Re-Thinking Agile Organizing Principles

Over the past few months I have been learning from what I will call “agile adjacent” communities . I have been reflecting on my own experiences. As a result I have been re-thinking the important agile organizing principles. I have been thinking about what principles will help us demonstrably improve organizational agility. The previous set […]

Agile Mindset, Agile Organizational Design, Uncategorized / 05 Jun 2020

Business Agility for the “New Normal”

It is important now, more than ever, to seriously consider making changes in your organization that maximize agility. We are witnessing a significant difference between those organizations already along their business agility transition path, and those that have not started.

Agile Mindset / 11 May 2020

Rethink how you deliver value, part 2: Estimating Value through the Lens Of Cost Of Delay

A brief note, much of this content leverages and is inspired by the material on cost of delay that can be found at Blackswanfarming.com, is an excellent resource for understanding cost of delay. It’s authors Joshua James and and Ozlem Yuce, are incredibly insightful on this topic. I personally have had the privilege to go […]

Agile Mindset / 28 Aug 2016

Agile for everyone else

Our team has been helping software development teams within big organizations shift their mindset and implement agile practices. Naturally, the word spreads. We are fielding similar questions from more and more teams within these organizations: “What is agile?” “How can it help us?” But it’s not the software teams asking. It is exciting to watch […]

Agile Mindset / 23 Jun 2016

Rethink how you deliver value, part 1: Lead time and delay time

Within the agile mindset, delivering value looks very different than traditional thinking around this topic. For the next three posts, I’m going to cover three principles that are crucial to delivering value with an agile mindset: Focus your attention on lead time (= your most precious resource) and delay time (= your most toxic obstacle). Move forward with imperfect information, […]

Agile Mindset / 19 Jun 2016

For large-scale agile transformations, you need more than a mentor

As the demand for agile coaching surges among large mainstream organizations in Canada, a frustrating pattern has emerged. All too often, coaches focus on minimizing disruption to the team, relying on their clients to pull them into ceremonies or other working sessions. This has limited effect. Although there is much value in a mentor relationship, […]

Agile Mindset, Coaching / 06 Jun 2016

Rethink the way you organize your people

For leaders at the enterprise level, an increasingly pressing concern is this: What does an organizational structure that promotes agility look like, and how can we create it? Most organizations are structured as a hierarchy, with specialist departments like marketing, finance and IT. Within this model, projects pass through the organization, and responsibility for any particular […]

Agile Mindset / 05 Jun 2016

Achieving agility at scale through mindset and practice

A critical concern for many leaders is how to successfully improve agility across their enterprise. A number of frameworks in the market attempt to deal with this issue, and while almost all of them offer some good advice, they tend to focus on some process or methodology as the key ingredient along the path. In […]

Agile Mindset / 30 May 2016