Once, I dreamt I had cancer. Conversations quickly turned to what I wanted to do in life. And then I woke up. It was literally a… wake-up call. Yet what I wanted to do in life was… a lot. How would I prioritize my bucket list? How would you prioritize? I’m using what I consider the last metric: deathbed regret. I had one clear thing. And then I did it! (And it sucked!) More on that in a sec… Continue reading
How to Measure Agile Coaching
Carrying on from the “value is sustained change in behaviour” opinion I shared previously, allow me to humbly submit my idea (a strong opinion, loosely held) for how to measure how we are doing as Agile Coaches.
Agile Coaches (plural!) are usually brought on because some company (BIG!!) wants to go through an Agile Transformation (ZOINKS!!!). The word “transformation” means, to me, a change in state, thus this company has made a determination:
change to a better state… an “Agile” one, whatever the heck that means.
What is Value?
“What is value?” A boss once asked this, and an answer that I’ve run across that I’m drawn to is, “Value is change in behaviour,” where I would modify to the following:
Value is sustained change in behaviour.
I recently finished reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, wherein he draws a connection between Aristotle, who’s credited with “We are what we frequently do”, and his thesis, where habits are, uhhh, what we frequently do 
, so… Continue reading
Scrum At Hail
I’m starting this post with a pun of a title…. hopefully I can weave one together so that this title makes sense…
Let’s say you have an Agile team. You probably call it a Squad, admit it. Let’s also say this team is running Scrum, and because this is all hypothetical, let’s finally say it’s doing Scrum well.
Well done. ‘Twas all you. Give yourself a… self-five.
Let’s now say you have more than one Agile team Squad, at varying levels of Agile maturity at different stages on their Agile journey, and their work is either related to or dependent on each other no, wait, that was right, let’s keep it… and their work is either related to or dependent on each other.
Well, crap. It’s all on you. Pick a scaling framework… from five.
- SAFe
- Nexus
- DA
- LeSS
- Scrum@Scale (I’m a Certified Scrum@Scale Practitioner, so I’m biased.)
Let’s celebratorily say you’ve picked one. Now you can have focused conversations around ‘the now’ and ‘the next’, incorporating more aspects of the business, and hopefully addressing impediments quickly, even with as many Squads as you have.
Well, there you have it: Scrum, at scale.
This does not make sense when you’re a ScrumOfOne. Or does it? No, it doesn’t. Continue reading
I Am Writing A Musical
What’s the next logical thing for me to do? Write a musical, of course.
Started almost 5 years ago, “Annie Get Your Scrum” is a tale of personal struggle, communal dynamics, and software development, of course.
In the course of writing my book, I’ve come to realize that the purpose of the book may have been already accomplished by a purpose of this blog! In learning about who I am and who I want to be, I have written about messages like:
- give in & embrace to your inner way of being
- experiments, rooted in an innate curiosity
- work with the Universe to act without effort
- I believe every person has a natural tendency to share this gift by expressing themselves.
- focusing on what you do (the verbs), not have (the nouns), will bring you durable fulfillment
And what’s a conclusion I’ve come to, almost 5 years ago?
Of course.
And thus, I surrender to my playful & silly & punny nature, drawn to create in a curious area where two of my gifts meet: music & Agility.
What’s the next logical thing for you to do?