Badass Agile

So Your Agile Practice is Broken.  Your Centre of Excellence Isn’t Excellent.  Your teams are not moving with agility, and your product is not faster, nor cheaper, nor better.   This isn’t what we were promised.  What Happened?

* Until you trust people and let them do excellent work that inspires them, the rest of Agile/Scrum won’t bring you any benefit at all.

* Empowered teams = trusting your people

* Trusting People means letting them find their passion, letting them set their own targets and measures, letting them create solutions, making them free to fail and motivating people by making them excellent

How do you take the elegance and simplicity of Agile and apply to complex, large scale organizations?

If you are starting with an in-flight team, and trying to get them more agile, the easiest place to start is the stand up.   It’s the smallest, the most frequent, AND the most important ceremony for moving work forward.  Start there, and then build the other practices by gradually introducing backlogs, sprints, planning, and maintenance.   You can fold in retrospectives and sprint reviews,  Start by aggressively cutting waste – getting an hour down to 15 minutes or less by the end of the week –   To do that, you need to know how to own the room.

There’s only one reason you should listen to this podcast.  If you want to learn Agile technique or get opinions on the latest developments…there are so many shows and resources that do that extremely well.  But if you’re interested in how the study of Agile mindset can create massive returns not just for the companies you work for, but for the people who live and work in them, how you can bring fulfilment and return autonomy to its rightful place - the hearts and minds of the people you meet and work with every day, then there’s only one place for you.  That’s right here on the Badass Agile Podcast.

* I'm not particularly devoted to Agile itself...knowing that it will probably be replaced at some point

* I'm more successful at helping people find the things that make them awesome - happy, fulfilled, and figuring out how to get them more of that.

* When I do, they become better at whetever their job may be, and subsequently add way more value to their company and clients

* The point is....care about people.  It's simple, it's sappy, but it works.

As leaders, it is enough to instruct, motivate or even inspire people to meet a list of yearly targets?  Or is there a different kind of leader?  Someone who breaks through what was previously considered possible?

* I frequently talk about elite leadership; the idea that there is a special kind of leader, called to make a remarkable difference in their teams, organizations and communities

* A life of distinction implies you are constantly looking to break the 4-minute mile; to do the impossible; the things everyone says can’t be done.  To change the world forever.

* Strive to raise the bar, to disrupt the status quo.

* Being a leader of distinction requires tremendous strength and the ability to weather the constant fight.  Adopt agile mindsets and habits, and apply them to your daily life.

* Similarly, seek to break habits that keep you bound to the status quo.  Challenge conventional thinking and routines.

* Teach your teams to examine their habits too, and to break 1 new bad one and integrate one new good one each month.

The word ‘visionary’ is possibly quite overused.  Is vision enough to create an elite leader, and to find success in increasingly difficult agile landscapes?

* Vision, as applied to leaders, implies that their ability to see a clear version of the future is enough to make them worth following

* It is the desire to serve, to make the world better, that validates the vision

* The difference is the motive to give, rather than to get

What is Agile anyway?  And what does it mean to ‘make an organization Agile?

* There’s a lot of confusion around the terms - Agile versus Scrum, Philosophy versus Practices

* Agile consists of 12 Principles - and we’ve gotten away from most of them.

* Agile itself doesn’t prescribe any practices ,and we should be careful around anything that does.

* We need to focus on fundamentals.  To make Agile work for our customers, we have to honour first the promise to make software delivery better for teams, clients and products.

We fear right action because of the consequences imposed by those who are truly fearful.  There is a courage deficit in society, especially in business. and if you want to stand out like a badass, you need courage.

* Why is courage important

* What is courage - action in the face of fear

* What is the source of the fear - its fear of bodily harm, but that has evolved to more abstract fears like social anxiety, fear of failure etc

* How do you become more courageous

* Your reason for doing everything matters more than anything

* You have to control your breathing.  Your breath is a reflection of your internal state, but your breath also reflects your internal state.  If you can ship oxygen into the parts of the body that think there's danger....you will calm yourself down

* You have to control your mind - You have to know when you're experiencing fear in order to address it.

* Stress innoculation - you have to surround yourself with fear so you can get used to being in its presence and managing it.

The best way to get value is to give it - but what does that mean?  This week, we’ll look at how to think about value - to the world, to your clients, and to your team.

* All Transactions Have to Be About Value

* There are three areas where you have to know and strengthen your value:

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* Your Value to the World - your vision, your service to the world, your community, your industry

* Your Value to the Organization - your company, your client

* Your Value to the Team - And the individuals on it

* Understanding your value has power - it increases your success in job searches/sales, improves your networking, and it makes you more trustworthy and influential in leadership positions

Does Agile Need Leaders?   I mean, self-organizing teams and down with hierarchy and all….is there value in leadership, and what should it look like?  That’s this week, on the Badass Agile podcast.

* It’s time to update the podcast, tune the mission, and move into advanced topics

* Maybe we don’t like the sound of it, but we do need leaders

* Leaders set vision

* Leaders set the example

* Leaders facilitate

* In the real world, leaders do what needs to be done, They stand up against the unjust, ineffective, self-serving…and we need more of that - in life, and in work