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

Mastery

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Beyond the Agile Certification Alphabet Soup

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Beyond the Agile Certification Alphabet Soup

The debate on the value of agile certifications has been raging on for decades. And one thing for certain is that it hasn’t dimmed the enthusiasm of the companies and organizations creating them.

For example, in 2016 I had a wild idea to explore and capture as many agile certifications as I could. I found 113, and I’m sure it wasn’t an exhaustive or definitive number.

Apparently, my work inspired Anthony Mersino to update the count in 2019-20. Bless his little heart. He found 270 at the time, over a 2x increase from my inventory. He called the post—The Circus of Agile Certifications, and I resonated powerfully with that somewhat snarky title.

Imagine that, 270 distinct certifications! I think it’s safe to say (pun intended) that there are probably ~300 unique agile certifications as I’m writing this post in 2023.

And the problem with most of these is that they are granted by simply attending a class and, in some cases, a quick exam. But are classes enough for learning, growth, and success in agile ways of working?

My answer would be a firm…No!