Badass Agile

As a learning living leader, one of the first things that you need to sort out is how to be quiet and listen.

How to offer yourself as a broker of solutions, not as a dictator, or an originator of solutions.

As a leader, you are there to help people find their own best.  If they need support in difficult and anxious times, you are there. If they need help, resources – and they have the courage to ask for them – your job is to answer the call.

If they’re banging their heads against the wall, over the same problem over and over, your job is to knock down the walls and find ways to help them break through.

A cross-functional teem doesn’t require that everyone has technical skill. Simply being available to help is the only required trait – but it also requires that people know how to ask for help.

Learn more about how in this episode.

Do you want the challenge? When things get tough…do you rise to the occasion, or do you ask to make things easier?

Scrum teaches us that we have options in changing conditions – to ask for help, to change the scope or modify MVP. When you think about it, that’s another way of saying that we never, ever make excuses or fail the mission.

Looking for a formula to be successful with Agile?

Start with intention. Define the problem. – What does success look like? What experiment might work and what are the three things we can do today to move us closer to success? execute, take action, fail. Repeat.

That’s your formula.

With the toll, risk, and sacrifice of a global health crisis, we’re learning new things every day. Wouldn’t it be a shame if we did what we’ve always done – and forgotten them as soon as this is over? What’s the right way to handle our lessons learned?

Lessons have to be studied – properly documented, visited often, and put into practice – until you can truly say ‘you’ve got this’. We frequently hear that those “who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. Let’s remember in the days of COVID-19 that we are constantly learning about ourselves, each other, and the world around us. Let us not forgot those lessons by committing to learning from them. Likewise, in Scrum, we can’t just collect feedback and surveys, we owe it to our teams and clients to observe, document, and communicate the education we have earned through adversity.

This is our time.

Do you feel the call to lead?

We want to create an uncommon tribe that not only adapts and assists, but leads the way. Let us not be at the mercy of the changing times, but architects in our emergence from them. Our community needs to know the way. Our clients need to know the way.

When times are uncertain, be certainty.

Stay tuned to this podcast, along with my twitter (@badass_agile) and instagram (@badassagile) for your invitation to be part of something special.