It starts in the usual way: You’re having a discussion with somebody from your current client and he/she tells you that agile practice X is bogus/useless/… and that that person is not going to use it/apply it/promote it to others. Now… what do you do? Before you realise it, you are having a conflict of … Leggi tutto
This is the third article in a mini-retrospectives series. In the previous ones I wrote about how retrospectives should be done at regular intervals, but also in other occasions and how the retrospective could be done in different groups than just the team. In this post I will continue to challenge the 12th principle of … Leggi tutto
I often get questions about how to approach refactoring at the cultural level, i.e. how to promote it in the organisation. This post is an adaptation of some advises I gave to a customer of mine… The best way is to have refactoring done as part of the story development, so during the sprint. It’s … Leggi tutto
In the previous post I introduced you to Solution Focused scales and how they can be used in a one-to-one scenario. Now we’ll extend this to a team context, but first, here are some tips… Tips on using scales A constructivistic approach is important also when using scales: whatever numbers the client chooses, it must … Leggi tutto
No, this post is not about increasing the size of your development team, but about how to establish some measurements in your team – typically during the retrospectives, but not only – to support continuous improvement: let’s talk about Solution Focused Scales. I already discussed this technique in my Solution Focus presentation, but listening to … Leggi tutto
One of the concepts I hear many colleague agile coaches talking about is the concept of “resistance” of the client. Typical sentences are “he is resisting the agile transition” or “I talked to her about X and she resisted the proposals I made”. Now here’s one thing that is important to consider: there is no … Leggi tutto
…to coach its individuals one-to-one! Contradiction? Well, some time ago I thought so as well, but… Over the last years I had a few clients where, because of some constraints in the setting I was working with, I needed to “speed up” with the coaching program and “deliver” a high-performance team faster than I usually … Leggi tutto
Last November I presented at the Deutsche Scrum the first version of my new presentation “Debunking Agile Myths”. The core message of the presentation was to show that many of the things we believe in the world of agile are based on… ehm… nothing, actually! Surprised? So was I when I started checking the scientific … Leggi tutto
In a conversation during the last agile coach camp Germany I was reminded of something I see often in agility: motivational interventions. Most, if not all, agile coaches use them in one form or another: a workshop moderated with a pot of energy on their side, a training where the reasons why agile is what … Leggi tutto
So you explained to your team how to do X – where X is a certain agile practice you believe it will be very helpful for them – and they learned and implemented it quite well and you were so proud of the way you convinced them to change their habits until… they don’t! And … Leggi tutto
I reckon on the subject of games I am at the border of the agile community: agile games are very spread among my colleague coaches, more than what I use them, and, from a purely informal and statistically not relevant poll I made, it seems that many agile coaches… run games with their teams on … Leggi tutto
At the Scandinavian Developer Conference I presented today some concepts useful for coaching at the organisational level. The basic idea behind this presentation is that thinking about agile at the team level is a necessary step, but not the only one needed in order to create an agile organisation. In a parallel presentation I argued … Leggi tutto
Here another “service post” to distribute the slides of the Soft Skills Essentials presentation, this time in the form Yves Hanoulle (twitter: @YvesHanoulle) and I presented it at the Mini-XP Days Benelux in Mechelen, a summary of the best presentations of last year’s XP Days Benelux. The presentation is basically as the Turku Agile Day, … Leggi tutto
Here are the slides of today’s keynote I delivered together with Mike Sutton (@mhsutton) at the Turku Agile Day to a very engaged audience: thank you for the fun! Click on the button to load the content from de.slideshare.net. Load content For the bibliography, please refer to this post…
Today, together with Mike Sutton (Twitter: @mhsutton), I ran a workshop called “New Tools of the Craft” at the Turku Agile Day. Here are the slides we showed and a selected bibliography… Click on the button to load the content from de.slideshare.net. Load content Yes And… This is a concept coming from the Improvisation Theatre. … Leggi tutto