Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
We've Moved
We've Moved
Walking Their Talk, Sustainability, Inspiration
Robert Galen
Sustainability

I saw this wonderfully courageous and informative post by Sabine Canditt the other day where she wrote about Sustainable Scrum. 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sustainable-scrum-responsible-choice-sabine-canditt-x0gef

After just completing a The Week program facilitated by the amazing Ann-Marie Kong, it touched my heart.

That said, I wanted to highlight one comment reaction/interaction between Sabine and Erich Bühler 

Erich said—

Thank you for bringing this approach into the world! Scrum does provide an iterative approach for teams to create value, but its scope is limited to the product level and struggles with dynamics across the whole organization for several reasons.
Without updating the underlying business and financial model at a strategic level, Scrum alone cannot transform organization-wide sustainability.

Sustainability
Short-takes, Inspiration
Robert Galen
Sandy’s Take
Sandy’s Take
Short-takes, Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
The Human Aspects of Agile Coaching
The Human Aspects of Agile Coaching
Coaching, ACGW, Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
Keys to Building your Coaching Relationships

I talk a lot about the first step in coaching any client (individual, system, team, etc.) is to build a relationship, gain empathy and understanding, and then gain an idea of where/how to help initially. So, do NOT start to coach until you’ve done some relationship-building. 

But what does a coaching relationship, or a professional relationship in general, look like? What are aspects of that? Here are a few things that come to my mind—

  • Making + taking the time.

  • Explaining what you do—what is Agile Coaching.

  • Building some empathy; walking in their shoes; understanding where they are coming from.

  • Meeting them where they are.

  • Listening; reflective listening; building metaphors together.

  • Connecting with their language, not yours.

Keys to Building your Coaching Relationships

Coaching teams

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Why Aren’t People Talking?

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Why Aren’t People Talking?

Here’s the scenario…

I have a question and would like to get some inspiration on an activity I’m trying to put together. Looking for an activity which will cover the following:

  • Strong communication between members in a team

  • Listening skills

  • Understand what is being told to you

My team is virtual, with a couple from another country, so English isn’t their first language. I have team members who don’t communicate to others to advise when they are done work so others can proceed, and the team on the most part is not functioning as a single entity. Now we are still in the Storming Phase, as this team was formed in late January and we added two new members over the last month.

The work gets done by the team, but it’s the bonding, communication, and paying attention when others speak, where I’m seeing issues. Especially hard being virtual for some I gather.

Clearly, the person sharing up the scenario wants things to change, improve, or get better. They want the folks to talk. And their reactions are—

  • How do I get them to talk more or when needed?

  • Do I just call on everybody in the meetings and make them talk?

  • Under the banner of continuous improvement within the team, how do we change this?

As a backdrop, they have a dual role of Scrum Master of the team and a Developer on the team. So, the mixed nature of their roles might be exacerbating things. Perhaps?