Everybody is interested in improving productivity. It’s in the title of the book from one of the creators of Scrum – boost your productivity by a factor of 4! Yet, when I reflect on the work I’ve done helping organizations in their Agile transformations, I realize I’ve had a somewhat conflicted relationship with the topic […]
Paradigms of work management: conversations with the philosophers
I have finally made it, today I come to tell you about a conversation I was able to have yesterday (with the social distance measures recommended during these times) with two people I have admired since I heard about them in my high school years. They are René Descartes and David Hume. René will surely […]
Agile mindset
Does your team have an Agile mindset? First of all, it is important to understand what the Agile movement stands for, and a key piece to understanding it is called the Agile Manifesto: “We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come […]
Meeting Mapping
A meeting mapping is a visual exercise that helps participants align on their shared ceremonies and identify waste. Throughout all my years involved in the Agile community, the techniques to which I gravitate have an element of visualisation. Visualising is magic. It is a human taking a slice of that intricate web of connections of […]
Retrospectives series: Big event in a team
Here is a new idea for you, my friend facilitator, to try out in your next retrospectives. The core of format is based in a tool from my ORSC teachers from CRR and Augere, and I added some ideas over it. I have already applied this format a couple of times with success in authentic multidisciplinary teams. A strong commitment and smooth conflict […]
Retrospectives series: Heaven and Hell
This is the second article of the retrospective series, I hope you enjoy it, find it useful and can apply it with your team soon. Please, leave some feedback when this actually happens! This retrospective is titled “Heaven and Hell”, soon you will learn why… USE This is a good retrospective format for teams who are […]
Retrospectives series: le Tour de France
This is the first of a series of articles we will be posting in our blog about retrospectives formats, tips and advices. We will start with one based in “le tour de France”. Here is a link to the second of the series. USE This retrospective is specially created to gather data at the middle […]
Challenges coaching multidisciplinary teams
It is a great concept this multidisciplinary thing: Create a single team with all the different people required to deliver a service, instead of having different knowledge areas doing their part independently. Make them work at the same pace. Have them focus on the same goal at a given moment. Remove extremely detailed documentation to […]
Agilar as Belbin Team Roles Accredited professionals
Last February 2015, José Ramón Díaz and myself finished our Belbin Roles Accreditation Course. We had already used this technique, helping other accredited professionals to run the exercises with some of the teams we were coaching. After all this period, we can say that we find it a very useful and powerful tool to coach teams and […]
10 ideas to facilitate company retrospectives
Last week I had to facilitate a retrospective with 90 people from the same company. I have to say that it was very challenging to be just one facilitator. I could count on the help of great guys to prepare it, and 2 people inside the organization supported me during the event. The result was a […]