Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6
Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12
Day 1: Standard Work
Standard Work is one of the most powerful but least used Lean tools. By documenting the current practices, it forms the baseline for continuous improvement.
Benefits of Standard Work
- A common ‘platform’ is set up, a baseline against which the effectiveness of the individuals and/or team can be measured; ensuring a certain level of quality.
- It’s the DNA of continuous improvement (CI). It makes CI routine and ingrained in the very existence of the organization.
- Standard Work is a ‘snapshot‘, a picture of the best way to do things at this moment in time, with an eye on continuous improvement.
Day 2: scenarioLab
Low risk, High Rewards!
It is a known fact that we learn better by using Simulation. They (simulations) allow us to step into a specific scenario, experiment with different ‘what if’ scenarios, experiment and test our approach, and eventually optimize our response for the specific scenario.
Join me every month as we step into a new scenario and learn different aspects of Agile through it.
Send me an email to get on our list to get regular updates on schedules of our scenarioLab
Day 3: Facilitation
Facilitation
Guiding group members in a session to share ideas, opinions, experiences, expertise in order to achieve a common goal and a workable action plan
What is Facilitation?
Facilitation is about…
- taking a group on a journey to explore and bring out the best possible outcome.
- guiding the group on the discovery process while keeping the group together and focused on the goal.
- inviting the group to be present and encouraging participation from each individual.
- empowering the group to make decisions as one unit, while collaborating and taking collective ownership of the initiative.
We all can benefit by improving our Facilitation skills regardless of our role in the organization. Scrum Master, Product Owner, Management, and everyone else will equally benefit by focusing on improving their facilitation skills.
Every month we offer a FREE week-long email course just help you take your facilitation skills to the next level.
Don’t forget to join us next month! Click here to join the next batch!
Day 4: Looking for a Mentor…
Smart Person learns from his/her mistakes. Wise Person learns from others’ mistakes.
Wind beneath your Wings!
You need someone who is there to run with you as you are learning to ride a bike. A mentor who will help you master the trade. You need a mentor who is there to:
- Stabilize your bike if it starts wobbling
- Get you on track if it starts going off track
- Guide you and keep you on track
- Put breaks when you know you are on the wrong path, on a downward slope but can’t stop the fall yourself
- Sooth you when you get hurt (and let me tell you, you will have bruises trying to implement agile in the real world, I can guarantee you that). A mentor can help you minimize the pain together.
- Give you tips, techniques, templates, and tools
- Help you build some of those intangible assets that are so crucial to becoming successful at agile implementation.
mentorME: mentor in various shapes and sizes…
I offer ongoing mentoring and coaching support using various platforms.
Join our FREE WhatsApp group where you can learn from the community, lead by me – the practicing certified enterprise coach (CEC).
Want to go even deeper? Want to work with me on a 1:1 basis to take your career to the next level?
I offer 1:1 coaching and mentoring on a monthly subscription basis. Email me if you would like to explore this option. The first call is always FREE!
Day 5: My cast of Characters
I have come across many characters, good and bad alike during my years of working as an enterprise agile coach at various companies.
I use several characters in my scenarioLab as well as all the agile training/workshops I offer. These are my personas that humanize different roles and personalities you have to interact with as part of your agile transformation journey.
Let me give you a quick introduction to them, and then I will give you a peek into their world.
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Sam – the Scrum Master [ the guy in the blue 🙂 ] |
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Ms. Fab – the fabulous Product Owner |
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Frank – the famous Facilitator |
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Charlie – the awesome Coach |
If you peek into their world (and into their mind), you will see many words and phrases floating around. These are various phrases, values, and beliefs they live by. Essentially, they create a mindset for these individuals.
For your benefit, here are “brain scans” of two of these characters.
Sam – the Scrum Master
Fab – the Fabulous Product Owner
Now, it is your turn. Look into your own dictionary and tell me how many of these terms you know and think about. Next, talk to your Scrum Master and/or Product Owner and have a conversation about these personas.
Want these images for Frank and Charlie? Send an email request to us, please.
Day 6: Scrum – the three-legged stool
As we know, there are only three roles in Scrum. Add, management to that who is standing outside the scrum, but can influence what is happening within the Scrum team.
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Often, different roles and responsibilities are the points of contention in the team. Confusion around the responsibilities can often create conflicts impacting the productivity and morale of the team.
Is there any way to get everyone on the same page about the responsibilities each player is carrying in scrum?
Use my R&R Game! It is a simple card game that brings clarity about responsibilities. It will also bring to the surface any and all confusions and myths that you (as the facilitator, coach) can help in correcting.
This, R&R game is a fun, highly engaging activity allowing team members to co-learn the details of their role. And, it can be done in under an hour. The best part of this game is that the team will have something tangible as well as intangible, in terms of a clear definition of each role.
You can check out the game and download the activity cards here.
Working with a distributed team? Want to use this game with your distributed team? Send me an email to get an online version of this game.
Day 7: Scrum Events and Ceremonies
I was helping a large organization on an agile transformation journey. And, I remember one of the teams asking me:
Can we do daily scrum every other day?
This shows that the team is not clear about the value of it (daily scrum), or doing it completely wrong and feels it is a waste of their time. They are probably not clear themselves as to what it is and (more importantly) why they do it.
Ambiguity around the basic Scrum Events can be a big drag on the team that can get it into ‘civil war’. We can avoid the 3 evil C’s [Chaos, Confusion, and Conflict] by using my tool Event Canvas.
In Agile, we want everyone paddling in the same direction, we need the entire team on the same page. Gather your team around Event Canvas and have them go through each event using it as a tool to facilitate the conversation.
Event Canvas can:
- surface all the tribal myths
- help you in clearing confusion and correcting all the (tribal) myths
- bring the entire team on the SAME PAGE, that will eliminate a lot of conflicts
Get the latest version of Event Canvas, gather your team, and discuss your next scrum event.
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Day 8: Doing Agile -> Being Agile
Often, when we talk about agile, the focus is on Teams and showing them how to do agile. We are too focused on doing the practices. Teams are focused on ensuring they go through the motion of doing agile.
However, as we know, just following the practices does not make you AGILE. You have to make a shift from DOING agile to BEING agile, that is where you will get the most value as an individual/ team/ organization.
Agile Funnel
The bigger question is, how can we make that shift? Obviously, the shift doesn’t happen overnight. How about using this Agile Funnel as one of the retrospective tools? I am surprised that no one is using this agile funnel as a retrospective format.
Here is my suggestion…
Next time when you do a retrospective, bring a print out of this funnel (or draw it on the whiteboard/flip chart) and then invite each team member to put at least 3 things on either side of the funnel.
- What are the things we are doing for the right of the funnel (doing agile)?
- What are we doing for the left (being agile)?
- More importantly, what can we do to make the shift from the right (doing) to left (being agile).
You will be amazed to see that there is very little (if any) we are doing to move ourselves to the left of this funnel.
And, to help you in that transition, here are a few of my doodles on what I call #makeTheShift
#makeTheShift
Act on it now…
Do your next retro with Agile Funnel and let me know how many items did you get on the left.
Day 9: If you improve one thing…
I shared with you two of my most important tools to help your team get on the right path to Agile transformation. As I mentioned earlier, you can use my Roles & Responsibilities game (R&R) and Event Canvas to help your team get on the same page.
With agile, look for small changes that you can introduce to your team that will get bigger results. It is these tiny changes that will help your team in the long run.
Let’s look at our Daily Scrum!
As we know, Daily Standup is a very important ceremony in the Scrum framework. As part of the daily standup, the team meets on a regular basis for a quick sync up of 15 minutes.
You want to pay close attention to two aspects here.
- One, you want to ensure it finishes within the 15 minutes
- Two, you want it to be productive otherwise team members will stop showing up
Small changes.. big impacts
Here are a few of the simple changes I recommend that will bring big results for your team.
- Come prepared
As your team members to spend a few seconds to prepare before coming to the Daily Scrum. - Be Explicit
Announce START and END of the daily scrum - Parking Lot
Your tool to help you complete your daily scrum within 15 minutes - 4th Question
What else do I need to discuss in detail, after the daily scrum? - After Party
Review the parking lot and discussion points, only with those who are required for these discussions - Better Equipment
Can we have better audio and video equipment, please? - Working Agreements
The single most important artifact for your team - Break the eye contact
Team members should NOT be providing an update to you (the Scrum Master) - Be absent (intentionally)
The team should take the ownership of daily scrum - Make it Visible
Information Radiator to your rescue!
Take a deeper dive into these small changes and help your team start the new year on a good note.
Day 10: Sam’s Toolbox
You look around yourself, and you will notice that people in different trades walk around with their own toolbox, which enables them to do their job more effectively and efficiently.
I’m obsessed with the form of a toolbox. The idea of a portable kit that has everything you might need ignites something inside me. It’s like Batman’s utility belt. – Adam Savage
As a ScrumMaster, you should have your own toolbox – filled with physical as well as electronic objects, along with various worksheets and templates as well.
What’s in Sam’s toolbox?
There are many tools I would like to refer you to. Head over to https://www.nimeshsoni.com/scrum-masters-toolbox/ and a list of 50 things you must have as a Scrum Master.
Your toolbox essentially has the tools of the trade that is readily available by your side at a moment’s notice. No more fumbling around for a whiteboard marker that really works!
Intuition is the number one tool in the toolbox.– Matthew Mellon
Day 11: The Certification Landscape
In this coming new year, make a resolution to advance your career.
Certifications can help in nudging you in the right direction.
I say that with a CAUTION: Remember, certification is not the end goal. You are acquiring them along the journey to your [professional and personal] growth.
You should never collect all these certifications just to add some more alphabets at the end of your name in your Linked In profile, or to just add them to your resume so that it shows up in the search results of a recruiter.
In this new year, let me be your guide on that journey through the Certification Landscape.
Certification does not replace knowledge. It is just certifying your credentials and can help you get ahead in the line among others with similar experience.
As you may already know, there are many certifications available in the market place today. And, that list keeps growing with each passing month.
Want to really grow in this brand new year? Want to learn what’s the right certification for you?
Let’s take a walk through the certification landscape together. Let me be your guide on that journey. Let me show you what is possible!
Join me for a FREE, live video session where I will walk you through the landscape and guide you to YOU 2.0