Category Archives: Change Management

Leading Fearless Change Workshop – Apr 12th!

I recommend that all agile advocates and all ScrumMasters and Product Owners learn more about making change happen. Change both in the large ( the organization adopting Scrum or better) and in the small (changing to fix each impediment). Mary Lynn Manns will be leading a 1-day workshop on change. In Charlotte. April 12th. I […]

Making Change Happen

Things need to be a lot better at work.  And they can be, in every way. Thus, we need for people or the organization to change.  And we hope we know the direction. And we hope we know the specific changes. In Scrum, we believe in fairly big changes. In Lean these are called kaikaku.  […]

Selling the Benefits of Scrum

Two other CSTs (scrum trainers) made some comments in a Google Group, which got me thinking.  They reminded me of an exercise I normally do in my Scrum classes. Every class is different, but imagine a class that is mixed. Some people are new to Scrum, some have a few months experience, some have 9-24 […]

Change: “You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”

The quote above is by Wayne Gretzky.  (Also ascribed to Michael Jordan.) I am flying to Canada now. And I like hockey. Today the quote reminds me of how hard change is. To make any change happen in an organization is hard.  It takes a lot of energy.  It takes a willingness to miss a […]

We Band of Brothers

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”  Another great phrase that Shakespeare wrote, this time for the mouth of Henry V. Here it is explained. The leadership in the real field of battle, against great odds.  You may find this interesting as well. Here it is enacted with Kenneth Branagh. You may wish […]

Waterfall meets Disciplined Agile

Friends and colleagues (Etienne Laverdiere and Richard McMullin) put together a presentation about their experiences with one project. They titled it: Waterfall meets Disciplined Agile. Note: It is the 3rd slide deck (presentation) on that page.  See the list to the right. It is very interesting. It would be even better if we could hear […]

Leading Fearless Change

What is the hardest thing about Scrum?  (Maybe in life.) Probably, it is that we must lead change. Getting people to change is difficult. In Scrum, for example, we are trying to change people. The initial big change and then always continuous change. And removing impediments typically requires change. First, we change them to a fully […]

Do we Estimate in Scrum? Yes!

A really smart and experienced colleague says we should not estimate.  Specifically: in Scrum we should not estimate. Now, to get into the deep inner-workings of Lean and Continuous Flow…well, I am not going to go there today. As a minor point, I will say the latest Scrum Guide to me, says we estimate in […]

Making Change Happen

I was delighted the other day to have a brief conversation with Mary Lynn Manns, who is the co-author of Fearless Change, an excellent book on making change happen. I told her I had this idea: We can let change happen to us. (I was thinking mostly of being passive in the face of bad […]

Please try all of Scrum.

Scrum is a bare framework. It is very simple.  Scrum is not trying to be a full methodology. Lots of people are doing Scrum-Butt.  “We do Scrum, but…” Then they say… …we don’t have a product owner. …we change the length of the sprint often …we don’t have a ScrumMaster …we don’t do a _daily_ […]