Change Navigating Change While Being Rapidly Remote As we currently face the challenges of the COVID-19 (corona) virus, I see many individuals and teams being forced to rapidly go remote. I’ve been resistant to post on the COVID-19 topic so as not to add to the noise. However, some of the hype around remote work during
Change Navigating the Change Curve - Favorable Conditions From my last post on describing the basic properties of the change curve, you may be wondering how you avoid unplanned change or how you can successfully introduce positive change in knowledge work. Actually, you cannot. However, you can introduce favorable conditions to help your team and organization navigate unexpected
Change Navigating the Change Curve - Basics The more I coach teams and organizations, the more I see people struggle with change. I sometimes discover “change agents” (i.e., people helping to introduce change) sometimes struggle. Allow me to share a model I find useful in navigating change. This model will be described over a series of
Appreciations Thanks to those who dare Today marks the Thanksgiving holiday in the USA. I would like to thank those who are rarely thanked. Thanks to those who inspect and adapt daily. You show us amazing possibilities over time. Thanks to those who push the boundaries to serve others. Thanks to those who help (re)build
Coaching A Distributed Team Stroll Through Agile2019 Agile2019 showed a subtle theme of supporting distributed teams this year. As you may have heard in some of the podcasts I’ve joined, our book on successful distributed agile teams was inspired by a stroll on the last day of the Agile2017 conference. On that day, Johanna Rothman and
Agile Florida Join me at Agile Open Florida on Friday, Oct 25, 2019 2019 marks the sixth year of the Agile Open Florida conference. This conference brings agilists from across Florida (as well as outside the state) to explore, share and learn from each other. And there is much to share. Are you scaling or de-scaling? Should you hybridize your approach? Where does
Community You always lead by example Whether you realize it or not, you always lead by example. If you set a vision and focus everything on that vision, others will follow. If you provide no vision and drive everything by loudest opinion wins, others will follow. If you always seek to build community and help, others
Agile I appreciate Ben Clark on #ThankfulThursday It’s time for me to reboot a practice I started a while ago and it’s inspired by Ben Clark’s Twitter post. I'm irked by the # of ostensibly smart agile minds who trash each other and argue over inane nuances of the practice. I think it&
remote-facilitation Distributed Facilitation at MileHighAgile2019 Taking my Facilitating Distributed Agile Teams talk back on the road. I’ll be at Mile High Agile today and I’ll be speaking tomorrow at 2p MT. I’ll have a few copies of my book to give away as well, but my talk on Facilitating Distributed Teams goes
Choice How can remote work be wrong and right for you? Recently, a friend pointed me to yet another long online conversation debating whether remote work is good or bad. Who was right? Both sides actually. However, they were arguing over outcomes and experience. They missed examining the initial conditions. Looking at the initial conditions will determine if your experience with
Time to get back to blogging You may have noticed some small changes to my blog. A new look and a few things rearranged. Also, a new newsletter is available as well. This is all in preparation for release of our Distributed Agile Teams book https://leanpub.com/geographicallydistributedagileteams The e-book is available now on Leanpub
Update on the Distributed Agile Teams Book Many have asked when the book will be available. You can actually get an early release now at https://leanpub.com/geographicallydistributedagileteams Johanna and I have received over 50 pages of feedback from reviewers and we are also working with an editor to reduce the size of the book. We
Agile Rally On! Today marks a sad day but also one more call to collaborate. Many former Rally Software employees are being let go in Boulder, Denver, Raleigh and other locations. They include developers, QA, sales engineers, and more. Rally Software was an amazing place to work and was the turning point of
Agile Why my Distributed Agile countdown for Agile2018 is 8-3-2-1 I know it’s been quiet on this blog, but much has happened behind the scenes. In fact, there has been a countdown happening as I prepare for Agile2018 next week. * 8 chapters are now available in the pre-release beta version of my book with Johanna Rothman * 3 podcasts are
Facilitation FYI - Virtual facilitation options beyond #SGMSP18 Taking a break from book writing today, I saw on Twitter there was a conversation in the open space at Scrum Gathering Minneapolis (#SGMSP18). For those of us who have been working remotely for years, there are actually several good options for online facilitation. Some are adapting techniques you probably
First 4 chapters of our distributed agile book are available on Leanpub! Johanna and I were able to get the first few chapters into a “shippable” state (i.e., it met a sufficient level of quality for us). The book contains the first 4 chapters, just under 30,000 words. About 100 pages of actual book. You can find it at https:
hybrid-remote Create your Distributed Team’s Workspace with These Six Tools Many people ask me what is the best tool for distributed agile teams. It’s the wrong question. What many people miss is that a distributed agile team needs a common workspace and a collection of tools that work together in that space. While the team members may not be
What's in a name? For books, more than you know. As Johanna Rothman and I prepare the early release for our book on distributed agile organizations, I’m learning more and more about book publishing. For instance, with non-fiction books, the title usually has 2 key parts: * The Promise – What the book hopes to deliver to the reader * “What’s
Why so quiet? Book in progress You may have noticed that my blog has been very quiet since the Agile2017 conference last August and for good reason. Johanna Rothman and I were comparing notes during the conference. We were noticing either very little information or some outdated information being shared about distributed agile teams and organizations.
Agile Connect at #Agile2017 Monday is the official start of the Agile2017 conference. It can be overwhelming to be with over 2500 people, choose from over 200 topics in over 20 tracks. It can be over–stimulating and, for an introvert like me … exhausting. So how can you successfully navigate such an event. * Set
Agile Many Learning Opportunities Outside of Agile2017 (Aug 5 update) There are many people planning to come to Agile2017. This year is estimated to be more than 2500 attending. Others find this conference too expensive. Unfortunately, that’s true for many of my fellow Florida agilists. So if you are coming to the conference or if you are in the
Agile Florida Agile Open Florida Seeking a New Home We have begun planning our fourth year of Agile Open Florida and we are looking for a new venue to comfortably hold the energy of 200 people wanting to learn and collaborate for a day. Last year’s venue was wonderful, but they have some competing events around our November
Remotely Agile A distributed agile team guide for LeanAgileUS participants - remotelyagile.info UPDATE (Aug 2020) – I finally took down remotelyagile.info as the entire world was remote. Near impossible to track it all. If you attended my talk at LeanAgileUS.com, I likely mentioned many references on distributed teams. I keep those references at RemotelyAgile.info (which you can also access via
Appreciations I appreciate the Agile Florida community #ThankfulThursday Last Friday (11/18/2016), we held the largest Agile Open Florida conference in our three year history with over 200 people. One of our new sponsors asked me what was the purpose of this event. As I mentioned in our opening, it’s not about the event; it’s
Agile Florida Preparing for Agile Open Florida on 10/7 - Going, Growing & Sustaining Agile We are only a few days away from our third annual Agile Open Florida conference. We have nearly doubled in size and are expecting approximately 300 people in attendance. For those new to an “open space technology” format, I often get questions on how to prepare. Those asking may be
