Fixing Your Agility

The Two Word Check-in – Minimally Viable Daily Meeting

What a difference through just two words. Two Words Check-in. I used it as a warm-up in a leadership session for a Boston-based BioTech. They liked it so much that they started using it as common practice. They started using it in their weekly Review/Retrospective/Planning sessions (Yes, they were using Scrum to develop the company; …

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To Async or Not to Async

So you identified a meeting people won’t miss one bit in your organization. Let’s say it’s a daily check-in. Standup. Scrum. The name doesn’t change the fact that this is an often-mentioned issue people have with approaches such as Scrum, EOS, Scaling-up, SAFe. Want to improve this event? You can try increasing focus via visualization. …

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“OKRs S&%k, but we don’t know anything better” – Scaling Founder Mode by Fixing OKRs

“OKRs S&%k, but we don’t know anything better” This was a direct quote from a cybersecurity scaleup’s Chief of Staff, but I hear the sentiment way too often from founders, chiefs of staff, COOs, and others in the scaleup ecosystem. I started encountering OKRs when working with scaleups a couple of years ago, helping leaders …

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The Fixing OKRs Live Stream Series

Are you struggling with OKRs? Tune into my Fixing OKRs Videos, which were recorded in a set of live streams earlier this year. If you want to dive deeper – check out my updated OKR offerings.

Combining SAFe PO and PM responsibilities with Professional Scrum PO Stances

Exploring the controversy around SAFe’s approach to Product Ownership

Exploring SAFe’s Approach to Product Ownership What is SAFe’s perspective on the Product Owner role? How does it differ from the Scrum Guide? Why is Product Ownership split between the Product Owner and Product Manager in SAFe? SAFe’s approach to Product Ownership draws quite a bit of criticism. As a Professional Scrum Trainer who’s also …

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Fix Your OKRs – Back to First Principles

Context OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) have become the latest management framework to suffer the fate of becoming popular too quickly, to the point where in many organizations, OKRs are a theater/charade with little useful substance or benefits. That’s a shame because OKRs have huge potential if used effectively. So let’s go about fixing your …

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Fixing OKR Theater Using Scrum

The OKR Theater I encounter many organizations that are trying to improve the alignment between strategy and execution with the OKRs framework (Objectives and Key Results). There’s good intent there, but more often than not I see anti-patterns like: OKRs that look more like tasks than strategic objectives — especially by the time they reach working teams OKRs …

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The Agile Theater

The Agile Theater

We’ve all seen it. It’s quite an elaborate show with Scrum Masters, Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Secret handshakes, a lot of artifacts, ceremonies, roles. The recent “broadway”-level productions include bigger pictures, more roles, artifacts. It is like visiting the city set in that classic Universal Studio ride. Excellent production value but not really a working …

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The time has come to close the curtain on the Agile Theater

We’ve all seen it. It’s quite an elaborate show with Scrum Masters, Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Secret handshakes, a lot of artifacts, ceremonies, roles. The recent “broadway”-level productions include bigger pictures, more roles, artifacts. It is like visiting the city set in that classic Universal Studio ride. Excellent production value but not really a working …

Read more