Agile Complexification Inverter

A manager responsible for the delivery of Project X asks the team that will do the work to estimate a first release date.  That is defined as the next sprint goal.  The team plans to meet in the large conference room to estimate the backlog and create the first iteration of a release plan. Within the first interaction with a client, the manager tells me she would be happy if we could just get the team to deliver upon the milestones and release dates.  After inquiring as to who sets those milestones she stated that some times the company imposed dates, but that usually the team was asked to estimate when the project would be complete.  That it was only after missing several deadlines that the company executives would start imposing drop-dead dates.  This sounds like a client I can delight. 1st Objective: Predictable Team After training and workshops to teach a team many managers have goals or key performance metrics they wish to achieve.  I rather don'...

Recess Kit I've found yet another tool for improving teams.  This is a subscription service that monthly sends you and your team a fun and engaging way to reflect upon your work and discover areas to improve.  Take a look at their site and offering and give it a try like I did. I will update this post as I get to experience Recess Kit and their monthly box of yummy with my team. See Also: Retromat - A well planned Retro Retrospectives trump Planning Collaboration Tools List

Pondering... why are gender "neutral" words such as craftsman are not as gender neutral as we men seem to think they are? I've been personally trying to break myself from a bad habit... one that I've thought was not such a big  deal...  I use the term "guys" in mixed company to describe a group of people ... not yet a team.  In mentoring groups toward becoming a team, I reserve that term for groups that truly behave like a real team.  I was giving a presentation at a local special interest group and afterwards a person gave me some useful feedback... my usage of the term "guys" was distracting and verging on "off-putting" in the room of mostly females.  I needed to read the audience and the room - and choosing the proper term would help them to engage... what I truly desired. I remember in the 1970s (yes this should date me) teachers in school told us that some words were considered gender neutral - I believe that "guys" w...

I was working with a failing team some time ago.  I use "failing" to describe the outcome of the team - not the people on the team.  Are you OK with that description? An issue arrose in the stand up - a team member that was to verify the quality of a procedure did so and reported that there were a few records that didn't match expectation in the data set.  Upon inquire the number of records not matching was over 2000.  Most people acknowledged immediately the exaggeration - I could tell by the laughter.  After about 10 minutes of discussing the details of the problem - it appeared the team had a handle on the specific situation. I stopped the discussion and inquired if they could name the impediment.  One team member did a great job of describing the impediment as a _communication gap_ .  Wonderful - I could work with that - the problem had a name and it didn't include anyones Proper Name. "If the problem has a first name; we are going to hav...

Great artist sign their work. There is one part of the original Macintosh I'd like to frame on the wall. Apple part number 810-0374 - the case. It contains signatures of Macintosh design team in raised human font. Folklore about the Macintosh design team's signing party . Great artist sign their work Are you an artist? I was thinking about this story...  imagine telling it like this. Some years ago, when the computer industry was not yet launched, and might fold on any quarterly earning report on Wall Street, there was an SOB that drove many team members crazy.  This SOB parked a motorcycle along with a piano in the lobby to inspire the designers.  Some people believe this SOB didn't know how to build teams.  Yet he did know how to build products.  And he did build one of the most successful late 20th/21st Century organizations.  Compare it's operation to that of conglomerates it's revenue size and you will see a stark difference.  T...

Have you ever been in a situation where you thought the technique needed to move forward was one thing, yet the person leading (your leader) assumed something else was what was needed?  Did you feel misaligned, unheard, marginalized?  Would you believe that 54% of all leaders only use ONE style of leadership - regardless of the situation?  Does that one style of leading work well for the many levels of development we see on a team? Perhaps your team should investigate one of the most widely used leadership models in the world ("used to train over 5 million managers in the world’s most respected organizations").  And it's not just for the leaders.  The training is most effective when everyone receives the training and uses the model.  The use of a ubiquitous language on your team is a collaboration accelerator.  When everyone is using the same mental model, speaking the same vernacular hours of frustration and discussion may be curtailed, and alignm...

Here's an interesting article by Patrick Lencioni: Virtual Teams are Worse than I Thought Dialogue on Distributed Agile Teams Pondering communication styles, our human ability to truely understand one another, and the tools we use that constrain these attempts.  Peter Senge evolved the concept of dialogue for learning organizations. Extending quantum physicist, David Bohm's ideas on three basic conditions necessary for dialogue: 1) All participants must "suspend" their assumptions, literally to hold them "as if suspended before us"; 2) All participants must regard one another as colleagues; 3) There must be a 'facilitator' who 'holds the context' of dialogue. DAVIDAKOONTZ · 11 MONTHS AGO Dialogue, as it turns out, is a very old idea revered by the ancient Greeks and practiced by many "primitive" societies such as the American Indians. Yet, it is all but lost to the modern world. All...