Year: 2023
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Why Work Waits
One of the most common challenges I face when coaching teams is getting their work unstuck and flowing. When I start working with teams, they always seem to be dealing with the same problems: My approach to helping teams get out of these situations is less about changing how the team does their work and…
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Running, Falling, and the Core of Agile
How do you run? Years ago, when I worked as CrossFit Coach, I frequently attended workshops to improve in particular areas, including Olympic weightlifting and Strongman. One workshop I attended was called CrossFit Endurance, which taught the Pose Method of running. I’ve been thinking about how the lesson I learned from that workshop relates to how Agile teams…
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How I Use Scrum to Teach Agility
As part of my job doing Agile Coaching, I occasionally have to give training to groups of people, and part of that training sometimes requires that I cover the Scrum framework. But because I like coaching people and teams on agility and not frameworks, teaching Scrum is something I’m always conflicted about. But the last time…
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My Agile Sketching Experiment
Between September and October of 2022, because the COVID pandemic put my contracts on hold for a few months, I set a personal challenge to create and share 100 agile-related sketches on Twitter. In October 2020, after posting an average of four drawings a day, I completed that challenge. Because I no longer use Twitter,…
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Revisiting the Guidance on Cross-functional Teams
Like most things with Agile, the idea that teams should be “cross-functional” gets shared almost like an eternal truth, but it’s an old idea that deserves a deeper look. I will explore different perspectives on cross-functional teams and the Three Amigos model, what benefits they’re supposed to provide, and their gaps. I will also review…
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Miroverse Template: Squad Health Check
In March of 2022, my Squad Health Check Miro template got published to the Miroverse. The Squad Health Check, originally developed at Spotify, allows teams to reflect on topics like “Is work fun?” and “Are we learning?” or “Do we have a good sense of our mission?” and more. Making it available as a Miro…
Flow Focused 