We talk to Chris Stone - The Virtual Agile coach, about the Agile Manifesto, humans as resources, depression and more.

Chris's bio:

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙑𝙞𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡 𝘼𝙜𝙞𝙡𝙚 𝘾𝙤𝙖𝙘𝙝, Agile Evangelist / Agile Transformation Lead / Scrum Master possessing over 8 years experience within the IT industry.

𝘾𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙧 & 𝙐𝙨𝙚𝙧 𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙩𝙮, in my opinion should be critical to why we do things and how we choose to do them. In terms of metrics I subscribe to, you'll hear me talk less often about 'velocity' and 'lead times', and more about 'Days since last user engagement'. This to me is a more powerful metric, keeps us anchored to our vision and the problems we're trying to solve, and ensure we're frequently checking that we're on the right course.

I firmly believe in fostering an environment of autonomy for the teams and people I work. 𝙄 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙩 𝙢𝙮 𝙟𝙤𝙗 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙢𝙮𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛 𝙧𝙚𝙙𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙖𝙣𝙩. If a team, or organisation are no longer reliant upon my input or support, I've been a success in my role.

Nobody should feel like Jira ticket machines. I actively seek for teams I work with to be presented with problems, challenges or opportunities with outcomes rather than pre-determined solutions. Those delivering the work 'in the trenches' are the experts and are best equipped to deliver the desired outcome.

I challenge those I work with to continually experiment, build hypotheses, predict an expected outcome, attempt something and learn by contrasting the actual vs expected outcomes. This isn't limited to software solutions, but also to processes & ways of working.

I don't expect perfection. People make mistakes, experiments don't go as planned. 𝙒𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙚-𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙜𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙 '𝙁𝙖𝙞𝙡𝙪𝙧𝙚' 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙩 𝙖𝙨 𝙖 '𝙇𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜'. If mistakes happen or things don't go to plan, learn from them and approach things differently next time. I aspire for those I work with to feel safe / brave enough to admit mistakes, "failures" or otherwise and leverage these as opportunities for improvement.

Follow Chris here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thevirtualagilecoach/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPkaxYqvk9rWDMo2KqKg0xQ
Twitter: https://twitter.com/virtual_agile
Website: https://www.thevirtualagilecoach.co.uk

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