Coach Dan's Blog

We throw the word “agile” around a lot.  I thought it might be a good idea to get back to the basics, so we can move forward with a shared understanding on it really means. Let’s start with the word agile.   (Can we all agree that dictonary.com is a good source of pure definition?   Good!) agile [ aj-uhl, -ahyl ] adjective ·    Quick and well-coordinated in movement ·    Active; lively ·    Marked by an ability to think quickly, mentally acute or aware ·    Noting or relating to a philosophy of product development and production intended to create and distribute batches of working products in a short period of time with subsequent batches planned in a cyclical schedule of improvement, production, and distribution noun ·    Sometimes Agile - an iterative and collaborative philosophy of rapid product development and production Ok.   That’s a great place to start because it reinforces something reall...

There's been something that's been on my mind lately, and I can't quite get my head wrapped around an answer. I figured at this point, instead of just puzzling over it - the best thing I can do is just ask y'all what you think. So here goes... What's stopping you? Seriously, what's stopping you? We've been working on this "agile thing" now for quite some time. People have been trained on the mindset. PowerPoint decks, and playbooks have been distributed. Workshops have been conducted. Scrum and Kanban has been installed. Teams have been formed and registered them in a database. Jira and confluence have been rolled out. Dashboards full of metrics have been published. That means we're agile, right? Maybe, I guess. But for those of you who have started your agile team journey together, let me ask you this... do you feel agile? Does it feel like you are closely connected to the customer and business problems that you're helping to so...

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  The  first  shared agile principle is - “Our highest priority is to  satisfy the customer  through early and  continuous delivery of value.” - The Agile Manifesto When was the last time  your  team... talked about  your  customer?  Who is your customer?  Is  everyone  on your team working for the same customer? Is the work you're doing  today  creating value for your customer?  How do you know? How will the work you do today help to  satisfy  your customer? If your customer saw the top of your team's backlog,  would they agree  it's important and valuable? Is your team regularly engaging with the customer to inform the product direction? In the hustle and bustle of our day, it can be easy to lose sight of the "why we're doing this." Take some time this week, and invest in your team.  Talk about who your customer is and what problem you're solving for  them ...

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Embracing an agile culture and mindset mean that every day, every  sprint, every iteration we have another opportunity to honor commitments . Commitment to delivering value to our shared customer. Commitment  to our sprint (or iteration) goals. Commitment to our teammates.  Commitment to ourselves! Agility also means allowing the opportunity for things to change. We are  ok with ambiguity, because we know that we will test and learn together.   We know that with every new data point and new understanding we  reassess; take what we can learn and incorporate that into what we do  next. We know that everything we do together is in service of our  customer and when their priorities change, we pivot to meet their  needs. We know with clear outcomes and objectives, and a solid  understanding of who our customer is, our team can chart a path  forward together. Every day is an opportunity Each day is an opportunity to re-commit to deli...

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In the last post, I  challenged you to start seeing  mistakes as opportunities  for your team to improve and grow.  This week our coaching challenge is designed to help your team improve its psychological safety by making it "ok" (or even  normal ) to share ideas or perspectives that may be counter to what the rest of the group is thinking.     The concept of "Black Hat Teams" is simple - it challenges teams to look at decisions and solutions from different perspectives.  It also helps to encourage team members to share ideas and perspectives that may be "counter" to a direction the team may organically be headed in.  The Black Hat Review activity can be incorporated into backlog refinement or roadmap development, and can go a long way to helping create an environment of  psychological safety  for your team.   IF you have any questions, or would like any support, don’t hesitate to reach out to a coach, scrum master, o...

  Fair  warning - Coach Dan is feisty today! Wherever I get in front of a group of people who are newer to the concept of agile and agility, I like to ask them what they think agile is all about.  The responses I get are pretty predictable... "Agile is about going faster."   "Agile makes teams more efficient."   "Agile is about speed."   Agile is about sprints."  "Agile is about being flexible."  "Agile is about Metrics." I very rarely, if ever hear someone suggest,  "agile is a way of reorganizing our teams around delivering customer value, rather than around artificial organizational boundaries."   I hardly ever hear someone say,  "Agile means empowering teams to self-organize around the work that they are doing to drive value, rather than organizing around job title."   And I never hear people say, "Agile means teams can decide to improve the way they work together, becoming more  effective, eff...

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I'm not going to lie - I'm super proud of (and very fond of) our agile marketers.  To a person these are some of the most customer focused, creative, passionate people I've ever had the pleasure of working with.  Every day I get a little smarter (not hard considering where I'm starting from) by observing and listening to them as they continually take steps forward as agile individuals and teams.   I recently asked a few of our agile marketers, managers and leaders - "what do you wish your manager / leader knew about agile (mindset OR framework) before started to work on (or with) an agile team?"  I got back so many amazing and powerful responses - I decided to summarize them and send them out to everyone!  So without further preamble or ado -  Agile is (and isn't)... Agile is a methodology as well as a mindset, the mindset to work in the environment is very important. Agile is about the team, where members need to be willing to learn and take on new re...

One of my favorite responsibilities is facilitating the Agile Leader Onboarding sessions.  In these events - I get to talk to managers and leaders about the agile values and principles, how agile frameworks add value, and about how managing and leading people is very different in an agile environment.  Inevitably we get into great conversations about what needs to be done differently, and what we can start doing now - today - to reinforce a shared agile mindset and help our transformation move forward.  Every session - we end it with a challenge for the participants - try one thing.  Try one different thing with your team members, your partners or peers to help reinforce an agile mindset. About two weeks later - we get the each group back together and ask them "Ok - what did you try?  What did you observe?  What did you learn?"  Then we sit quietly and wait for someone to speak up.  Without fail, I hear stories of managers and leaders who did do t...

This agile coach was investing some time in himself this weekend and came across an article that warned of a topic he is aware of, and indeed himself has experienced- Zombie Agility!   Now I know what you're thinking - "He's really off into the deep end this time," but hear me out!  I can assure you, it's a real thing - you may have seen the symptoms of this horrible affliction before - Agile teams that are joyless and robotic - executing the events without really ever really connecting with the work (or talking about their customer) All of the boxes are checked and you're "doing" Agile - but not really seeing the business results Backlogs are still highly dependent on command and control approvals (you're still asking your Advisory Council for approval to move forward) Outside dependencies that cause constant reshuffling of team's priorities Teams are getting lackluster results and have disengaged people As Eric Cottrell  puts it -  Zombie ...

  I hear the questions all the time - "How long will it take for us to be agile?" "How do we know when we are agile?" "When will we be done transforming to agile?" Honest coach's answer?  I don't know.  I really don't.  Does it mean that all of the people in your organization are on Scrum Teams?  Does it mean that everyone has taken the "Agile 101" course and has a MBO that says "Do Agile this year?"  Does it mean that we've done a bunch of stuff over the last year and someone with an important sounding title declares that we are 100% agile?  See where I'm going with this? As I've argued before, agile is a mindset.  How do you know when your organization has adopted a mindset?  How do you know when your teams are basing their decisions and behaviors on the Agile Values and Principles?  You know it when you see it!  You know it when  you  live it!   We recently challenged some of our agile marketing team members t...