Ingredients for the Vital Organisation
A vital organization has its own #IDENTITY for growing an understanding of the purpose. A vital organization has objectives driven from a shared #VISION and the collective #MOTIVATION to get there A vital organization considers the possibilities from the #DEMAND, work in #TEAMS, and #BESTPRACTICES A vital organization is about the people and their #CONTRIBUTION, the way #COLLABORATION is working with them, their possibilities to foster #CREATIVITY, and the #SKILLS they develop to address the needs.
A Dictionary of Agile Language (updated)
The importance of language is inevitable. Finding the right wording, which is expressing exactly what we want to say from a context point of view, but also from a emotional point of view. The agile development space is an area of application, where this comes true notably. We just need to recall, that we use language not for talking only – in our mind the same language is used already when we start thinking. Besides the central word agile itself, the community of agilists has created their own dictionary, where new terms have been selected, which helped to add a new meaning to the idea of agile development. Agile is…
Stupidity or Information Overload
The amount of information is growing tremendously day by day. Any kind of knowledge is encapsulated in articles, blog posts, status updates, or tweets. No one can believe that mankind is getting that smart that wisdom is being derived from that information overload – even not in the future. So what are the factors we consider when we need to take decisions? When we try to do our best to comfort others? Where is the know how we would like to consider? Just because someone tells, it cannot be taken for granted. Do we really consider the eligibility? Be careful how you consume information, how you gather knowledge, how you…
A Practical Journey to Communities of Practice
A while ago I have been asking the community at Agile Uprising for some hints on how to setup communities of practice. I felt like I would need some support. I had a rough idea what I would want to achieve by establishing communities, but I was lacking the idea how to get there. The attention to the request was really good and I received a lot of hints all around the topic. Anyhow, they left me with the feeling, that I would have to take action to run experiments. I had to learn and find out by myself how communities of practice would work best for me. I did…
Knowledge without Wisdom
For many topics, we are facing an overexposure of information today. Too much information stresses us. It leads to wrong decisions. When do we ask ourselves if we need all of this information? What do we gain? Information fasting can help us to take a step back and observe what (missing) information is doing to us. One day or one week without laptop and phone can do wonder. Just processing information. Wisdom we have to extract for ourselves. It is the essence of information, which never can be told to us. Removing all the overhead by distilling ideas and come to conclusions is the challenge for each of us nowadays.
How to Involve Your Team in Creating Vision and Strategy
One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is thinking they are supposed to have all the answers, especially when it comes to vision. There is a natural desire to look like you are smart and know what you’re doing. But sometimes the smartest thing you can do is to involve your team in creating vision and strategy and invite them to think together about the future. You don’t need to have it all figured out before you talk about it. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. This amazing article from Seapoint Center gives eight guidelines to involve your team in creating vision and strategy. [button url=”https://seapointcenter.com/involve-your-team-in-creating-vision/” target=”_blank” size=”small” icon=”external-link”]Open…
Out of sight, out of mind? 5 Virtual Team Building Activities
65% of remote employees report that they never had a team building session. Having co-workers spread across two or more locations is becoming a model more and more organization will have to adapt to. Stop hesitating, but look for ways to cope with co-located colleagues in a better way. Here are some virtual team building activities that make the seemingly impossible task of getting and keeping remote employees bonded and easier to reach. [button url=”https://www.teambonding.com/5-team-bondingtips-for-remote-employees/” target=”_blank” size=”small” icon=”external-link”]Open Article[/button]
Doing things that others can’t
Today I will do what others won’t and tomorrow I can do things that others can’t.
Communication leads to community
Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.
Agile Organizational Transformation – Mind the People
When talking about agile and agility, we should not forget that we are talking a lot about culture, values, and identity. Irrespective if we start an agile transition from top to bottom or from bottom to top, we need to understand that we have to take a lot of people with us. For many it is a big adventure, as their system, which helped them to achieve stability and reliance is questioned to some degree. We ask them to trust people, with whom they probably never have worked with and where they are lacking a fundamental understanding of their needs and objectives. Learning by Doing I am trying to foster…
Visualizing Product Development Work
“Whenever you’re thinking high level, someone will bring you down to earth and ask you to get into the weeds. Whenever you’re in the weeds, someone will complain that you’re not being high level enough. It’s the burden we bear. Just when you think you’ve figured things out, you’ll encounter a person who needs to see your roadmap, or backlog, or “sprint backlog”, or “project”, or “plan” in a whole new way. So…changing delivery based on context is important. You could argue that it is the biggest challenge facing PMs. It is a design problem!” “11 Ways I Visualize Product Development Work” @johncutlefish
Measuring Success
Success is not measured by points or project management type metrics; it’s measured by ‘is the organization meeting its purpose’ Tom Poppendeick
Teams – the fundament for the agile way
When we start to become more agile, we start to look at the mindset of people and how they collaborate. We are considering teams to be the fundament for growth and success. Conformity is no objective at all, contribution of individual talents to a group is what we strive for. Where diversity meets collaboration, you can really claim to work the agile way.
it's all about the way we work
