Group items tagged

Helicopter Managers – who step in too soon to rescue thereby depriving the team to think and solve problems together.

Absentee Managers – who would not step in at all irrespective of whether the team has all the necessary skills to tackle the problem.

If the team has sufficient skills to solve the problem then give them space else ask questions to help them get unstuck. This would help in building the skills eventually.

The responsibility of the Growth Facilitator is about more than simply prioritizing New Work goals and tasks. I see the role as contributing to the organizational culture, and helping to build the business in a sustainable way.

As Growth Facilitator, I am also responsible for guiding the team toward delivering greater value for our stakeholders. At Berteig Consulting, our stakeholders don’t just include the company’s owners. Our stakeholders include a wide range of groups, including customers, suppliers, employees, and our families, all without whose support nothing we do would be possible. Delivering value to our stakeholders requires that we keep them in mind when we commit to our tasks each week.

When I first started, I made goals that were broad, saying for example “to take care of our clients” or “to work at a sustainable pace.”

managers handle 'external stuff' to the team

ontract negotiations and procurement.

he role that a line manager plays in an employee's personal and professional development, often in the form of coaching or assisting in HR-related issues

Scrum in a nutshell Split your organization into small, cross-functional, self-organizing teams. Split your work into a list of small, concrete deliverables. Assign someone to be responsible for that list and to sort the list by priority. The implementation team estimates the relative size of each item. Split time into short fixed-length iterations (usually 1 – 4 weeks), with potentially shippable code demonstrated after each iteration. Optimize the release plan and update priorities in collaboration with the customer, based on insights gained by inspecting the release after each iteration. Optimize the process by having a retrospective after each iteration. For more details check out “Scrum and XP from the Trenches”. The book is a free read online. I know the author, he’s a nice guy :o) http://www.crisp.se/ScrumAndXpFromTheTrenches.html Kanban in a nutshell Visualize the workflow Split the work into pieces, write each item on a card and put on the wall Use named columns to illustrate where each item is in the workflow Limit WIP (work in progress) – assign explicit limits to how many items may be in progress at each workflow state. Measure the lead time (average time to complete one item, sometimes called “cycle time”), optimize the process to make lead time as small and predictable as possible.

Identify the technical leaders within projects; those that are “self-driven to produce quality results on time … combine technical ability with enough people skills …are trusted and respected by both their managers and fellow developers, are determined to make the team succeed, and usually live the work.” (Chief programmers, Chapter 2:  A Practical Guide to FDD).

Sell them the vision: if you cannot sell these people on the benefits to them, their colleagues and the organization of the new way of working then something is wrong

Provide in-depth training and on-going coaching. It is better to have a single lead person trained in-depth who can coach his teammates through the basics than to have the whole team trained on the basics with no-one on the team to turn to when the basics are not enough.

Coaches help teams learn Agile practices get from 'Agile seems to be something we should do' to 'we are practicing Agile development and succeeding by regularly delivering business value'.

ncreasingly there are reports of initial success followed by failures with Agile adoption.

I believe that there is a problem to how current Agile coaches - especially external ones (such as the author) - have traditionally performed their jobs. In fact, I think we are part of the problem

Responsibilities Vary by Software Business TypeSince the business mission, organization, operating methods, roles, titles and responsibilities differ dramatically across industry segments, it follows that the patterns of agile adoption vary across these segments as well

Information Systems/Information Technology (IS/IT) -teams of teams who develop software to operate the business; accounting, CRM, internal networks, sales force automation and the like. Customers are primarily internal to the enterprise.

Embedded Systems (embedded) - teams of teams who develop software that runs on computers embedded in other devices - cell phones, electronic braking systems, industrial controls and the like. Customers may be either internal or external to the enterprise.