Badass Agile

The only way to create a culture of trust, and to fully leverage the power of teams, is to make sure you keep promises you make.

* Keeping promises is a crucial component of building tight teams.  Everyone pledges, few are truly good to their word

* Use the words ‘promise’ and ‘committments’ in the team room instead of ‘task’ - it tends to carry more weight

* Use the stand up to track these promises - the three questions then become “what promises did you keep yesterday”, "what promises do you make today”, and “what prevents you from keeping your promises”

* Think of improvement items in retrospectices as promises - from team member to team member

* Try using a daily team promise or committment

What can we learn from the sweet science?

* I learned more from boxing than anywhere else

* Team sports are great, and obviously applicable, but when it comes to leadership being the best, nothing calls on your character, strength and will like a good old 1-1

* Defence, of self-protection, does not win a fight.  There are no points for safety.

* You have to go slow to get fast.   Tension and fear ruins absolutely everything

* Find a good cornerman

* Look for opportunities.  Finding and fixing your gaps, and finding and exploiting HIS gaps are the key to success.

* Be patient, graceful, and stay in the fight.  That way, even when you lose you win.

What can we learn from the sweet science?

* I learned more from boxing than anywhere else

* Team sports are great, and obviously applicable, but when it comes to leadership being the best, nothing calls on your character, strength and will like a good old 1-1

* Defence, of self-protection, does not win a fight.  There are no points for safety.

* You have to go slow to get fast.   Tension and fear ruins absolutely everything

* Find a good cornerman

* Look for opportunities.  Finding and fixing your gaps, and finding and exploiting HIS gaps are the key to success.

* Be patient, graceful, and stay in the fight.  That way, even when you lose you win.

* There’s so much focus on frameworks and subtlety of practice

*

* Frameworks - definitions of roles, processes, interactions, flows, inputs and outputs

* Subtleties - prescriptive techniques and tools

* Frameworks Don’t fix Fear.  They attempt to compensate for it, and fail

* Frameworks are expensive.   So are elite teams.  We shouldn’t try to build them across an entire enterprise and

* Subtlety and Complexity really only feeds the cash register

* I think we should focus on something more organic.

*

* Vision

* Courage

* Influence

* Focus

* High-Performance Teams

* Focus on the fundamentals - the Agile Keys.  The things that make great work no matter what arena

*

* Have a Vision

* Prioritize

* Do Focused Work

* Keep Promises

* Be Open about where you are

* Always Improve

* Great Leadership, and the Will to Execute, come from the Gut

* Frameworks are more safeguard than meaningful work.  If you need safeguards, why not learn and build as you go?

* In 6 months, would you rather roll out a safety framework, or product that works?

* There’s so much focus on frameworks and subtlety of practice

*

* Frameworks - definitions of roles, processes, interactions, flows, inputs and outputs

* Subtleties - prescriptive techniques and tools

* Frameworks Don’t fix Fear.  They attempt to compensate for it, and fail

* Frameworks are expensive.   So are elite teams.  We shouldn’t try to build them across an entire enterprise and

* Subtlety and Complexity really only feeds the cash register

* I think we should focus on something more organic.

*

* Vision

* Courage

* Influence

* Focus

* High-Performance Teams

* Focus on the fundamentals - the Agile Keys.  The things that make great work no matter what arena

*

* Have a Vision

* Prioritize

* Do Focused Work

* Keep Promises

* Be Open about where you are

* Always Improve

* Great Leadership, and the Will to Execute, come from the Gut

* Frameworks are more safeguard than meaningful work.  If you need safeguards, why not learn and build as you go?

* In 6 months, would you rather roll out a safety framework, or product that works?

Magic matters.  I was having a conversation today and I realized some of the most impactful things that I do with my team have nothing to do with coaching Agile.  It’s not teaching them Scrum techniques, which they could easily learn on their own.  Of course this is an important part of what I do, but none of that stuff builds better teams.  At all.

* There are parts of my job that come down to voodoo.  Things that appear in exactly zero agile texts, and barely in the leadership canon either

* The truth is we hate this stuff.  It scares us to talk about things that aren’t quantifiable

* The groomed leader would have you believe that a deep knowledge of the art and science of business plus some natural breeding is what makes a great leader

* Others are more comfortable thinking that great leadership can be learned.  Both are a little bit true

* The one thing I do that grabs more attention than any other is an ability to read people, lock down their core essence, and even predict their next move, sometimes after only one meeting.

* If you think about it, this is a badass trait.  The badass just has your number.  He calls you out on your bullshit.  He may be inarticulate but he still has you dead to rights.  It’s almost like he has a street wisdom that no amount of education or social grace could substitute for.

* That’s kind of true.   Our animal heritage actually gives us all the equipment we need to read people.  Being able to observe, distinguish patterns and then observe variations from those patterns and being able to assemble a complete picture from a person’s words, body movements and postures AND microexpressions is how we detect threats

* Can you learn this?  First you have to learn to observe people, which means taking the focus off yourself and putting on the other.  Next is knowing where to look and when.

* I believe in learning skills from the people who are the absoulute best at what they do - they understand their craft and can do it more accurately and faster than anyone else

* In this field, law enforcement agents and interviewers - also customs agents have the best knowledge.  Check out books from some of these guys.

* Here are some tips.

* Posture - Open versus closed.  Open means upright, expansive, and not protecting the vital organs.   Crossed legs, crossed arms, or covered body parts (neck, chest, sides, groin) indicate fear and discomfort.

* Eye contact

* Fidgeting and movement

* Automatic responses - dry mouth, dilated pupils, sweating, over-explaining or repeating

* Of course you have to get comfortable enough to be an observer yourself but 90% of people don’t really bother to observe consciously.  HOWEVER - whether you know it or not, every persons reacts subconsciously to these cues.   That’s why its so important for a badass to practice the right ones.

* Look for baselines.  If they’re always like this, they might just be anxious people or nervous in groups.   What’s illustrative is how a person’s behaviour changes in different situations.

* Watch for this very closely in leaders or people you are trying to negotiate or bargain with.  It can give you tremendous competitive advantage if you know how to do it right.

* If you want to build trust, do two simple things.   Mirror and Echo.

Magic matters.  I was having a conversation today and I realized some of the most impactful things that I do with my team have nothing to do with coaching Agile.  It’s not teaching them Scrum techniques, which they could easily learn on their own.  Of course this is an important part of what I do, but none of that stuff builds better teams.  At all.

* There are parts of my job that come down to voodoo.  Things that appear in exactly zero agile texts, and barely in the leadership canon either

* The truth is we hate this stuff.  It scares us to talk about things that aren’t quantifiable

* The groomed leader would have you believe that a deep knowledge of the art and science of business plus some natural breeding is what makes a great leader

* Others are more comfortable thinking that great leadership can be learned.  Both are a little bit true

* The one thing I do that grabs more attention than any other is an ability to read people, lock down their core essence, and even predict their next move, sometimes after only one meeting.

* If you think about it, this is a badass trait.  The badass just has your number.  He calls you out on your bullshit.  He may be inarticulate but he still has you dead to rights.  It’s almost like he has a street wisdom that no amount of education or social grace could substitute for.

* That’s kind of true.   Our animal heritage actually gives us all the equipment we need to read people.  Being able to observe, distinguish patterns and then observe variations from those patterns and being able to assemble a complete picture from a person’s words, body movements and postures AND microexpressions is how we detect threats

* Can you learn this?  First you have to learn to observe people, which means taking the focus off yourself and putting on the other.  Next is knowing where to look and when.

* I believe in learning skills from the people who are the absoulute best at what they do - they understand their craft and can do it more accurately and faster than anyone else

* In this field, law enforcement agents and interviewers - also customs agents have the best knowledge.  Check out books from some of these guys.

* Here are some tips.

* Posture - Open versus closed.  Open means upright, expansive, and not protecting the vital organs.   Crossed legs, crossed arms, or covered body parts (neck, chest, sides, groin) indicate fear and discomfort.

* Eye contact

* Fidgeting and movement

* Automatic responses - dry mouth, dilated pupils, sweating, over-explaining or repeating

* Of course you have to get comfortable enough to be an observer yourself but 90% of people don’t really bother to observe consciously.  HOWEVER - whether you know it or not, every persons reacts subconsciously to these cues.   That’s why its so important for a badass to practice the right ones.

* Look for baselines.  If they’re always like this, they might just be anxious people or nervous in groups.   What’s illustrative is how a person’s behaviour changes in different situations.

* Watch for this very closely in leaders or people you are trying to negotiate or bargain with.  It can give you tremendous competitive advantage if you know how to do it right.

* If you want to build trust, do two simple things.   Mirror and Echo.

Failure is initially perceived as a bad word - especially for new agile teams, and especially in ‘vintage’ cultures.  Fear of failure is well over half of the cause of the Resistance.  Avoiding failure will cost your teams and business - because you will spend all of your precious time and money planning for perfection to avoid it.  The secret is to flip your thinking on failure immediately, and this requires the skill of a coach to keep people from panicking, backsliding and even turning against one another.

* The biggest cultural block when starting agile is that fear of failure

* Mastery of Failure is a badass trait

* Most other people will need some practice and exposure to feel ok with failure

* As they learn, your job is to shield them from negative side effects

* You can’t stage failure - you have to go through some as a team (because the only way to know about failure in advance is to plan excessively for them)

* Once experienced, all that is needed is a) a commitment not to repeat it and b) an enthusiasm to look for the next one

Failure is initially perceived as a bad word - especially for new agile teams, and especially in ‘vintage’ cultures.  Fear of failure is well over half of the cause of the Resistance.  Avoiding failure will cost your teams and business - because you will spend all of your precious time and money planning for perfection to avoid it.  The secret is to flip your thinking on failure immediately, and this requires the skill of a coach to keep people from panicking, backsliding and even turning against one another.

* The biggest cultural block when starting agile is that fear of failure

* Mastery of Failure is a badass trait

* Most other people will need some practice and exposure to feel ok with failure

* As they learn, your job is to shield them from negative side effects

* You can’t stage failure - you have to go through some as a team (because the only way to know about failure in advance is to plan excessively for them)

* Once experienced, all that is needed is a) a commitment not to repeat it and b) an enthusiasm to look for the next one

In environments where we can’t control how the team is composed, how can we control the team’s attitude, commitment and performance?   The culture you create has a lot to do with it.

* We think incorrectly about teams.  The way the team functions is perhaps more important than any other component of agile.  If the team is not bonded, aligned and committed, they’re not going to accept agile principles or scrum techniques, and it probably wouldn’t help much if they did.

* Although teams are made of primarily non-leadership people, organizational leadership alone determines the health of the team

* The leaders create the culture that allows the team to function well, or to condemn it to failure

* Teams need the same things all individuals need - to be Safe, Free, and Supported

* As an agile leader, you can help promote this by creating a Team Creed

* Team Creed can include the teams purpose, but also our code of conduct or behaviours

* The creed should be advanced by the agile leader as a template and baseline, but evolved by the team to help buy-in