In a previous post I wrote about the value of hosting a team huddle. In this post I’ll walk you through a few ways to facilitate a huddle. I’m not going to bore you with a bunch of exposition. Let’s get to it.
Read MoreManaging virtual work
The country is taking precautions against COVID-19. Many US companies are switching to virtual teams to protect employees and to continue operations. While I dislike the impacts of COVID-19, I celebrate any increase of virtual teams.
Virtual teams are not without their challenges. Leading virtual teams and working on virtual teams is part art and part science. In this post I break down things to keep in mind as you transition from co-located teams to virtual teams. This is not an exhaustive list. Feel free to share your tips and tricks of virtual team succeess.
Read MoreThe importance of team retrospectives
One of the core components of team adaptation theory is that for teams to increase their adaptability (read: agility), they must reflect on past activities. If you look at any high performing team you will notice they all have one thing in common. All high performing teams take time to reflect on past activities so they can find ways to improve. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. All high performing teams do it. If you look at high performing teams in sports, business, law enforcement, the military, etc., then you will find teams that perform some type of retrospective. Those teams may not call it a retrospective, but they still reflect to answer the same basic questions: What did we do? What have we learned? What should we do differently? Where can we improve? Sadly, many teams view retrospectives with disdain. People are rarely motivated to do the hard work that retrospectives demand. The result is a meeting that produces very little in the way of learning let alone strengthening a team’s adaptability.
Read MoreMeasuring Agile
One challenge of working with organizational leaders and Agile teams is leaders want to know when a team is considered agile. The question leaders want answered is, “How Agile is the team?”
This is not an easy question to answer on its surface. There are many variables that can affect a team’s level of agility. Below I outline a few variables that all organizations should consider when trying to assess a team’s agility level.
Read MoreThe problems of vertical organizations and IT teams
Information technology (IT) supports an entire organization. This means IT is best when it can support the entire organization at once. Unfortunately too many leaders, particularly those at the executive level, want to run their organizations along verticals. These leaders often want to have duplicate teams operating in each vertical so these teams can directly support the needs of the leaders within a given vertical. Splitting IT teams along verticals is a recipe for disaster.
Read MoreTime for Agile to adapt
The Agile Manifesto is an outdated relic. Agile practitioners must systematically overhaul it. As written, the manifesto constrains whole organizations from becoming truly agile.
The above paragraph is a radical proclamation sure to ruffle the feathers of many Agile purists. I did not arrive at that conclusion lightly. Years of studying and practicing Agile lead me to that conclusion.
Read MoreRequirements Gathering in Agile Scrum
Two years ago I was involved in a large software development project that included developers, architects, and systems analysts. The team was organized into a scrum team along with corresponding product owner and scrum master. There was a lot of optimism and energy during the forming stage, as usual, but all of that quickly came crashing down in execution.
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