Many people really don’t like the original cartoon (See & read Pig & Chicken part 1). When I decided to do three strips on the Pig & Chicken, I knew there would be a lot of ‘concern’, but based on where I want to go, I made the decision that it had to be done. Tweet the Agile Safari Cartoon!
Project retrospectives are challenging. I spoke a bit about this in lessons learned vs. project retrospectives. You might look at a merger, acquisition, implementation of a new ERP system, or even a major upgrade of an ERP or CRM system. These are non-reoccurring events. A retrospective of this type is quite different from a typical agile retrospective, primarily because on this type of project, people will change and the project will not repeat (the definition of a project is that it is a unique endeavor). At issue here is the fact that if the people will not be the same and the project does not reoccur – then they can’t come up with actions they will apply right away based on what they learned. Ideas for change often just end up in a spreadsheet, a book shelf, or some electronic tool. A big book of “lessons learned” that sits on the shelf gathering dust does not provide much, if any, value.
The Pig & Chicken is a cartoon many in the agile community are familiar with. I know some will see it and ask why this one is being rehashed (I know this because I reviewed it with a few people, and they asked). Some will be pretty annoyed since many “strongly dislike” the cartoon (which is fine – please add your comments!). So, for anyone reading this and thinking any of those things, please read on. I want to say, “Don’t worry, I have a plan,” but only you can judge how it pans out for yourself! Tweet the Agile Safari Cartoon!
For readers who are not familiar with agile (or any agile folks who have not seen the cartoon), the ideas is that the pigs are the team (or Scrum Team). The chickens are everyone else.
I’ve been training, talking, coaching, and writing recently on the topic of commitment and realized that anytime that comes up, it reminds me of the old (seems old – but not really that old!) discussion on commitment or forecast. I still find there are many questions on this topic. It certainly has not been put to bed. The approach I like to take is to step back and ask “what is the real problem?” Is a word stopping you from succeeding or is something else causing the problem? What am I talking about? — I’m talking about when the Scrum Guide was updated to change commit to forecast.
Learning the different approaches an agile coach may take can be challenging without experiencing them. My preference when training people is to run exercises to help them experience the various approaches to agile coaching. Most recently, I had the opportunity to run one with a diverse group of people at a recent conference. We got into some amazing discussions! I also had a chance to riff back and forth with Bob Hartman, who joined me for part of the session, which created a fun dynamic!
Since getting together in-person is not always possible, this article includes visual diagrams of the agile coaching framework, to explain visually, how to walk-through the framework.
No, I don’t hate agile project management software — it can serve a purpose. At issue is if there is an actual purpose and if it is misused. Often the software stalls progress or worse, move us backwards. For any readers who are not familiar with agile or don’t work in software — the idea here is that instead of using the monitor to display some type of software tracking tool, the new scrum master just used sticky-notes and stuck them on the monitor. What is the simplest thing that works in your world?
I was presenting Building Antifragile Relationships and Teams at Santa Barbara Agile recently and as we worked on ideas for a conflict protocol, we started discussing the common theme of “facts vs. feelings”. I’ll point out that there was not a hard-line view in the group as to one way or another, but it came up and opened up a nice discussion on the topic.
I mentioned The Focused Conversation as a great tool you can use to help structure a conversation. Focused Conversations include four important categories of questions — objective, reflective, interpretive, and decision focused questions. The acronym ORID is sometimes used to describe The Focused Conversation.
The structure also provides a way to hear all of the voices that need to be heard within the group or team. You might even use this as part of an agile retrospective. Using the tool is another way to build antifragile relationships in teams and organizations.
We hear a lot about best practices. We talk a lot about them. Many organizations are of the opinion that if they can identify the best practice, they are set. Of course, that thinking can be limiting in a number of ways. We need to be better, not best.
Googling “best practice definition” gives you “commercial or professional procedures that are accepted or prescribed as being correct or most effective.”
Wikipedia says : “A best practice is a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means, and that is used as a benchmark. In addition, a “best” practice can evolve to become better as improvements are discovered. Best practice is considered by some as a business buzzword, used to describe the process of developing and following a standard way of doing things that multiple organizations can use.”
Notice in the Wikipedia definition they add the idea that they can evolve to become better. This gets to the root of what we need to be doing.
There are many ways to look at the Agile Coach Competency Framework and many opportunities to learn. In Understanding ACI’s Agile Coach Competency Framework (Part 1), I outlined my summary of the framework, it’s competencies and the coaching stance. Part 2 looks at what you can learn from the framework and ideas about how to use the ideas to learn and grow as a coach and a leader.
Agile Coaching. A seemingly simple term that causes so much confusion. Much of the confusion seems to stem from the reasonable question of “what does an agile coach do?” ACI (Agile Coaching Institute) defined an Agile Coach Competency Framework. I’ve used the framework over the years both for agile coaching and leadership. I find it valuable to help people to understand the different perspectives they can approach agile coaching from. We use the framework as a one tool in Advanced Scrum Master Training (A-CSM) and as one set of approaches and skills in Leading Amazing Teams Training. We find it offers leaders insights into how they can shift from a leader-follower to a leader-leader approach to leadership. ACI had a whitepaper outlining the framework (created by Lyssa Adkins and Michael Spayd on a website – no longer active). This article includes my summary of it based on multiple sources — as well as my personal experience with it and ways to learn from it.