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Author, Teacher, and Consultant Jerry Weinberg Passed Away
Gerald M. “Jerry” Weinberg, author, teacher, and consultant, passed away August 7, 2018, at the age of 84. Weinberg published about 100 books on computer programming, systems thinking, leadership, change, consulting, and writing.
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Brain Based Learning: Applying Training From The Back Of The Room
The human brain learns in many different ways; a training mode must fit the purpose and desired outcome. Practices from Training From the BACK of the Room! can be used to make training stick. Forcing big changes on people can be perceived as a threat; it’s better to create psychological safety, foster curiosity, and give feedback in ways that continue the dialogue instead of shutting down.
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Making Games for High Performing Teams
The gamestorming model describes a process to create games. It provides concepts like game space, boundaries, rules, artifacts and goals, for creating compelling learning experiences in an organizational setting. Such games can be used by teams to experiment, focus on outcomes, and try out disruptive patterns.
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Incorporating Improv into Agile with Games
The rules of Improv provide a short-hand to enhance active listening, collaboration, and mutual reinforcement skills, all of which are integral to Agility. You can incorporate Improv activities and games to reinforce Agile mindset. The game debrief is where the value of the game becomes sustainable, as it explicitly ties emotions and aha-moments from the game experience to working scenarios.
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Culture, Psychological Safety, and Emotional Intelligence for High Performance Teams
Humanity is the heart of the creative intellectual work that many of us are engaged in. The foundation of high-performance teams is people who have freedom and autonomy and feel safer. Games can be used to support self-awareness and connection and build team emotional intelligence onto safety.
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Cultivating Psychological Safety
When we’re feeling stressed, threatened, or unsafe, it becomes harder to think creatively, work collaboratively, and solve problems. You can cultivate a culture of safety by letting folks know that it’s safe to make mistakes, by listening for real understanding, and by practicing mindfulness.
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Dealing with the Broken Human Machine: How to Create High-Performing Teams
To really progress in developing software and build anything at a scale, you have to examine your blind spots and learn to deal with people. The culture we build is important: the difference between a high performing engineering team and a low performing one is orders of magnitude in terms of productivity and quality. Focusing on how we do things is as important as what we’re doing.
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Agile and the Use of Paradoxes
Paradoxes support agile transformations; they make you stop, think, and discuss by using a shared language. They also help to show empathy and provide a way forward. VIVAT, a Dutch insurance company, uses paradoxes in training and everyday work to drive their agile transformation.
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How to Win a Solar Race Using Agile
The Nuon Solar team uses agile and Scrum to take the steps which add the most value to the project first, integrate different disciplines, ensure transparency and focus, and reflect to improve. Their goal is promote and educate the use of clean energy; the mission is to win the Sasol Solar Challenge in South Africa using the power of innovation.
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Game Changing Beliefs for Knowledge Working Organizations
Game changing beliefs carry the strength of the strongest walls to shape our behavior. The beliefs we choose to take on in our professional work are a leverage point. They can help us to change the culture and behavior in organizations to increase agility.
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The Spotify Model is No "Agile Nirvana"
At Spotify, management and the way the organization works support teams and agile practices by growing people. But Spotify isn’t an “Agile Nirvana”, it’s hard to reach high performance with teams that are constantly growing, changing, and splitting into new teams.
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Google: Managers Matter after All
Based on internal data, Google researchers have come up with 8 traits that great managers have, providing guidance and tools to other organizations to find out if managers matter to them and how to train their managers.
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Dealing with the Impostor Syndrome
The impostor syndrome refers to people who fear being exposed as a "fraud". They think that they do not belong where they are, don't deserve the success they have achieved, and are not as smart as other people think. According to Agile Coach Gitte Klitgaard, many high-achieving people suffer from the impostor syndrome. It hinders people in their work and stops them from following their dreams.
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Esther Derby's Six Rules for Change
Esther Derby identifies six rules to use when change needs to happen, so that the people involved are honored, and the complexity of the change is acknowledged. Creating an environment based on empathy, knowledge of the past, and a willingness to experiment, makes change less stressful.
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How GlobalLogic Used a Bottom-up Approach to Become More Agile
Yuriy Koziy, delivery manager at GlobalLogic, argued at the Agile Eastern Europe 2016 conference that organizational change should start at the team level rather than in senior management. He formed a group of like-minded engineering managers and agile coaches who act as change agents, transforming the organization bottom-up from the inside.