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

Leadership

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You’re WRONG, Jeff!

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You’re WRONG, Jeff!

I saw this post from Jeff Gothelf.

https://medium.com/@jboogie/fixed-time-fixed-scope-projects-always-end-in-1-of-3-ways-none-of-them-good-9fa66e7d129e 

In which he says that Fixed Time & Scope projects end in one of 3-ways:

  1. We move the deadline

  2. We reduce scope

  3. We implement “crunch mode”, everybody puts in 80-hour weeks till the deadline, burns out, quits and goes to work somewhere else.

I want to respond to Jeff’s thoughts…

First, option #3 is was coined by Ed Yourdon as a Death March. I personally like the imagery that inspires.

Second, I agree 100% with his 3-alternatives. They seem almost as absolute as gravity in software projects.

But he goes on in the article to make the point that Product Management is primarily responsible for these problems.  

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Effectively Measuring Agile Leaders

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Effectively Measuring Agile Leaders

Nearly every time I speak, write, teach, or simply think about agile approaches to software development, someone has to bring up measurement. 

And the measures they’re talking about inevitably focus on their teams and/or delivery dynamics. How do we measure our teams? How do we measure the impact of agility? And how do we measure your value as a coach? Are representative of the types of questions I hear.

BUT, if you subscribe to the theory that leadership sets the culture AND that culture drives performance, like I do, then why aren’t we measuring leaders in agile contexts?

The challenge is, what might that look like? Here are some of my thoughts around what we might measure –

Leadership Observations

Leadership Observations

I’ve been telling this story (or details) anecdotally in my agile and leadership classes for a number of years. But I thought I’d also capture it in the blog.

My initial goal was simply to capture my observations. But I’d like to hear from others and their experiences.

My working journey…

I started working as a software engineer at Sperry Univac in 1981 and am still working. If my math is right, that’s 37 years and counting.

Ugh, right!

The Agile Monk

The Agile Monk

First, this is inspired by an attendee of one of my Coaching Circles.

His name was Amaranatho Maurice Robey and he has an introductory video here - https://youtu.be/ImvuQizaMsE

He inspired me to look at Buddism a bit and I found this wonderful article about Buddhist Monk Habits: https://ideapod.com/10-buddhist-monk-habits-hard-to-adopt-but-life-changing-when-you-do/

I’d like to relate them to an agile mindset, both individually, but importantly, at a Leadership Level. I might even include them in my CAL class in some way…

  1. Outer de-cluttering

  2. Inner de-cluttering

  3. Meditating a LOT

  4. Following the Wise

  5. Listen mindfully and without judgment

  6. Change is the only law of the universe

  7. Living the moment

  8. Focus on one thing

  9. Give it everything you’ve got

  10. Let go of what you can’t control

Here are my agile learnings and reactions from this list: