CHOW #307 – Structural remedies in Agile
Agile think tanks recommend that the modern-day organization should be a cluster of empowered teams, an entity that is like an organism able to adapt itself and thrive. Alas, when agile consultants walk into a new customer engagement, chances are what they see appears nowhere near such a cluster; instead, hierarchies and silos everywhere. Nathan […]
Navigating Remedial Agile
Ok, folks, the title of the post and the picture are a dead giveaway, aren’t they? Yes – the picture is stark and clear to everyone except Miss.Piggy! And, oh, I forgot – Old MacDonald who owns her thinks that the picture, while not perfect, can still be improved. And he has put hard-earned money […]
Four lessons learnt while coaching leaders
I have been working with leaders in the last few years as an agile coach. When I say ‘leaders’, these are people in middle management roles in large corporates. Intent of this blog is to share some of the lessons I learnt in the process. In the agile world, it is commonly felt that middle […]
Designing Interactions with Visual System – Key to achieving Agility
Visual Systems or tools that are referred to as Agile Management Software are de facto with Agile teams. There was a time when whiteboards and stickies used to be synonymous with Agile. I used to be a big fan of physical whiteboards or any space that radiates information. Nothing brings the team together like the […]
Be in the Game
Centuries ago, Robert the Bruce was the king of Scotland. England was at war with Scotland to make it a part of England. King Bruce led many battles, six times to be precise, against England and got defeated. Finally, his army got scattered, and the king was forced to hide in the caves. King Bruce was […]
CHOW #211 – Data-driven Coaching Plan
Challenge The names, characters, dialects, and phrases are imaginary. Yesterday, I was one among the spectators, to an event performed at the local stadium. The event may appear to have a certain resemblance to a competition for the first-time visitor. But it was strictly not a competition. Professionals from different disciplines demonstrated their talents. Every […]
Advice – to give or not to give
Early every morning, I go for a walk in a road, which goes around a hospital. Invariably, I see this girl rushing to catch some bus. She runs wearing a high-heeled shoe and for some reason, I felt that I needed to tell her that she should wear something better as footwear, if she wants […]
Doing little things makes big things happen
I love the game of basketball. I had the opportunity to play it for a long time and competitively. It taught me a lot about practice amongst other things, some of which I use today as an agile coach. What are little things? It starts with paying attention to details at practice. Its about what […]
SlumpBusting: Overcoming Performance Slumps
Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, widely regarded as the greatest batsman who ever played the game, scored 9000 runs in 105 test matches he played between 1998-2002 hitting 31 tons at an average run-rate of 57. During the Australian tour of 2003, his scores read 8, 7, 55, 1, 0, 1, 37, 0, 44 totaling 153 runs […]
CHOW #136 – Resistance to Improvement
Ram, a Test Lead, had been working for eTravel for the last three years. eTravel has a cloud-based product for frequent business travellers. When his organization decided to adopt agile practices two years ago, he chose to take on the Scrum Master role. The feature team, that he was part of as SM, had the […]