Category Archives: leadership

Management Scrum Team – Part 1

This is an important idea that more and more people are talking about. One reason: Managers need to learn about Scrum. They can take a course, but they also need the ‘reality’ of being in a real Scrum Team. (Real does not have to mean a software dev team.) Another important reason: Managers can be […]

The Management Scrum Team

This is an important idea that more and more people are talking about. One aspect: Managers can learn best what Scrum is and what agile is by being on a ‘real’ Scrum team. A more important aspect: Managers can be more effective on a multi-functional Scrum team. (Often.) *** STOP!  Why am I writing this […]

Changing the culture through invitation and engagement

Some of you know my phrase: “People are remarkably good at doing what they want to do.” It is a down to earth way of saying: I think self-organization is the right thing. Or, I believe in freedom. Believing in freedom does not mean Congress will always vote the way you want.  Or even vote […]

How to make the Whole Organization Agile

Steve Denning has written a short article summarizing his thoughts on this subject.  Very interesting. How To Make The Whole Organization Agile In the article you will see links to his blog posts and a mention of his book: The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management. Enjoy!

Do we really believe in autonomy at work?

How autonomous should knowledge workers be?  A lot? If we believe this, where does this lead us?  That’s the theme of this post. Earlier the subject line of this post included ‘freedom.’  This word carries more emotional energy, and requires discussion of other issues.  Hence, the change. And do we, the workers and the managers […]

Why Managers Should Crave Agile

One idea in the Agile community is that with Agile, we do not need managers anymore. For those of us who have had Dilbert managers, this is a happy thought. But actually, a silly thought.  Because even pretty good managers add value and we should have good managers.  And ‘good’ means not only morally sound, […]

EPMO for a Smaller Company

In Waterfall we might need something else, but in Agile, what do we want from an Enterprise Project Management Office (EPMO)?  If we have a relatively small company (total employees near 1,000, innovation group near 100).  (Obviously, if the company were 300,000 people, it would be a different game.) Let me discuss this in 7 […]

Peter Drucker on Knowledge Worker Productivity

In the Winter of 1999, Peter Drucker published an article on “Knowledge Worker Productivity: The Biggest Challenge.” Here is access to the article. “The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is similarly to increase the productivity of knowledge work and knowledge workers.” He was looking for a 50 times increase […]

What to tell the Executives?

To be successful with Agile, sooner or later we want to engage the Executives.  Or, sometimes, they are already engaged, but we feel we need to talk to them.  To have them understand more or do something differently. So, first, be patient and be hopeful.  Too many of us (agile advocates) start the conversation feeling […]

Agile Reading for Executives

A recent email I sent, slightly edited. ____________________________________ Dear Mike and Mark, You asked for something to give the executives and managers. I might send them “The New New Product Development Game” article (see below), with a short explanation. And then, offer these other things to review. Other options: “Software in 30 Days” by Ken […]