Adapting Your Leadership Style for Maximum Team Performance Effective leadership isn't about applying a single approach to every situation and team member. The most successful leaders understand that flexibility is key and adjust their leadership style based on the specific needs, competence, and commitment levels of each individual they're working with. This adaptable approach, known as…
Understanding how team members develop skills is crucial for building high-performing self-organizing teams. While many leaders use intuitive approaches to assess skill levels, having a structured framework can dramatically improve how leaders support skill development. The Dreyfus Model of Skills Acquisition provides exactly this framework, a clear roadmap showing how individuals progress from novice to expert…
What is Shu Ha Ri? Every journey from novice to master follows a natural progression. Whether you're learning a new skill, adopting a methodology, or developing as a leader, understanding the stages of learning can help you navigate your development pathway more effectively. In Shu-Ha-Ri, there are 3 stages to gaining knowledge. Alistair Cockburn popularized these…
Before we talk about how teams mature, let’s first discuss how individuals grow. After all, a team in composed of individuals and to understand how to get a team to a certain level we need to understand how individuals learn and grow. We'll look at 3 models: Shu-Ha-Ri: an adaptation of the Japanese martial art concept…
Check out the video below of Shawn Faunce presenting on "The Awkward Teenager of Testing by Shawn Faunce" at the Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Shawn emphasizes the expected outcome and value proposition of a successful exploratory testing program along with some lessons learned adopting such a program. https://youtu.be/jdPL9BZyuzc The Awkward Teenager of Testing by…
Check out the video below of Mathias Eifert presenting on "Impact Mapping - How to Make Value Driven Prioritization a Reality" at the Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Mathias explores how impact maps support multiple stakeholders in gaining consensus on which features or actions are most useful to help us achieve an organizational goal. In…
Twice the Work in Half the Time Jeff Sutherland, one of the co-creators of Scrum and one of the original authors of the Agile Manifesto uses the term Hyper-productive team. And everyone hears what he says about producing twice the work in half the time and they are like yes! We want that! Let’s do Scrum…
Check out the video below of Jeremy Webb presenting on "Happiness, A Key Component of Agile" at the Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Jeremy shares how modern research has revealed a great deal about what makes us happy and how that relates to our personal and professional lives. As we learn more, we are discovering…
Check out the video below of Trent Hone presenting on "Kanban and the Power of Distributed Cognition" at the Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Trent explores how Kanban is a powerful tool. Like all tools, it has the potential to influence the way we think and how we approach our problems. Successful implementations reduce friction,…
Before we look into self-organizing teams, let's first take a look at common misconceptions about teams, self-organization and self-management. Common Misconceptions of Self-Organizing Teams A Team is just a group of people working together It’s common thought that if you bring a group of people together, they will form a team. However, that is just a…
Check out the video below of Mike Coottmeyer presenting on "Why Agile is Failing in Large Enterprises" at Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Mike explores why so many large-scale agile transformations are struggling. Some have failed. Others can’t figure out why things aren't working after multiple attempts. It’s easy to blame the people, the process,…
Check out the video below of Michael Hamman presenting on "The Agile Leader: The Inner and the Outer Game: Knowing, Doing, Being" at the Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Michael explores a holistic framework for both understanding the role of the Agile Leader and appreciating what the Agile Leader needs to Know, Do and Be…
Check out the video below of Jeff Sutherland presenting on "Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time" at the Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Jeff shares how Scrum is reshaping how the Department of Defense does business and fights wars, how the FBI tracks criminals, and how Treasury finds deadbeat…
I presented on The Art of Storytelling - User Stories Smells and Anti-patterns at the Agile2016 conference held in Atlanta, GA. I'd previously presented variations of this talk at 2015 Global Scrum Gathering in Pargue, Czech Republic and the 2015 Agile Development Practices Conference in Las Vegas, NV. Below is the abstract, along with the slides…
1. Thinking that everything is a user story Many mistakenly believe that if you are Agile or using Scrum, then you must use user stories and no other format is acceptable. User stories are not required in Scrum. Product Backlog Items can take any format. User stories are a recommended technique due to some benefits over…