Agile Coaches' Corner

This week, Dan Neumann is joined by a repeated guest, Quincy Jordan. Today they are talking about the vital importance of getting Agile Teams and initiatives off to a good start.

In this episode, they discuss the things that need to happen outside the Teams and that also need to involve them, what elements are required to support the Team and what to expect from them. Listen to this episode to learn more about how to support a Scrum Team to have the best start possible.

Key Takeaways

• Management should support the Team in its efforts to deliver something of value to the organization.
• • Sometimes a Team needs mentoring that comes from outside the team.
• Establishing Team working agreements.
• • Teams need to have working agreements to help establish guidelines about how to do the work and communicate as a Team.
  • Conflict will happen; that is why rules of engagement are necessary to anticipate the way in which a team will address those potential conflicts.
  • Leveraging emotions in conflict resolutions is needed; emotions cannot be removed from a human experience.
• Why do we care for getting off to a good start in the first place?
• • Awareness: A team needs to know why they are endeavoring in a particular project as well as they need to know what is the benefit and who is benefiting from the work.
  • It is important for those on the front line to really know how their work ties to the topline business objective; this is the way for them to see the value of the work that they are doing there.
  • Quincy and Dan talk about the critical aspects in launching a Team, which are covered by the methodology for change managing called ADKAR: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement.
• The facets of getting off to a good start.
• • After working on the Awareness it is necessary to make it clear how the Team is going to communicate.
  • There is a benefit to anticipating how we are going to reward behaviors that we want to perpetuate.

.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition, Lyssa Adkins

Blog post by Esther Derby: “Building Effective Teams: Miss the Start, Miss the End”

Liftoff: Launching Agile Teams & Projects, Diana Larsen and Ainsley Niles

Want to Learn More or Get in Touch?

Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com!

Email your thoughts or suggestions to [email protected] or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!

This week, Dan Neumann is joined by Adam Ulery to continue the conversation in regard to Organizational Change. In the previous episode, they discussed the first two steps proposed by the ADKAR Model for Change Management (Awareness and Desire), and today they follow with Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement.

Key Takeaways

• What does Knowledge Building look like?
• • Training and education are needed to help people get the knowledge they are going to need to be successful in this change.
  • The mindset component is a major part of an Agile Transformation; this mindset involves a different way to approach business and the delivery of a product.
• Dan and Adam talk about the “Follow the rules” approach.
• • There has to be some knowledge acquisition before “learning by doing.”
  • Formal training is very helpful (videos, books, classroom training).
  • A potential pitful is not giving adequate time or resources to allow the knowledge acquisition to really take place.
• See one, do one, teach one.
• • When someone teaches others they start to learn what they are teaching in a better way.
• Knowledge and Ability are tied together.
• • Knowing something needs to go along with being able to do it.
  • Acquiring more knowledge and improving abilities grow together.
  • Feedback is crucial to increasing someone’s ability to solve a problem.
  • Failing safely is part of learning.
  • Adam and Dan share on gradually increasing knowledge and ability from an enterprise perspective within a safe environment that fosters change.
• The Reinforcement piece.
• • Celebrate examples of the change.
  • Be happy and excited about the change.
  • By reinforcing you are creating more awareness!
  • Rewarding people is necessary. (Bonuses matter!)
  • Public celebrations and peer-to-peer recognition are effective ways of reinforcement.

Want to Learn More or Get in Touch?

Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com!

Email your thoughts or suggestions to [email protected] or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!

This week, Dan Neumann is joined by Adam Ulery to accompany you on Christmas Eve in an Agile way. This time of the year is for reflection, to be grateful about the blessing of the year as well as a time to think about what wants to be changed and improved.

This episode is the first of two where Adam and Dan talk about organizational change management and present the steps involved in the ADKAR Method: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement as they dive deep into the first two steps: Awareness and Desire.

Key Takeaways

• Annual goals or New Year’s resolutions?
• • Time for reflection and forward planning.
  • New Year’s resolutions tend to be pleading kinds of decisions and they tend to be abandoned during the year.
• Organizational Change Management.
• • Real change management is needed to achieve effective change.
  • ADKAR Method: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement.
• Waterfall Project Management.
• • If you don’t understand the change or the need for it, you won’t support it.
  • What is the nature of the change?
  • People really need to understand why the change is necessary (Awareness).
  • Top leadership needs to communicate how the change is aligned with the direction and the strategy of the company.
• What are some ways of building Awareness?
• • There needs to be Awareness of the nature of the change.
  • Marketing people can be in charge of the communication of the change as well as HR.
  • In-person events are important to communicate change.
• Awareness building even before there is a brand to build.
• • One-on-one conversations are useful to anticipate the change coming.
  • Awareness is the key first step (and it’s surprising how often this step is skipped).
• Desire: Why should I change the tasks that I do on an everyday basis?
• • Dan tells a professional experience about change, awareness, and desire.
  • Long feedback loops are obstacles and cause struggle; shortening them provides tremendous value.
  • How can you build desire for people “in the middle”? Help them think about their personal goals, ambitions, and aspirations and explain some of the benefits involved in the upcoming change.

Want to Learn More or Get in Touch?

Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com!

Email your thoughts or suggestions to [email protected] or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!

This week, Agile Santa (Dan Neumann), your host, is joined by Hal Hogue, Misi Eyetsemitan, Alba Uribe, Rosemary Atanga, and Jesus Gerardo de la Fuente Garcia in this very special Christmas Special. Agile Santa is taking some Christmas requests from these very special coaches as well as listening to what they are grateful for about this year’s work.

Key Takeaways

● Gerardo tells Agile Santa his favorite part of this year’s work and what is on his Agile Santa list.

○ Having a global and multicultural team.

○ Team members have served their stakeholders, delivering value and outcomes, and also used the Sprint Reviews to showcase their work.

○ Gerardo wishes to be better at story mapping.

● Hal talks to Agile Santa.

○ Hal is grateful for working with people, getting involved with Agile teams, helping them understand the way behind the tasks they are working on, and growing as individuals, as teams, and even helping entire organizations with their own Agile Transformation.

○ Hal confesses that he struggles sometimes with being judgmental, so he has been reminding himself to be curious instead.

○ Hal wishes he could know his clients and coworkers personally, on a more human level.

● Elf Misi presents Coach Alba who shares her wishes with Agile Santa.

○ Alba wishes to have organizations embrace an Agile Mindset, understanding all the value that Agile can bring.

● Elf Misi introduces Rosemary to Agile Santa and she shares her Christmas wishes with him.

○ Rosemary has been a good coach, looking after everybody on her team, making sure they are doing what they are supposed to do, and giving them the support that they needed.

○ Rosemary wishes Agile Santa makes real all the outstanding things Agile Teams are waiting to happen.

○ Rosemary asks for consistent encouragement and motivation.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Agile Team Building Activity

Want to Learn More or Get in Touch?

Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com!

Email your thoughts or suggestions to [email protected] or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!

This week, Dan Neumann is joined by Ola Tunde to talk about Agile Leadership; this is certainly a recurrent topic, but a needed one, since it is easy not to really have leadership in place as part of an Agile Journey or even some organizations’ leaders don’t really know how to contribute.

In this episode, Ola and Dan share the differences between a manager and a leader, and the features that define a great leader, as the necessary piece for an organization to really thrive.

Key Takeaways

• Managers are not necessarily leaders.
• • A leader draws people, a manager forces them.
• Agility is a better way of doing what you have been already been doing.
• • A good leader is the picture of Agility within the organization that the people can follow. A leader must model the behavior wanted in the organization, exhibiting principles and values that others should follow, too.
  • A Leader is the one who knows, goes, and shows the way.
  • Without a great leader, an organization can not thrive.
• A leader must always pay attention to the human factor.
• • It is the responsibility of a leader to attract, retain, and even develop new talent that will fulfill the organization’s vision.
  • Not everyone would be the right fit for an organization.
  • Leaders who are emotional and who are not fully devoted to the people they are serving will cause the organization nothing but commotion.
  • Sometimes a leader must be ready to adjust the ways to maintain the vision when it is needed.
  • People are not resources.
• The three things leaders focus on:
• • Setting direction.
  • Inspiring commitment.
  • Building capacity.

Mentioned in this Episode:

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You, by John C. Maxwell

Agile Marketing: From Waterfall to Water Flow, by Konstantinos Giamalis 

Want to Learn More or Get in Touch?

Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com!

Email your thoughts or suggestions to [email protected] or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!

This week, Dan Neumann is joined by the AgileThought colleague Jesus Gerardo De La Fuente Garcia to continue the conversation started in Episode 159 about the many hats of a Scrum Master. In the previous episode, they dove deep into the role of a Scrum Master as a teacher and today you will hear their discussion about the roles of mentor and Coach.

In this episode, Gerardo outlines the differences between mentoring and coaching, explaining the various functions a Scrum Master assumes in each of these roles.

Key Takeaways

• What does a Scrum Master’s coaching position look like?
• • Coaching begins when the team understands the why and the what, behind their everyday practices.
  • A Scrum Master as a Coach opens space for his/her team to experiment, he/she shows new perspectives and possibilities, but before these are possible, there needs to be a relationship based on trust.
  • A Scrum Master needs to stimulate a culture of continuous improvement as well as to support the team in problem-solving and conflict resolution.
  • A Coach helps to change attitudes, mindsets, and behaviors that restrict the team to perform in the best way possible.
  • Giving open and honest feedback is also the chore of a Coach.
  • A Scrum Master should support and encourage collaboration with the Scrum Teams.
• A Scrum Master as a Mentor
• • The team has a full understanding of the values and principles, and in a way, they have the same knowledge as a Coach.
  • A mentor is an inspiration to others and guides people to personal and professional growth.
  • A mentor needs to be ready to serve others before his or herself.
  • A mentor helps the team to become more and more resilient.
  • A Scrum Master as a mentor finds what motivates each member of the team and helps them to identify their own goals.
  • A Mentor promotes these three habits: Thinking, Feeling, and Executing.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition, by Lyssa Adkins

Want to Learn More or Get in Touch?

Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com!

Email your thoughts or suggestions to [email protected] or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!

This week, Dan Neumann is joined by a first-time guest and AgileThought colleague Jesus Gerardo De La Fuente Garcia. Thanksgiving is here, and a lot of what Coaches and Scrum Masters do is about giving.

In this episode, Dan and Gerardo dive deep into the role of a Scrum Master as a teacher, leaving for a future episode the two other roles, being one as a coach and the other as a mentor. They explain the meaning of a team, the values implied in it, and how a Scrum Master can foster a safe environment for a team to thrive.

Key Takeaways

• How is giving perceived by a Scrum Master?
• • Scrum Masters are in a great position to help others to be successful.
  • A Scrum Master can cover three important positions: Coach, Teacher, and Mentor.
• What does it mean to be a team?
• • Clear is kind: It is a great way to start to clarify the principles and values of the Scrum Framework for the team to know, not only what they are doing, but why they are doing it. Then they can start to share identity as team members.
  • Working in collaboration to achieve a shared goal effectively.
  • Listening to other team members.
  • Taking everybody’s ideas under consideration.
  • Accountability and candid respect need to be present at all times among team members.
  • Sharing best practices as well as the bad habits that need to be avoided.
  • A team needs to be taught how to be self-organized and be able to make decisions when needed.
• A gift that a Scrum Master can give to a team is having fun!
• • Strengthening collaboration bonds and enhancing the team spirit.
  • Using mindful techniques and games can help to bring a team together.
  • Every member is a crucial part of the team.
• Thankfulness
• • Nothing is for granted; gratefulness needs to be practiced at all times.
  • Openness and trust given by team members are well appreciated.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Scrum Mastery: From Good to Great Servant-Leadership, by Geoff Watts

Want to Learn More or Get in Touch?

Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com!

Email your thoughts or suggestions to [email protected] or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!

This week, the United States will be celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday. In this last installment of our Thanksgiving-related short episodes, Hal Hogue shares what he is thankful for. Have a fantastic Thanksgiving!

This week, the United States will be celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday. In this installment of our Thanksgiving episodes, Erik Lindgren shares what he is thankful for.

This week, the United States will be celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday. In this first installment of our Thanksgiving episodes, Lucy Lin shares what she is thankful for.