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These articles and interviews — all original content by Gil Broza — first appeared in the 3P Vantage Point, our free weekly newsletter. To receive it, go here.

Agility Takes More than Practices

Your organization has an Agile way of working. Your previous company probably did too, but theirs was different. And the popular Agile frameworks? They don’t all agree either.

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Who Makes Decisions Around Here?

In many Product Development organizations, who-decides-what about the product is hazy, inconsistent, or not fully defined. This limits the ability to deliver good value reliably.

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Effective Senior Management: a One-Minute Summary

A CEO asked me: “I can see how the teams and the product lines will operate with an Agile mindset, but at my level, how do I manage differently? How do I work with the other executives?”

Here is my quick (“elevator pitch”) summary:

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Going Agile: Not with “Ceremonies” and “Rituals”

Imagine you’ve been asked to join another Agile team. The person in charge meets you and during the introductory conversation, says “Mondays, we have the planning ceremony at 10. The other main ceremonies are on Friday afternoons…”

Rewind to where the person said “ceremony.” Did you feel excited? curious? nervous? unenthusiastic?
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What Can Management Do to Support Agile?

Everyone who tries to adopt Agile in their organization quickly realizes that the change extends beyond the team, project/program, and value stream. It affects management too. But how? More specifically, what should managers focus on to support the change to Agile?

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Does your daily standup matter?

Try this sometime:

Survey your team members anonymously: “What’s the purpose of our daily standup?” (or daily Scrum, whatever you call it).

You might be surprised by the number of materially different answers you’ll get.

And then, you should be concerned over how many of those answers include words such as “updates” or “status.”

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Being Agile without fitting a mould

A few weeks ago I started helping out at one of the most Agile tech companies I’ve ever seen.

I looked into their current state. On the surface, they use a mix of Scrum and Kanban ideas that wouldn’t pass muster by the standards of either approach. Some practices are done loosely, while others are absent.

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How to Become Agile Outside of Software?

Recent story from a technology company: The CEO, seeing the software teams’ outcomes from being Agile, wanted the sales team to work in an Agile manner as well. In fact, he told the VP Sales to be more like the tech teams.

A few years ago, this would have been quite a shocker. Technology teams as the model of behavior? Yet, that’s becoming more and more the case, because Agile teams have a different impact on business: they work with the whole product in mind, make more strategic trade-offs, are more transparent and responsive, and so on.

So how does a non-software group/department/unit adopt Agile?

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Imposing Agile Is a Non-Starter

For years, whenever people wanted to know about my Agile coaching practice, one thing I would bring up was, “I only coach the willing.”

Sometimes they would chuckle or nod understandingly. Yet, more often, they didn’t realize why I was saying this. I’m a professional coach, wouldn’t I coach everyone?
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Agile Just Makes Sense… Why Don’t They Get It?!

In my courses, I use various activities to examine and drive home Agile’s many principles. Ones that usually trigger deep conversations include getting to “done,” feedback, collaboration, and effectiveness before efficiency. Many senior managers attend my courses, and almost every time, one of them will ask:

“Aren’t these principles just a common-sense way to work?”READ MORE

The Silent Killer in Your Agile Implementation

Suppose you have Agile teams and things look good. Folks work on important initiatives, do high-value work, get feedback regularly, and deliver finished products/services to their intended consumers frequently.

Question: How long before things start to break down?
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Agile: Speeding up Technical Work Is not the Goal

Organizations are used to concentrating their technology workers in specialized units, such as IT or Product Development. This approach enables them to focus on their specialties and to establish their own methods and processes. As a side effect, it also creates a vendor-consumer dynamic. And once this dynamic is in place, managers on both sides start wondering, can the technical people work faster?

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The Hidden Cost of Deadlines

Every day, my kids tell me about a new homework assignment. They always finish the description with “and it’s due on…”; school is habituating them to think about deadlines. My wife and I have deadlines of our own, such as applying to high school for said kids, and filing taxes.

At work, deadlines are everywhere. Almost every nontrivial undertaking has some date attached to it by which it ought to be completed, released, delivered.READ MORE

How Do You Learn Agile?

If you’re picking up a new skill, method, or tool, how do you learn to apply it?

Perhaps you like to read instructions and follow them. Or maybe you prefer to have an expert teach you. Another option is trial-and-error. There are multiple learning styles.

What if you’re learning something as deep and impactful as an overall approach to work, such as Agile?

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Agile Is not Always the Answer

All over the world, Agile is the new darling. This approach to work has caught the attention of most IT and product development managers, who are now rethinking their teams, tools, practices, programs, measurements, reporting, and so on. Few of those managers, however, question Agile’s fit to their situation, or begin projects with the question, “Which approach should we use here?”

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Lead Your Agile Team Through the Storm

All Agile methods are predicated on strong teamwork. It’s not an Agile invention; bringing diverse skills and viewpoints to bear may indeed increase aggregate performance.

From an Agile standpoint, teams are also useful because human beings make mistakes.READ MORE

Gil Broza Interviewed by Selena Delesie (48-min audio)

How do you lead with both heart and mind? Why would you care do to that? And how do you overcome the organizational barriers to a people-first culture? Selena Delesie, host of the Lead With Love Virtual Conference, held a deep-dive interview on these matters with Gil in January 2017.READ MORE

What’s in a Word?

Imagine yourself in a planning meeting. The team is considering options when someone says, “How can we fail fast with this one?”

What’s going through your mind?

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The Little Word that Impedes Collaboration

Collaboration is a key principle of Agile. Yet, I believe that most Agile teams don’t collaborate nearly as much as they could, and as a result, their performance falls far short of its potential.READ MORE

How “The Three Questions” Hurt Teamwork

One process element that all new Agile teams adopt easily is the daily standup meeting. Even without receiving Agile training, it’s the one thing everyone seems to know about Scrum. And you know what I’m realizing more and more? In its popular, standard form, it hurts teamwork.

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Rigid Agility

Being in the business of helping development teams and organizations become more effective, I get to see very diverse starting points. The clients of the last few months, however, had a lot in common.

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Could You Use Software Development Insurance?

Like most people, I carry various kinds of disaster insurance. If I crash my car, I’ll get paid back its worth. If my house burns down, I will lose lots of personal effects and time, but not my financial investment.

Even if the law or mortgage lenders didn’t require car/home/life insurance, I would still buy them. They are a large expense but they have a huge benefit: They allow me to live my life without fear of financial ruin.

If you could buy a policy on your software development efforts, guaranteeing some quick recovery if anything goes horribly wrong, would you?

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How to Tell Whether Your Team Is Agile

A client reached out to my company, asking us to assess three teams. The consultant who did the assessment sent me an interesting note:

“One of the three teams is actually one of the most Agile teams I’ve observed in an enterprise environment (and their customers are really happy with the value being delivered). Yet, they’re not perceived as such by IT management because they don’t fit a ‘cargo cult’ understanding based on process.”

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