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
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Something Magical!

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A group of powerful and courageous women emerged from the recent 2022 Agile Conference in Nashville.

There was a panel discussion towards the end of the conference which focused on – It Was Never Just About Software – Agile and Our Planetary Challenges.

The panel was moderated by Lyssa Adkins, yes, that Lyssa Adkins. The panel was composed of 5 amazing women within our agile community –

  • Aanu Gopald,

  • Sally Elatta,

  • Joanne Stone,

  • Pia Fåk Sunnanbo, and

  • Jutta Eckstein.

I personally know Aanu, Joanne, and Jutta. I know of Sally and I’ve just met Pia via the panel. But I admire and respect all of them for their focus on things that matter more than “agile”.

I consider ALL of these wonderful women as my heroes. Not just for courageously speaking and engaging at the conference, but for the difference each of them is making in the world.

Wrapping Up

You can read a bit more about the contribution each of them has and is making towards making the world a better place here—

Of particular interest to me is the work that Aanu is doing via Africa Agility that is making a difference, a huge difference, in the lives of young women in Nigeria. So, much so that I’ve tried to be an active supporter of the initiative.

Ladies, you are My Heroes. Continue to be role models—showing us the art of the possible from within our agile community.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

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Change Fatigue

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Change Fatigue

This is an interesting thread on LinkedIn from Chris Murman where he posited how to measure change fatigue?

I think it’s a good baseline for a short post. The essence of his post was how to measure it. I wonder if specifically measuring change fatigue is important or simply fatigue in general.

Here are some ideas to measure plan, old fatigue—

  • Lack of extending patience & grace

  • Not extending API (Assuming Positive Intent)

  • Low overall group energy levels

  • Silence, disengagement, or checking out

  • Persistently off cameras

  • Low curiosity

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Agile is...

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I saw the following quote on LinkedIn the other day from Anjali Leon. It’s the answer to the question—What is Agile? 

What is Agile? A question that conjures up a variety of responses.

Over the last few years of helping my clients embrace this 'way' to arrive at better outcomes, I have landed on this definition (so far).

'Agile is a philosophy and strategy for navigating complexity and change that values outcome orientation, cross-functional collaboration, customer-centricity, worker well-being, and adaptation through experimentation'

Here is how I think of some of these terms...

  • Philosophy - a theory or attitude held by a person or organization that acts as a guiding principle for behavior.

  • Strategy - a way forward or long-range plan of doing something or dealing with something.

  • Navigate - deal effectively with a situation.

  • Complexity - something that has many parts and is difficult to understand and find answers to.

What do you think? Does it resonate? And, how do you answer the question - What is Agile?

Quick Reactions

First of all, I want to applaud Anjali for her courage. I’ve learned the hard way that anytime you “go on record” publicly with a definition of any sort, you can’t make all of the people happy with it.

;-)

Second, I really like the definition. As someone in the comments mentioned, the only missing component from my perspective is the team (so I added worker well-being in-line).

Finally, I think exercises like this are incredibly healthy for us as agile coaches, leaders, and change agents. We ought to be “continuously noodling” on the mindset and principle aspects of agility to keep us focused and sharp.

Thank you, Anjali for the noodling prompt!

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

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Truth or...

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Truth or...

Backstory

Today is May 28, 2022. A few days ago, 19 children and 2 adults were killed in an elementary school in Uvalde, TX. As I watch the details unfold on television and social media, I get sadder and sadder. I can’t imagine with the parents and families are going through and I have no words to comfort them.

I’m simply keeping them, their loved ones, and the Uvalde community in my thoughts and prayers.

But watching the politicians and news organizations twisting and turning to either support gun law changes or defend the 2’nd Amendment and NRA is making my head spin.

It also made me consider the notion of truth in today’s social climate. And how we often try to obfuscate things to avoid inconvenient or uncomfortable truths.

Example Truths

For example, here are some recent truths that have struck me as undeniable in today’s American culture—

  • Mass killings with assault weapons

  • Police killing people of color

  • Unfair distribution of wealth

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When to Coach the Problem versus Coaching the Person

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When to Coach the Problem versus Coaching the Person

I received the following question from another agile coach the other day…

I'm wondering if you might have a solution for an issue. Within the Agile Coaching Circles, we see a lot of "coaching the problem, not the person." This is regardless of where the circle is located: Europe, Africa, Australia, or North America. We've done the "temperature" exercise, where the more impactful the question, the higher the temperature. However, I'm on the lookout for other exercises to do with groups to help them understand the difference between problem/person. Might you have any ideas? I've got this question in a few different Slack channels and so on, but so far, nothing is coming up.

And here are two resources that help to illustrate the challenge associated with the question—

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYfmo8qvPSA

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57adc4fa46c3c4f7faf7e4c5/t/5e1f83963315a227f1a0483c/1579123617420/Coach+the+Person%2C+Not+the+Problem+edited.pdf

Here's my reply…

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Change & Resilience

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Change & Resilience

This post is an Eric Hannan, two-fer. Two thought-provoking LinkedIn posts by my friend and colleague, Eric Hannan that I thought I would share.

Change

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/eric-hannan-0820516b_change-changemanagement-coaching-activity-6916471769499353088-jGq0?utm_source=linkedin_share&utm_medium=member_desktop_web

Change seems to only happen at two points:

  1. Someone is ecstatic about the change

  2. They feel the pain of the current situation and see the need for a change


This is probably overly simplistic as there may have been extraneous variables related to the pain that caused person number one to seek change, but this isn't a peer-reviewed journal entry this is just some musings of my mind.

I've been thinking about change recently because I was working on a new process for our organization and upon reflection, I realized I am square in the middle of one and two.

Each changing point requires different actions to accomplish the change. Point One may require more curation in my opinion, as the stress that comes with the change may thwart full adoption unless people embrace not just the enthusiasm for the change but also the value of the change. The perceived value of the change must be greater than the stress of the change otherwise people will abandon the change when things get rocky. Thus, consistent curation of enthusiasm and value (they why) must be done.

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Coaching the Brine

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Coaching the Brine

In Prescott’s Pickle Principle, Gerald Weinberg shares the metaphor of cucumbers (people) and the impact that brine (company cultures, systems) can have on them (pickling). The notion is that if you are a change agent you need to be aware of the fact that you (the person, the cucumber) may be pickled by the brine (the culture) before you can effect change on the culture. That you can become “part of the problem”, if you will.

And there’s a bit of subtlety to it in that many of us are unaware (lack the self-awareness) that we’ve been pickled.

I was reminded of the principle just the other day when I read this LinkedIn post by Magnus Hedemark.

Lately, I’ve been thinking of a corollary to the principle.

Sure, as an agile coach, particularly an embedded or internal coach, I can easily become pickled. But what if I actively coach the brine instead of the cucumbers? What if I intentionally spend the majority of my time at the brine level?

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Measuring the Effectiveness of Agile Coaching and Coaches

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Measuring the Effectiveness of Agile Coaching and Coaches

I’m just now finishing up my agile coaching book and I’ve been thinking about aspects that I may not have adequately covered in it. Measuring agile coaches/coaching and the impact rose to the top of my mind. And as I considered my writing history in this space, it dawned on me that I had never tackled it directly and I began to wonder why?

I think it’s because I don’t like or agree or resonate with the idea of discretely measuring agile coach or coaching performance. Why? No, it’s not because I’m afraid to be measured or held accountable in some way. Mostly, it’s because I don’t think it’s relevant.

The very nature of agile coaching is helping others to experiment, to learn and adapt, to change, and to improve their results. It’s not about measuring the coach. It’s about the performance of who they are coaching that truly counts. That is measuring the individuals, leaders, teams, or organizations that are being coached.

For example, if I’m coaching a Product Team (Chief Product Owner, Product Managers, and Product Owners) in an agile instance do they…

  • Improve the ROI driven across products?

  • Connect more to their clients? Envisioning better?

  • Work more cohesively as a team and are better aligned (horizontally & vertically) across other functions?

  • Are they learning more effectively as a community of practice?

  • Are the leaders operating more as Catalyst leaders? (See Bill Joiner’s work on Leadership Agility)

If these and many other measures are trending positively and improving, then I might be a strong part of that improvement. But while I, as the coach, am part of the system, it’s the system that improves and it’s the system that should be measured.

But I do have a few thoughts on effective measures of the coach that might be separate from the outcomes they are contributing (or not contributing) to.

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The Art and Craft of Journey Mapping with MindMaps

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The Art and Craft of Journey Mapping with MindMaps

I wanted to take a few minutes to share an exercise or activity that I’ve been—

  1. Doing myself for a number of years;

  2. Asking my coaching clients to do as part of our coaching;

  3. Dovetailing into my CAL and LEA leadership classes to help attendees triangulate on their leadership journeys.

It’s the same technique in all of these cases. What’s neat about it is that the journey map is whatever you want it to be.

The essence of the approach is to build a mindmap that represents your personal & professional journey. In my case, since I do mostly agile coaching with my clients, it emerges as an “agile” journey map. But it could literally represent any journey that you are undertaking.

First idea: Past, Present, and Future

The first idea is to segment your mindmap with some vertical lines that represent your past (left-side), present (middle), and future (right-side).

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What Type of Agile Coach are You?

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What Type of Agile Coach are You?

Michael de le Maza offered the following metaphor for agile coaches and coaching on LinkedIn the other day

Pebble agile coaches vs. Diamond agile coaches.

Pebbles are well rounded. Diamonds have facets.

If you go to a restaurant and they have Chinese food and Italian food what would you think? What if they had Opus One and Two-Buck Chuck?

You wouldn't like that restaurant, right?

And yet many agile coaches pride themselves on being well-rounded. They coach Scrum and Kanban teams. They coach executives and individual contributors. They coach flow and culture. They coach marketing teams and software development teams.

These are pebble agile coaches. They are well-rounded.

Diamond agile coaches have facets. They specialize in one or two areas.

Think about the great agile coaches you know.

Are they pebbles or diamonds?

What do you want to be?

Here’s my LinkedIn reply:

Michael, it almost sounds like I have two choices as an agile coach:

Become (or stay) a pebble and say yes to everything. Stay average, stay mediocre, stay "pebbly". That being well-rounded is, in some fashion, bad or not good.
or...
Become a diamond. Shine in a few areas. Be excellent in a few things. Say no to things when I don't have the excellence or brilliance to meet the need.

I wonder if there is a sort of middle ground if you will and not polar or binary opposites? For example, can I become a cabochon? Can I be well-rounded AND shiny/with rounded facets?

I guess I don't view well-roundedness as a coach as being something less attractive. Saying 'yes' to everything, probably not a good idea. But, at least for me, I'm aspiring to be a well-rounded, shiny, cabochon of a coach ;-)

More details…