Agile

Make Your Agile More DIY and Less SOP

True agility can't be bought or installed, it has to be developed incrementally and iteratively through collaboration and experimentation.

Addressing the Root Cause of Coordination Costs

More meetings isn't a sign of great collaboration, it's a sign of a broken system. Instead of improving or adding more communication, eliminate the need for constant coordination in the first place.

Give Teams Better Tools, Not More Instructions

Instead of telling agile teams what to do and how to do it, management should give teams a clear challenge and the tools they need to succeed.

The Cost Explicit Processes Have on Collaboration and Informal Structures

When organizations try to explicitly define how work happens, they destroy the trust-based, informal networks that drive value and adaptability.

Building Sustainable Delivery Systems

Agile Delivery Leads should avoid the trap of acting as project managers and instead focus on building healthy, sustainable delivery systems.

Moving from Agile Maturity Models to Continuous Fitness

Agile transformations should ditch team-focused maturity models and start focusing outside-in on customer fitness.

Making the Wrong Things Easier

AI makes generating solutions easier, but it can't create a strong continuous improvement process that focuses on solving the right problems.

Falling Into the Agile Delivery Trap

The practices that increase team velocity do not always also increase agility. Over-optimizing for delivery can destroy a team's capacity to adapt.

Kanban and Pulling Out Agility

Stop Blaming Teams: See the System

Problems are typically predictable outcomes of flawed organizational systems and project structures

AI Transformations Are Hard-Agile

AI requires the same organizational agility, decentralized decisions, and cultural shift as Agile.

Maximize Productivity by Minimizing Context Switching

People Are the Heart of Any Practice

Unbundle the Value

From Big Bang Projects to Iterative and Incremental Development

Just Do Something Different

We Don't Know

Beyond Practices: Behaviours and Goals in Agile

Focus on behaviors like improvement and collaboration. Practices are secondary.

Achieving Agility Through Strong Mechanics

It's easy to copy the idea of what to do. It's much harder to actually do it.

The Hidden Costs of Over-Collaboration

Avoiding Agile Must-Dos

Agile means adaptability, not rigid practices; focus on outcomes over process compliance.

Making Progress Through Questions

Starting Agile With Retrospectives and Continuous Improvement

Drift to Waterfall

One-Time Efforts

9 Golden Rules for Agile Teams: Principles to Improve Collaboration

Some universally applicable guidance for Agile teams I've found helpful.

How Agile Coaches Can Empower Teams To Deal With Uncertainty

Avoiding the Practice Trap: Fostering Genuine Agility

Foster agility through mindful problem-solving, experimentation and continuous improvement.

Just Enough Kanban

Experimenting With Controlling Cycle Time Instead of WIP

Don't Write User Stories, Tell Stories

The Power of Predictable Delivery

Manage the Value, Not the Work

Avoiding The Pitfalls of Cross-Functional Super Teams

Cross-functional teams good, but avoid super teams; use enabling teams to reduce cognitive load.

An Agile Alternative to “Fixing”

Instead of applying one-time fixes, empower teams and manage constraints.

Where Are The Problems?

Rethinking Retrospectives

Why Work Waits

Running, Falling, and the Core of Agile

How I Use Scrum to Teach Agility

My Agile Sketching Experiment

Revisiting the Guidance on Cross-functional Teams

2021 Schulich MBA Agile Presentation

The slides and an overview of a 2021 talk I delivered to an MBA class about Agile

Making Change Where Change is Possible

Empowering Teams Instead of Telling Them What to Do

Test-Driven Goals: A Scalable and Effective Pattern

Learning Agile with ChatGPT

Comparing and Remixing the Gemba Walk

Quick Jira Control Chart Aging WIP Hack

Snapshot: Introducing Ready Options to a B2B Service Team