The Daily Standup

Why Teams Matter More Than Ever for Innovation - Mike CohnA few years ago, I worked with a product team that was stuck.
They were smart, experienced, and deeply committed to building something meaningful. But despite their talent, their work felt...flat. They were completing tasks, but they weren’t creating anything truly innovative. They weren’t challenging each other’s thinking. They weren’t imagining possibilities beyond the obvious ones.
Then something shifted.
During a planning meeting, someone asked a question that reframed the whole discussion: “What problem are we really trying to solve?”
That question sparked a debate — a lively one — and within minutes, the room was buzzing with ideas none of them had considered before. They envisioned possibilities, challenged assumptions, pushed each other, and built on each other’s thinking. By the end of the meeting, they had the beginnings of a breakthrough.
What changed?
Not the people. Not the tools. Not the process.
What changed was the team, acting like a team again — sharing purpose, curiosity, and creativity.
And that’s when I was reminded of a simple truth:
Real innovation happens when people think together.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

The Secret Ingredient Every Agile Team NeedsI still remember the sprint retrospective that changed everything.One of our quietest developer, had been silent for three retrospectives straight.
But this time, she raised her hand. “I think our deployment process is broken,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “And I have an idea to fix it.”The room went quiet.
In my previous teams, this would have been the moment when someone senior would have shut down the conversation with a dismissive “We’ve always done it this way.”
But not here. Not anymore.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

5 Agile Project Management Red Flags That Scream “You’re Doomed”🚩 Red Flag #1: Nobody Knows Who Owns What🚩 Red Flag #2: The Plan Lives in Someone’s Head🚩 Red Flag #3: Deadlines Keep Moving… And Nobody Knows Why🚩 Red Flag #4: Meetings = Group Therapy🚩 Red Flag #5: “We Don’t Have Time” for RisksHow to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Light The World - Giving Machines🌟 The Red Tag That Changed EverythingA Short Story Inspired by the “Light the World” Giving MachinesEmily had passed the red Giving Machine twice already that afternoon.Once on her way into the mall for Christmas shopping, once again as she hurried out with bags on both arms. People were gathered around it—smiling, taking turns, scanning cards. It looked like a vending machine, but instead of candy or soda, pictures of goats, clean water kits, school supplies, and warm blankets flashed across the screen.She wanted to stop.
She also wanted to pretend she didn’t see it.Money was tight this year.
She had three kids at home, a car that always needed something, and a December calendar full of expenses. “Maybe next year,” she whispered to herself.But right as she passed for the third time, she felt a tug at her coat sleeve.“Mom,” her son Noah said, breathless, “can we look? Just look?”She hesitated—but something in his face softened her worry. They walked slowly up to the Giving Machine together.Noah’s eyes grew wide.“Mom! You can buy a chicken for someone! Or shoes! Or medicine! Or… a whole WATER well?!” His voice was full of amazement, the kind that only eight-year-olds can summon.He pointed to a $5 option—a hygiene kit.“Someone could really use that, right?”She nodded. Someone could.Noah dug into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled handful of coins and dollar bills. His allowance from the week.“Can I give mine? I want someone to feel good today.”In that moment, something inside Emily melted.
She could give. Maybe not a well. Maybe not livestock. But she could give with her son.Together, they tapped the screen.
A small card printed at the bottom: “1 Hygiene Kit – Donated.”As the card slid into the tray, Noah held it like a treasure.“Mom,” he whispered, “We actually helped someone.”Emily swallowed hard.
The mall suddenly felt brighter, the world warmer—not because she’d spent money, but because she’d witnessed her child discover the joy of giving.They walked out hand-in-hand, bags swinging, hearts full.That night, before bed, Noah taped the little red donation card to his bedroom door. Beneath it he wrote in shaky letters:“Next year: a chicken.”How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Definition of Done - More Than Just a ChecklistAfter one too many release debates (and a few emotional retros), I realized the problem wasn’t our process — it was our definition.
“Done” meant 10 different things to 10 different people.
Developers meant “code merged”.
QA meant “tests passed”.
Product meant “feature shipped”.
Ops meant “logs don’t scream”.So I built a checklist — not to create bureaucracy, but to create peace.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

We’re doing Scrum. Why does everything take so long to finish?
For many teams, delivery bogs down because of the way individuals approach the work itself.
Most teams are still working in a sequence: one person finishes their part, hands it off, and then the next person begins. Designers wait for analysis to finish. Developers wait for designs. Testers wait for the code to be done. Everyone’s optimizing for their own efficiency — but the team as a whole slows down.
That might feel to individuals like the “right” way to work, but it comes with real costs:
 

• Mistakes go unnoticed until late in the process — and keep happening until then.
• Too much work is started toward the end of the sprint, creating bottlenecks and delays, which means features take longer to reach your users, and feedback takes longer to reach the team.
• Time to market, or time to value, is extended.

Even when teams are doing “agile” on the surface, these large handoffs are the opposite of how an agile team works.
To deliver value quickly, team members have to learn to stop waiting for someone else to finish before they start–in other words, they need to overlap work.
When one type of task looks like it’s dependent on another type of task, teams accustomed to overlapping work find ways to begin the second task before the first is completed. Coders start coding while the designer is still designing. Testers start creating tests even while the coder is coding.
Why do teams cling to this outdated way of working?
When teams first try working this way, many team members resist it. They’re used to holding on to their work until it’s perfect and “ready.” They might find the idea of overlapping work to be too messy and inefficient.
Consider, for example, a tester. To be as efficient as possible, this tester would like to begin testing only after coding is complete. To test any earlier risks repeating work by re-running, or even re-designing, tests.
What these team members need to realize is that optimizing for the efficiency of any one role prolongs the amount of time it takes to complete each new feature.
 
Overlapping work is key to working in an agile way.
For example, imagine that a developer is building a search results page for an eCommerce site. The page allows users to filter results by product attributes such as size, color, and more. Results can also be sorted by price, popularity, rating, and so on. If a programmer develops all of that before handing it over to a tester then no work has overlapped.
If, however, the programmer handed it to the tester in pieces then testing could overlap with programming. The programmer could, for example, provide the tester with a version of the page without filtering or sorting. While a tester checks that, the developer adds filtering by size. Then color. Then sorting. The work overlaps — and everything moves faster.
Two simple ways to encourage this way of working:
Ask teams to shrink task size. Breaking big tasks into bite-sized pieces makes it easier for roles to overlap and collaborate. As handoffs get smaller, collaboration gets easier.
Try swarming. Swarming is an extreme form of overlapping work that helps teams learn to let go of a “my work, your work” mindset and sequential “finish-to-start” mentality. When a team swarms, the whole team focuses on just one (or maybe two) items at a time.
I’m not suggesting swarming as a long-term solution or the optimal way to work. It’s a temporary, artificial constraint on work in process designed to force teams to find new ways to collaborate and move faster together. The goal is to remove the limit later, and have team members continue to apply the lessons they learned when they were forced to over-collaborate.
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4 Steps to Building a Product StrategyThis is the process I use and have taken dozens of product leaders and founders through to build their product strategy.It’s deliberately designed to be lightweight, flexible but not a checklist.This means there’s a lot of work that you still need to do. Rather than trying to ask you to fill-in-the-blanks like “what’s your unique value prop” or “target customer” you’re going to have to do the work to consider what inputs and decisions are important in your context.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Sprint Planning or Sprint Guessing?Welcome to sprint planning — that magical 90-minute meeting (that always becomes 3 hours) where:

• Developers turn into psychics
• Product managers become game show hosts
• Product owners stare into a backlog like it’s a crystal ball

Sound familiar?For many Agile teams, sprint planning isn’t the crisp, focused ritual described in books. It’s often more ambiguous, chaotic, and filled with guessing than anyone wants to admit.So… are you really planning? Or just giving your best estimate in a business suit?How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

The Light on Maple Street — A Holiday Story About Small Acts That Become EverythingIt started with one string of lights.Maple Street was the kind of block where porches still had rocking chairs and everyone knew which mailboxes belonged to which dog. In late November, between the first frost and the rush of the season, the Wilsons put up a single strand of blue bulbs across their porch. They’d just lost a little money that month — a car repair, a missed shift — and the lights were the smallest, cheapest way to say, “We’re here. We’ll try.”On Tuesday a neighbor named Rosa walked by with her kids and stopped. “Those lights make the whole block look cozy,” she said. She dropped a thermos of cocoa at the Wilsons’ door — a thank you for the lights, she said — and left a handwritten note that read: “For the nights when things feel dim.”That note stayed on the porch through rain and the first snow. People started to notice it: the teenager who left a bag of dog food, the retired teacher who put a stack of winter scarves on the bench, the teenage boy who shoveled the Wilsons’ walkway without being asked. One house added a cheap wreath. Another strung a second strand of lights. Then one night, the whole block blinked on like a small constellation: a neighbor had borrowed lights from a friend, another had fixed the broken extension cord, and Maple Street was suddenly a warm ribbon of color seen from three houses away.Word got out. A woman from across town — one of those people who kept a list of local good deeds — saw the photos on a neighborhood group and showed up with a box of food. The church two blocks over called around and quietly matched families who had extra with families who had less. A local small business owner left a stack of gift cards for people who might need them. None of it was loud. None of it was orchestrated. It was a thousand tiny nervous yeses — people doing the sort of small, awkward, neighborly thing that begins with “I don’t know if this helps, but….”At the center of it were the Wilsons. Mr. Wilson had been quiet for weeks — the kind of quiet that didn’t get better with “how are yous.” He had been avoiding the mail, the phone, and, for a while, the very idea that the world still held space for him. The lights were small, but every night when he came home, he found someone had cleared his walkway or taped an encouraging note to his door. The pile of kindnesses wasn’t a single miracle; it was a slow, steady stitch that rewove the frayed edges of his life.On the Saturday before Christmas, there was a knock on the Wilsons’ door at 6 a.m. It was cold. The teenager from next door stood there with a thermos and a grin. Behind him, whole families appeared — neighbors in boots, kids still in pajamas, people holding casseroles, scarves, and a hand-written flyer that said, simply: “Maple Street Holiday Potluck — Everyone Welcome.” They set up folding tables on the sidewalk and, because it is a holiday and because it was Maple Street, two dozen people who had never sat at the same table shared coffee and casseroles and stories. Someone had fixed the Wilsons' ancient radio. Someone else had printed out a photo album of the street’s year: broken steps mended, birthdays celebrated, small triumphs memorialized in Polaroids.Mr. Wilson cried. Not a long, dramatic thing. A short, honest surprised sound, the kind you make when you realize you’ve been seen. He stood up and said, “I didn’t know you all would do this.” No speech, no grand reveal — just the quiet gratitude of a man who had been given back a sense of belonging.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

So, what does a Project Manager actually do?Ah, the eternal question. What does a PM actually do?Well, most people think it’s the easiest job in the world — after all, you just tell everyone else what to do, right?Sure, if you also enjoy being the middle child in a family of stress-addicted workaholics with a taste for crises.In the last decade or so, I’ve worked in everything from Fortune 500 companies (you know, those lovely corporate havens where everyone’s too busy pretending to be productive) to fast-moving startups (where the idea of “sleep” is a myth).Every time I casually mention my job, I get the same baffled response: “So, what exactly do you do?”Let’s break it down, because clearly, that’s the only way to get it across.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/