One of the challenges organizations face when moving towards Agile ways of working is the role of a product owner. We generally understand the idea of the one person ultimately accountable for return-on-investment for their “product”. However, go into a company doing Agile nowadays and ask one of the product owners if they are empowered […]
Pair your agile transformation with a change management framework
Recently, they published the 14th State of Agile Report. The sheer amount of information this report shares with the reader is astounding. For the sake of processing it, I filtered some key insights. One of these insights struck me the most: the main reason for agile transformation failure is the general organization’s resistance to change. […]
Agile Contract: know the deal before you set it
You have probably been in the position where you had a project and the money to fulfill it, but not the manpower or knowledge to do it. You would’ve had to engage a supplier to get the work done. If we look at the Agile Principle ‘collaboration over contract negotiation’, we notice that while a […]
PreMortem risk assessment
You are starting a new project. You have a mix of feelings that range from anxiety to excitement. You have your team gathered and ready to start. You will be assuming formal or informal leadership roles at least once during the project. You know you and your team are all in this together. You want […]
5 top skills to develop for a Scrum Master or Agile Coach
Are you looking to become a better Scrum Master or Agile Coach? Here’s where you need to focus on! We give you 5 essential skills for a Scrum Master or Agile Coach. So, you already know Scrum. Ok, what’s next? Before you start – Assess yourself honestly. Do you really know Scrum well? This article […]
Front Line Agility – the missing link to true innovation and customer centricity
Front line employees are often overlooked in an agile transformation – but they can be the key to a truly successful approach. When leading the second phase of an agile transformation, we put focus on transforming the business to an agile approach – which usually means introducing collaborative, design-thinking driven ways of working in our […]
The Teal Conspiracy (or Utopia might just as well be around the corner)
Buurtzorg (or the potential seed?) Frederic Laloux might have done a thing or two in order to accelerate management (r)evolution with his book Reinventing Organizations. In my humble opinion his main (and timelessly awesome) contribution has been to cast a smart and focused light on some organizations many of us hadn’t (incredibly!) heard of before […]
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 […]
Adapting the Inception Deck
Many of you are probably familiar with the Inception Deck. It is a tool to get all the stakeholders aligned at the beginning of a project or product development. The idea is to get this alignment to happen with the least paperwork possible. The Inception Deck provides a set of 10 exercises to be done […]
Tribal Recruitment
What made you be part of friend’s tribe? You might believe “proximity, we grew up in the same neighbourhood” . Ok , if it’s the case your tribe is composed of the same friends you had from your childhood, that’s a good point. However, I am sure there were many other people in the same […]