April 30, 2018
We all coach, every day. Helping our kids be better. Working with our parents. Getting the most out of our team. Working with our peers. At some point, someone gives you that title of being a coach (maybe believe that you helped them over some mythical hurdle). But therein comes the confusion, because the end goal is never for the coach to become the “great imparter of knowledge”, but really their goal is to learn as much as they are giving.
April 24, 2018
Sprints are meant to roll-over from one to another, backlogs become unpacked, priorities reset, work assigned, new tasks created and the engine revs up for another lap around the track. But what if you don’t know where you are going? How often do you jump into a car having no idea what’s happening or where you are going? Not very often. How do you get your team on board with what is being delivered in the next sprint? Sit them down at your next stand-up for 15 minutes and walk them through the goals and contingencies if things go well
April 20, 2018
The Leader of the Stand-Up knows what everyone is doing before the call begins. Very simple, often ignored. Stand-Ups are not about what is in the queue or what is showing red on the Kanban board, it’s about what is coming next and what the team needs to be moving towards. A Stand-Up where everyone repeats what is currently in their task queue is a waste of a stand-up and an interruption to everyone’s deliverables. The Leader of a Stand-Up must come in already knowing what people are working on and where they are going to next. From there, creating
April 16, 2018
Or Fall Apart. When you’re on a team, any team, in any timezone, remote or in the office, upstairs or downstairs, doing the same job or different ones, if you can’t bring them together, if you can’t come together… You’ll never be a team. You’ll just be a bunch of people, in the same place, doing some stuff and hoping that it somehow will come together. Pro Tip: It won’t. Yeah, that’s hard to hear, maybe even harder to admit if you’re the one lead the team? It’d be incredibly hard to stand up at your next team meeting and
April 13, 2018
They do exist. The follow you around wherever you go, ready to jump into whatever problem you are working on. They ask to be cc:ed on every single email you send (or you feel the need to do it). They are there to catch you when you fall and tell you why you fell and how you should have done it their way. They don’t go on vacation because the “team always needs them”. It’s hard to grow as an individual and a Leader when you have a Helicopter Leader over you, monitoring your every move. It’s hard because even if
