On average a person spends 8.5 hours per day and according to various studies probably productive for three hours only.

How often do you reflect if you are in a growth environment or contributing to an environment where you can grow. An environment where you are learning, experimenting new ideas, and having fun at the same time. Where you have psychological safety. One way I have experimented with creating psychological safety and designed team alliance is by talking about team values.

The Product Owner role is very much misunderstood and misapplied. It is the most underrated role within Scrum. This is a role that in theory entails far more responsibilities than what you see happening in practice.

The leaders and change agents we meet are eager to ensure their Agile transformation avoids hitting rocks or running aground. After all, nobody wants to experience a shipwreck. We have found that the ones who do enjoy a successful journey have navigated three especially challenging obstacles.

We aim to address those obstacles in this article by offering three Agile transformation OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) for you to consider. For those who are not familiar with OKRs, they are a helpful goal-setting tool particularly for initiatives or efforts like an Agile transformation.

How many of us believe that we are not operating to our fullest potential and there is always something we could do better, faster, and effective?

This blog is inspired by two books I read recently “The Power of Full Engagement” & “A-Team of Leaders”.

In this blog, you’d be exploring 3 key tips to sharpen your focus and become more resilient.

Back in 2012, I headed a group of internal agile coaches at Ericsson and supported different organizations on their agile transformation journey using our own internal coaching capabilities. We worked with 33 product organizations, each with, on average, a few hundred to several thousand people. Many management teams were curious to know what stage they were at in their agile journey, and they wanted to have an assessment that was more quantitative than qualitative.

ICF recently released and updated competency model that will go into effect for credential applications in early 2021. The new model starts with the foundation: Demonstrates Ethical Practice which I wrote about last time, and Embodies a Coaching Mindset which is the focus of the next few articles.

ICF defines this embodiment of a coaching mindset as developing and maintaining a mindset that is open, curious, flexible, and client-centered.

I’ve discovered a potentially alarming trend in the Scrum Alliance (CTC, CEC) coaching paths.

There seems to be a strong skew towards the (professional) coaching stance. In fact, I think that skew is a dangerous one. Not because it’s not important. It is. But because it’s not the only stance. It’s only one of many and balance and breadth are still keys from my point of view.

Managers and business leaders have been using the acronym VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) to describe the uncontrollable aspects of the business environment for years. But now more than ever, the entire world is currently experiencing VUCA on a large scale due to the unprecedented impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Because of this, many businesses across industries are struggling to understand the implications of the shift in work and how to adapt.

Dealing with systems is challenging. Influencing systems in such a way as to achieve desired outcomes in the system is even more challenging. By recognizing a system when we encounter one, understanding the 3 characteristics of a system, and deciphering the 5 building blocks of a system, we can begin to understand the complexity of the system. Then, and only then, can we begin to discover clues on how to apply leverage to help the system change itself to produce more beneficial outcomes.