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I’ve previously written about cross-functional teams and what it means for a team to be cross-functional. In that same post, I wrote about Team Topology’s concept of a stream-aligned team. To recap, stream-aligned teams: Suppose autonomous and independent cross-functional teams that own an entire “slice” of a business domain are the ideal way to organize
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An Agile Alternative to “Fixing”
3–5 minutesOne of my go-to definitions of Agile is working in a way of safely making progress and moving forward with imperfect information. In the journey to becoming Agile, organizations face many obstacles. Whatever their goals, there are a lot of organizational, cultural and technical challenges and constraints that teams and organizations face. When faced with
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Where Are The Problems?
3–5 minutesWhen I first started coaching teams, I aimed to teach people the techniques and methods they could use to manage their work better. Recently, I’ve adopted a different approach that actually leaves techniques for last and instead starts with problems and needs. I was thinking about my initial approach and how it’s changed over the
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Rethinking Retrospectives
5–7 minutesI sometimes get asked by managers if they should add the action items created in their team retrospective meetings to their kanban boards. More explicit management of retrospective outputs happens when managers start getting unsatisfied with their teams’ progress at improving their metrics, shortening their lead times, or meeting their commitments. They believe by visualizing
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Why Work Waits
6–9 minutes
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
6–9 minutes
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
Flow Focused 