I recently had a sudden reason to do something I had not done since childhood. I went to the hospital as a patient. Surgery could not wait. I’m doing well now, moving on the road to full recovery. As I reflect back on the experience, I found things to learn about team work, skill boundaries […]
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Agility Requires Clear Communication
The topic of communication has become a bit of an irritant lately. Certainly I’m not the best communicator in the world, so I work at it. I’m starting to wonder if many others have forgotten this key to productivity and enjoyment. I have many thoughts on this subject. Today I’ll address communication as an enterprise […]
Mentors and Mentoring at Gangplank
I recently learned yet another something through Gangplank. January is National Mentoring Month. That gave me pause to think about what mentors have meant to me. My Mentors Don Dayley, my father – Taught me all the foundational things in life, including how to mow the lawn when I did not want to, sometimes through […]
Guest Post For Gangplank
I was invited by Katie Charland, Director of Operations at Gangplank HQ, to write a guest post on their blog. The post was published this morning (January 5th, 2011). Gangplank is a place and movement that redirects us to see the people. Where we see the value of tapping the full human, not just functional […]
Quick Impressions: Phoenix Agile Burndown
Yesterday morning some people from Rally Software were in town putting on a half-day mini-conference. This event was called the “Phoenix Agile Burndown” and brought together a diverse group of people from the Phoenix area. I just wanted to quickly document some of my impressions of the event. These are in no particular order, I’m […]
Learning the Basics of Agile
Last week an attendee at my Gangplank presentation contacted me with an interesting question. He wanted to learn more about Agile and Scrum. He asked “Where do I start?” That is a hard question to answer. Not for a lack of information, but because there is so much out there. A great problem! To answer […]
The Gangplank Presentation – Wow!
Earlier this week I spoke at Gangplank. It was an excellent experience, with some hard questions at the end! Slides This presentation is the first I have posted to SlideShare, an interesting experiment of itself. Please have a look: [slideshare id=3559866&doc=businessbenefitsofbeingagile-100325234418-phpapp02] Questions At the end of the presentation and after the presentation time, two smart […]
A Powerful Poster
We’ve seen the “motivational posters” on office walls. These can be very valuable. They also can be a target for snickers and dirision. There’s even an entire market for “demotivational” posters! The best way to make sure a poster has value for your company or team is to start out with good information. Platitudes don’t […]
A Great Retrospective
Today is planning day for our largest team. After an interesting Sprint Review in the lab, we retired to the larger training room for the Sprint Retrospective. The feel in the room was largely up-beat but had some unspoken tension. I shifted gears quickly to start different than planned. I asked that we go around […]
A Holistic View
A few weeks ago, lying in bed, waiting for my mind to turn off, my thoughts carried me to think about an Agile enterprise. What would be important? What would it look and feel like? A diagram of concepts formed to define the general areas of focus for an Agile enterprise. The next day I […]
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