There are two kinds of Ice breakers – here are some examples of each from the episode:

Ice breakers with purpose – questions that force people to think about their personal vision

Ice breakers that just break the ice

As you are spreading agile within your organization or to clients, you’re going to be doing a lot of marketing and demonstrating. Something you’ll need to get good at doing quickly and without a script – or even much background – is converting a client vision into a backlog.

Efficiency is not about Doing More Things. You can work less, but direct your best energies toward IMPORTANT things – the highest priority things – and make a greater impact.

You have to make sure your actions are backed by Intention – knowing what you intend to achieve with each action (how do you know if it’s complete? If its done right?) and knowing how each action rolls up to your greater vision/objective.

Too often we fail to make time for this and just let the currents of our daily work take us to this meeting or that….whatever others determine we should be involved in. We basically let others decide the course of our day.

Not anymore.

In addition to our weekly release, we’re adding a short, unscripted contemplation of whatever is happening this week in Agile – whether its current events, musings on the industry, things I’m experiencing with clients – whatever grabs me. I plan to release these on Wednesdays and Fridays as time permits SO MAKE SURE you’ve subscribed to the Badass Agile podcast in your favourite player.

For our first episode, I go a little deeper on Magic Bullets – why keeping things simple is important and why you have to remember that Agile is but a tool in the toolbox.

This is an open letter to all Agile implementers and leaders. Are you trying to fit a square peg into a round hole?