The Agile Compass
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Why Your Sprint Retrospectives Fail and How to Make Them Inspire Real Change
Are your retros effective? Do only discuss problems or does the team actually improve continuously? Here is my proven template for effective retrospectives.
How To Measure Psychological Safety In Agile Teams?
Psychological safety and how we can measure it. Think of the best team you’ve ever been part of. What made it stand out? Was it the easy way everyone shared ideas, or maybe the comfort of speaking up without fear of…
Efficiency or Effectiveness – What Will Give You the Competitive Edge?
Today I want to give you an article you can pass on to doubting managers. It talks about a company‘s competitive edge in the 21. century: is it efficiency or effectiveness?
How To Demo The Backend In An Agile Way?
A common question I get: How do we demo virtual deliverables in the Sprint Review or System Demo? If we only have a backend or a library to show, how can we best do it? Let me give a few tips in this week’s article.
How Positive Intent Transforms Agile Team Dynamics for Better Productivity
Agile through the world of sports ⚽️: A valuable lesson about perception and culture. Assuming Positive Intent: The Secret Sauce in the agile Playbook.
Is Extrinsic Motivation Really Bad? Understand the Balance for Great Leadership
The Agile Compass by Matthias Orgler Hello [FIRST NAME GOES HERE], this week’s topic is extrinsic motivation and bonuses. But first let me welcome a bunch of new readers hopping over from my “Life of Scrum Master” newsletter. I’m so happy this newsletter is growing and delivering value to all of you 😃. Here is what you might have missed in the last couple of weeks: The Manifesto Most Organizations Live By Overcoming Resistance To Change In Agile Transformations The Overlooked Management…
The Manifesto Most Organizations Live By
Ah, the hallowed halls of traditional management, where the air is thick with the scent of printed reports and the sound of keyboards clacking away into oblivion.
How Agile Teams Naturally Progress: Unveil the Power of Tuckman’s Stages
Tuckman’s stages of group development help us to coach agile teams at different stages of their development.
Unlocking Performance: The Overlooked Management Strategy That Works Wonders
The Agile Compass
by Matthias Orgler
Hello Reader,
in the last two weeks we looked at planning: assessing why we insist on finalizing the plan (and how to stop) and why you shouldn’t pick user stories in Sprint planning (and what to do instead).
This week we’ll talk about an overlooked management strategy that could unlock high performance for you.
Thank you for reading the free edition of The Agile Compass! Consider upgrading today. Paying subscribers improve their knowledge and skills…
Why You Shouldn’t Assign Team Members to User Stories During Sprint Planning
Avoid the pitfalls of assigning or picking user stories in sprint planning. Learn what to do instead to be more productive.
The Great Agile Paradox: Why We Can’t Seem to Let Go of “Finalizing the Plan”
The Agile Compass
by Matthias Orgler
Hello Reader,
last week we talked about why Product Owners shouldn’t spend so much time writing user stories. This week we’ll look at the paradox of well knowing how much waste big upfront planning is, yet still insisting on doing it.
Before we dive into why we can’t let go of planning to plan the plan, here are other articles you might have missed:
Overcoming Resistance to Change in Agile Transformations: A Guide for Agile Coaches and Leaders
Unlocking…
How to Boost Team Collaboration with User Stories – Not Just Writing!
Alright, do you measure the effectiveness of product owners by how much time they devote to writing great user stories? Many do – more or less explicitly. But there is a hard truth: The better the Product Owner, the less time they spend writing user stories 😱!
How to Overcome Resistance to Change in Agile Transformations
Let’s tackle an issue most agile practitioners grapple with: Resistance to change. Why it happens and what you can do about it.
Unlocking Innovation and Autonomy: The Critical Role of Psychological Safety in Agile Teams
Psychological safety is crucial for high-performing teams. If you want innovation and self-management, learn to create psychological safety
Rapid Experiments vs. Big Upfront Planning
What is better: An iterative approach with rapid experiments and lots of failures, or a cautious big upfront planning trying to sketch a perfect solution while avoiding risks? While we Agile Coaches talk a lot about this topic, it helps to look at real world cases of...
Why do we plan agile transformations as waterfall projects?
Why do we plan agile transformations as waterfall projects? It sounds hilarious, yet I‘ve seen it over and over again: Agile transformations are planned as a project with big upfront planning and a strict timeframe. We need to understand: 😲 An Agile transformation is...
Why do some management boards think agility wouldn‘t affect them?
Why do some management boards think agility wouldn‘t affect them? Don‘t limit your agile transformation to the “delivery organization“! You cannot require Product Owners and Product Managers to create clear priorities and goals … and then have 10 “most important“...
How to easily destroy agility
If you don‘t set clear goals & priorities on top management level, you‘ll stir unhealthy conflict & confusion in teams. It‘s not uncommon for managers to spend half of their workday resolving conflicts that bubble up to them. Many of these conflicts stem from...
Warning: A hybrid agile/waterfall organization should NOT be your goal.
A hybrid agile/waterfall organization should NOT be your goal. An agile/waterfall hybrid is a temporary state that exists during transformations. It‘s not the state you‘re aiming for. Agility and waterfall come with different values and beliefs. You cannot simply...
🫸 Stop arguing over frameworks and methodologies!
These are NOT what makes you agile. 🌱 The grass is always greener on the other side. Debating whether scrum or kanban or something else is better will not get you anywhere. Sure, some are a better fit for certain circumstances; but if you arent‘t agile, neither choice...
How long is your backlog?
If you start having trouble finding stories – or wondering whether the story is already in there somewhere – your backlog is probably too long 😅 The idea of a product backlog is that of a short-term buffer. A backlog lasting about 6 weeks is good; a backlog lasting 6...
How to slow down your business
If you can change direction every 2 weeks 🐆, but you only decide to change direction once a year 🐌, you‘re not agile. Agility is far too often confined to the delivery organization. But without agility on the portfolio level, you‘re not actually using that delivery...
Your budgeting kills agility!
Agility is much more than teaching teams to deliver in sprints. If your goal is to tackle the challenges of today, you'd better become agile on all levels. Traditional budgeting often works somewhat like this: 👏 Management decides to pursue a business opportunity🤦...
Are you sweating over picking the right agile framework?
Whether you use SAFe, LeSS, Scrum, Kanban … is NOT the important success factor for agility. Just as picking the best electric guitar is not gonna make you a rock star. 🎸 Frameworks and models are just 20% of what makes you agile. What really makes or breaks agility?...
Are you afraid of user feedback?
While sprint reviews or system demos are meant to focus on feedback from users, so that you can deliver more value… …some PMs and POs are afraid that user feedback could challenge their plans/backlogs. What I see play out almost every week is the struggle to adopt an...
Have the damn guts to walk out on a meeting!
Take responsibility for your own productive time! Agility is about autonomy. Autonomy means you‘re responsible for your time. Sitting through meetings just because somebody invited you is not a responsible use of your time. 👉 Have the courage to decline meeting...
Transparency is damn misunderstood by many!
🚨 Transparency doesn't mean that management can see everything the team does. Transparency means: 👉 The team can see everything management does. 👉 The team can see everything it does itself (reflection). Transparency is supposed to EMPOWER teams, not to control them!...
A sprint review or system demo without stakeholders is useless.
How many times have you seen sprint reviews without stakeholders? I must admit, I have seen this far too often in my life. And it's a waste of time! Why is it useless? First we have to ask, what the purpose of a review is. I often get answers like: 🤔 to see the...
Leadership is a relationship 🙌
Leadership is not something one person does! It's a relationship between leader and follower. A leader without a follower is not a leader. If you want to be a great leader, ask the people who you want to follow you what they expect from you. Then act accordingly....
Agility is NOT what many companies move towards with their transformation
The meme shows a typical evasive move commonly camouflaged as “Agile Transformation“. Sometimes it‘s a deliberate evasion technique, sometimes it‘s subconscious. What makes you agile is not a set of roles or the implementation of a framework. What makes you agile is a...