways to break your team’s r...

Grow Your Product Management SkillsManaging a product through the product life cycle is hard. It is even more difficult to grow as a product owner in these challenging times. Product ownership is a very complex and multifaceted challenge. And because of the complexity of the topic, there is no single linear approach to mastering product ownership. That’s why we need agile and lean approaches and a...

5 Things a Manager Should NEVER Do... Skip-Level Feedback Take on Individual Contributor Work Add More Work to the Team Take Sides in Personal Disagreements Make All the Important Decisions 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....