ScrumOfOne – Lamontanious Blog of Personal Development through Scrum

My Approach to Starting an Agile Coaching Engagement

It’s like dating.

(Oh no. Seriously? THIS is how you’re starting a post about starting a relationship between an Agile Coach and her client?)

Ahem. It’s like dating. Maybe we have a mutual friend who invited both of us ~~out to a bar~~ to a meeting, the group got talking, the ~~beer~~ coffee or water got flowing, you piped up with what you have going on, I found your ~~fledgling side hustle intriguing~~ Scrum team composition stupid, and shared aloud, ~~“Hey, I know the band at a chill spot a couple blocks away… y’wanna get outta here?”~~ “Let’s continue this offline.”

(You know the band? THAT’s the line you’re showcasing? Dude, you are OUT of practice. It’s like you’ve been married for a few years…)

A Second Life for the Second Wave

As we enter the Second Wave of COVID-19 here in the U.S., I’m reminded of a quote:

We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.
Confucius

We’re all going through a protracted once-in-a-lifetime period of pain & loss, and if the above quote inspires you to make the most of life a little bit more, than this quick blog post wasn’t completely useless.

Stay safe out there.

My Approach to Working Agreements

You probably don’t look at your Working Agreement (“WA”) if you have one. Your team put in the effort, and it’s not fully serving you – what a waste! OR… Your team has never put in the effort, so y’ain’t got one – what an opportunity!

Look… I’m not going to sell you on why having one of these is a useful idea. The following is how I use 45 minutes to get 5-9 agreements a team of 5-9 people can start with, and then we iterate, resulting in a living document.

Agile Fashion

Do you miss FACE-TO-FACE TIME WITH YOUR COWORKERS?
Me too!

Tired of the choice of either looking at your coworker’s face, or giving them the ILLUSION OF EYE CONTACT via staring into a dot, likely above a glowing rectangle?
It’s unnatural!

Putting thought into your AUDIO & VIDEO SETUP to better approximate pre-pandemic human connection?
This store is for you!

Which store?

This store: DailyAgilist.com

(Am I repurposing the DailyAgilist brand? Maybe. But hey. I’m trying stuff. Like an Agilist. The Daily kind.)

Whether you’ve embraced WFH-ing for a while, or been forced into it recently, try clothing that is DESIGNED FOR READABILITY and OPTIMIZED FOR WEB CONFERENCING.

I’ve put the text as high as it can go on the shirt, which means it should be picked up by your webcam, but it will likely look silly if you’re walking around with it IRL. I’m only offering dark colors, so the white-balancing of the webcam results in it picking up more of you. I’ve selected a typeface for high legibility. The result is a garb that’s SIMPLE. You might think it’s BORING. I think it’s EFFECTIVE.

Expect this to iterate. Am open to feedback.

At the end of the day, this store is an EXPERIMENT in IMPROVING OUR VIRTUAL PRESENCE. With a pinch of fun.

Minimum Viable Performance

Today is significant to me.

12 years ago, today, I started working full-time. I tested medical devices, mostly manually, working my way up a ladder to get “Senior” in my title. Towards the end, I dabbled in Agility as a part-time Scrum Master for my team.

6 years ago, today, I changed careers. I was a full-time Scrum Master for a couple of distributed teams, working my way through much learning and self-discovery to get “Agile Coach” as my title. Lately, I’ve dabbled in performance as a podcaster.

Today, I want to mark a new career episode.