Overcoming Team Toxins – Agile Mile High 2013

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Thanks to everyone who attended Overcoming Team Toxins at Agile Mile High 2013 in Denver, Colorado yesterday! Co-presenting with Erin Beierwaltes from Skipstone Consulting was a blast!

For those of you who could not attend, our team toxin presentation is based on work by John Gottman Phd. He refers to the toxins as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because of their ability to wreak havoc on relationships (teams, groups, pairs)! The Center for Right Relationships built on these ideas with a focus on a team based exercise to physically and visually interact with the toxins.

The four team toxins are:

  • Blaming
  • Defensiveness
  • Stonewalling
  • Contempt

Here is a workshop overview:

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Metaskills Wheel

Embrace Your Agile Superpowers

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Looking forward to presenting Stop Gambling, Embrace Your Agile Superpowers!

You can find a lot more about Agile Superpowers in this detailed article: Agile Superpowers – Being Agile.

The presentation was co-developed with myself and Stephen Starkey. We will be presenting at the Scrum Gathering in Las Vegas in May. For anyone not heading to the Scrum Gathering in Vegas, I’ll be presenting at the Agile Denver Coaching SIG on 2/21. Stephen may also be presenting in the Chicago area.

Here is the overview of the workshop:

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Learning from Washington, the Inauguration, and the Constitution

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Read This If: You’re looking for some interesting observations on scope, change management, and iterations as well as willing to consider that maybe some projects are not that tough, in perspective.

2009 seems to be moving right along! Was 2008 tough or not so much? Will 2009 be better or worse? Are things sometimes LESS challenging than they appear?

The recent inauguration and oath of office that the US President takes has me considering just how small some project problems actually are. I was listening to a NPR story about the oath, and a few things jumped out (note that LISTENING to the podcast provides more than reading the article summary).

So where is the oath found? It is the last paragraph in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution. It reads “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

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Stopping the Fake Subject Matter Expert (SME) from Derailing Your Project

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Read This If: You want to ensure you are basing your project’s value on input from a true subject matter expert (for any type of project).

A fake subject matter expert or SME can derail a project. Improvements to your business should be based on the best information you have access to, not outdated or incorrect information. The acronym “SME” seems to pop-up everywhere. I agree that saying “subject matter expert” does not flow as well as SME, but the phrase drives home that the person should be an expert (and in the right subject)!

Subject matter experts are used on projects from IT strategy, to business process improvement, to software development, to organizational change . . . to name a few. They are supposed to impart the wisdom of what is actually happening, and often, what is needed. But if they are NOT an expert, then what? Are you basing the success of your project on poor information?

So what exactly is a fake SME? The basic premise is that they are someone who appears or pretends to be a subject matter expert, but is not. There are many types, but let me outline some of the more common ones:

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