Here's This Agile Thing

In this episode we discuss the Agile Coaches Alliance. The Alliance is a group of Scrum Alliance certified coaches who observe and certify organizations and teams as agile.

We explore the benefits of certification for organizations and coaches, as well as the potential controversies surrounding the subjectivity of the observation process and the misrepresentation of organizations claiming to be agile.

They also discuss the possibility of expanding the Alliance to include coaches certified by other organizations. The conversation concludes with a reflection on the importance of a strong foundation in agile practices.

This week’s conversation is about the concept of mental models in agile development.

A mental model is an individual's explanation of their thought process about how something works in the real world. It's a representation of the surrounding world, relationships between the various parts and a person's intuitive perceptions about their own acts and their consequences. Different individuals can have different mental models, and this can lead to misunderstandings and miscommunications.

As Agile coaches, part of our job is to introduce new mental models and help individuals recognize the ones that are not conducive to what they're trying to achieve. It's important to remember that a mental model is not reality, but a representation of reality, and that the map is not the territory.

Links:

Product Management Mental Models for Everyone | by Brandon Chu | The Black Box of Product Management (blackboxofpm.com)