Posts

Are you Sprinting, or just Running?

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Are You “Sprinting” Or Just “Running?” TLDR: A Sprint without a Goal isn’t a Sprint — it’s just a random collection of tasks. If you want a team that’s focused, empowered, and actually delivering value (instead of just “checking boxes”), it’s time to stop treating your backlog like a grocery list and start planning with purpose. I was thinking about the concept of “focus” the other day, and I realized something that made me feel a little bit uncomfortable: a lot of us aren’t actually sprinting . We’re just… running. We’ve got the ceremonies down. We have Daily Standups, Retros, and a Backlog that’s as long as a teenager’s Christmas list. But when I ask, “What are we trying to achieve this sprint?” I get a lot of blank stares, or worse, someone reads me a list of ten unrelated Jira tickets. If your Sprint is just a bucket for “stuff that needs to get done,” you aren’t building a product — you’re managing a queue. You aren’t driving toward an outcome, you are pushing for output...
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Stop Writing Recipes, Start Building Problem Solvers

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TLDR ;  Over-prescribed "recipe" stories accidentally turn your experts into disengaged order-takers, leading to uninspired products and leadership burnout. By shifting the focus from technical instructions to user problems, you reclaim your own time and empower your team to take full ownership of the solution. Stop Writing Recipes, Start Building Problem Solvers How to Unlock Your Team’s Full Potential We often talk about "empowerment" and "agency". They show up in almost every team, department or company town-hall meeting like bright beacons of light. But if you think about it, for a squad, these aren't just words - they are what takes a team from clocking in to actually caring. I’ve seen this play out so many times. When we hand a team a "solution-oriented" story - essentially a step-by-step recipe - we think we’re helping. In reality, we’re inadvertently sending a message: "I’ve already done the thinking; I just need your to do the w...
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From "Doers" to "Directors": Evolving Your Leadership for the AI Era

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T L DR; In the AI era, leaders must shift from managing "doers" focused on raw output to empowering "directors" who provide strategic judgment and oversight . Success requires redefining psychological safety so teams feel secure challenging AI , while intentionally maintaining human "friction points" to ensure empathy and ethics guide the machine's speed . Ultimately, a leader's role is to cultivate a healthy environment where human wisdom directs AI capabilities .
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The Enterprise Agility Manifesto: A New North Star

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tldr ; PMI and the Agile Alliance have released a new Manifesto for Enterprise Agility. This isn’t just another framework for teams; it’s a strategic pivot for the entire organization. If we want to move beyond the deploying operating models and drive real outcomes, we need to look at how we fund, govern, and lead in a world that refuses to stand still. Change sure feels constant, but true agility recognizes that change is just a part of what we do! Twenty-five years ago, the original Agile Manifesto redefined how we build products and solve problems by prioritizing (among other things) Individuals and Interactions and Responding to Change. As someone who has championed those values for two decades, I’ve always believed that mindset is where it starts and ends. However, we’ve all seen the "friction point": teams that are ready to run, but are held back by legacy systems, rigid processes, inflexible RACI charts and traditional "command-and-control" organizations. The...
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The Balancing Act: Protecting Your Team Without Losing the Win

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tl;dr Explore the critical leadership challenge of protecting a team's psychological health while simultaneously holding them accountable for high-quality delivery. Watch out for the "Nurture Trap," where over-protection leads to stagnation, and the "Delivery Delusion," where excessive pressure causes burnout and dysfunction. Instead shoot for a "High Support, High Challenge" mindset, where accountability as an act of care that empowers teams to achieve excellence within a safe, focused environment. In my reading and exploring last week, I stumbled across a quote that stopped me dead in my tracks. Regarding leaders and managers: "Your mission is to both protect teams and hold them accountable, by ensuring the psychological health of their members while ensuring delivery and quality." This is the whole game. This is the "messy middle" where great leadership lives.  I loved reading this sentence, and it got me thinking about the real...
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From Directing to Coaching: The "Guide" Playbook

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tldr; Directives are the siren song of efficiency that actually kill curiosity. If you want a team that thinks for themselves, stop giving them the answers. Today we look at how to build psychological safety, lead with questions, and start creating an environment of empowerment, today! In my last message, I talked about the Directive Style —that siren song of efficiency that actually acts as a "Checklist Trap," killing curiosity and stalling growth. It feels good to have all the answers, doesn't it? But as discussed, if you're the one approving every minor decision, you aren't leading; you're just creating a bottleneck. If you want a team that thrives even when you're on vacation, you have to stop assigning tasks and start coaching outcomes. So, how do we actually make the shift? It starts with Psychological Safety . If you just announce on a Tuesday that everyone is "empowered" and expect magic, I suspect you’ll be sorely disappointed. Empowerme...
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Is your "directive" style sapping your teams innovation and effectiveness?

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tldr; Directiveness feels efficient, but it’s often a "Checklist Trap" that kills curiosity and stalls growth. If you find yourself doing all the talking or approving every minor decision, you aren't just managing—you’re dismantling your team's potential.  Explore some red-flags and warning signs, and try something new to unleash the greatness within your team.
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