Posted on Tuesday, December 20, 2016

True Catalysts of Change

True Catalysts of Change. At beginning of 2016, this was one of my goals. As we draw it to close, I am happy to look back to a list of books I have read. These are the true catalysts. They have the power to change your world!

When you review this list. Notice that I do not have agile/scrum related books on my list. That’s easier to learn. The harder part is shifting the mindset. These books will help you there. With the right mindset, you will go further than you can imagine now. You will surprise yourself!

I read about two books per month. And, spend almost $0 for reading those books. [Hit me if you want to know how]

For now, here are the top 5 books from my list with tremendous power to influence and change your world in 2017.

Creativity Inc – Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace

Creativity Inc – Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

2.Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Switch, Transformation,GetHyper, Agile, Get hyper

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

3.Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

Essentialism, Agile, transformation, getHyper

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

4.Onward: How to Starbucks Fought Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz

Onward: How to Starbucks Fought Its Life without Losing Its Soul

5.The Rich Employee by James Altucher

The Rich Employee

Only focus on your three-foot world, he said. Focus on what you can affect. No Hero: The Evolution of a Navy Seal

No Hero: The Evolution of a Navy Seal (New York: New American Library , November, 2015)

Posted on Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Shrink or Grow Sprint Length

Why teams should not shrink or grow sprint length

Sprint length to shrink or grow. Jen, one of the Scrum Master I am coaching and mentoring asked recently:

I am scrum master for this team and generally, we do two-week sprints. But, for this sprint the team does not have enough work, so they want to shorten the sprint from two weeks to one week. Can I allow them to do that?

Now, let’s ponder on this question. Take a minute and think about it. What would be your answer? Why?

To answer her original question, I said a big resounding NO! In bold capital letters!

Value of regular Heartbeats

There are many reasons for not allowing the Sprint to shrink or grow. We want the team to pick a sprint length and stick to it, no matter what. Instead of focusing on why we do not allow it to shrink or grow, let’s focus on the positives. Let’s review the reasons and value of staying on the same length. Keeping the sprint length same provides:

Consistency and a Rhythm for the team
Repeatable and Predictable Cadence
Consistent length provides valuable data that can be used for forecasting
Schedules that are known well in advance, and can be put onto calendar to help block time on key players calendar
Valuable data they can help team in deciding how much or how little work to take into next sprint

Don’t flush them down the toilet

There are several measurements that are linked to sprint length. Measurements such as:

Velocity
Say: do
Story burn-up
Release burn-up
Feature burn-up

You allow your sprint to shrink (or grow) and you are invalidating all the data, you are essentially flushing all these down the toilet!

Use it Wisely

If you have a situation where the team does not have enough work for the next sprint, it might be an indicator of the team not doing backlog grooming; or at a minimum, it is an indicator that the backlog grooming is not done properly.

In a scenario where the team has spare capacity, instead of shrinking the sprint length, the team could do other, very useful activities. They could use that extra time on:

Refactoring the code
Learning new stuff
Cross training within the team
Automation
Spike or research on the next priority features functionality
Experimentation

Sprint’s are fixed length. Scrum does not allow them to shrink or grow. Once the team agrees to a specific length, they have to, rather, they need to stick to it. Fixed length eventually will enable them to settle on a rhythm giving them even heartbeats!

mentorME

We offer mentoring and coaching to up and coming Agilists; often time doing 1:1 coaching. If you want to grow in the agile space, if you want to expand your horizon, if you want to learn the tools and tricks, sign up for mentorME.

Got more questions? Please get in touch with us here.

Posted on Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Nimesh’s Coaching Box

A simple tool to deliver your message effectively that creates impact, and do it with eeeease!

Want to deliver your session with ease? That is effective and impactful?

Of course, you want to be clear about the message you want to deliver; but being clear about it is just a start. Delivering your message effectively that is impactful – that’s the key. And, making it easy to digest for your audience is essential.

One of my good friend and colleagues introduced me to this concept while we were together at Paypal, coaching and mentoring the organization and teams on Agile adoption. [Thank You Monica!] Nowadays, you will see me walking around with this coaching box, almost all the time.

: Nimesh’s Coaching Box

Why this Coaching Box?
You are the change agent, but you don’t just want to talk about the change. You want to deliver your message effectively that creates an impact, and doing it with ease is the key to success. I have found that having this coaching box handy helps tremendously in achieving that. With this coaching box on my side, I can deliver my message, my presentation, my session with an ease that is effective and impactful. As a coach, as a change agent, it is your Toolbox!

What’s in it?
This coaching box essentially has the tools of the trade in it, readily available by my side at a moment’s notice. No more fumbling around for a whiteboard marker that really works!

Let’s look at what I have in the coaching box:

Post It notes. We can’t live without them, can we? [Check out my series of posts on how I use Post It notes]
Sharpie Pens
Whiteboard markers, that really work!

At a minimum, you should have these three items in your Coaching box. You can throw in some electronic tools in it along with these three items.

Remote Clicker, with spare batteries
Mac connector cable (to connect to Projector)
Old iPhone (that is not connected to any network)
Evernote or OneNote on your mobile device, making sure that you have the reference material and worksheets handy. Most importantly, make sure that you have the worksheets and checklists handy.
Other apps such as Office Lens to take pictures of your whiteboard drawings, Scannable to scan physical papers, etc. [Read my post on various apps that can help you]
Spare reading glasses
Lip balm
Two Cereal bar (my emergency energy source)
Two tea bags – like to drink hot tea (no sugar,no milk) before and during the sessions I facilitate. Helps me keep hydrated while keeping my throat clear helping in projecting my voice higher.

I add in a few cereal bars that can double as my lunch as well as a snack. Often times while you are delivering your sessions, you don’t have the time and luxury to have the proper lunch!

But, I need reasons to carry this coaching box…

I will give you three reasons why you want this box by your side.

Instead of grabbing ten things, you are grabbing just one thing. This has bailed me out many times as I have been asked to present or coach at a moments notice by the executives. You know your executives in the organization 🙂
It sends a very clear, strong, positive message that this guy (or gal) is always ready!
You have all the supplies handy and within arms reach, supplies that you are familiar with and know they work, supplies that help you deliver your message effectively that creates impact.

With this box handy, I am ready to deliver any session at a moment’s notice. Let’s go, and make change happen!

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink (New York: Penguin Group, December 29, 2009 )

In this book, author Daniel Pink (@DanielPink) makes a strong case for us to upgrade to Motivation 3.0 !
It’s time to #makeTheShift from Profit-driven (Motivation 2.0) to Purpose-driven (Motivation 3.0). He also talks about different types of personalities such as Type X, Type Y, and Type I. He goes onto providing us a toolkit if we want to #transform into Type I personality, along with the list of books that can help us on that journey.

A must-read!

Animate with purpose, don’t motivate with rewards

Three Quotes from the book:

Warning: Goals are Toxic! Goals may cause systemic problems to organizations due to narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased risk taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased intrinsic motivation. Use care when applying Goals in your organization.
Sawyer Effect: practices that can either turn play into work or work into play
Motivation 3.0 doesn’t reject profits, but it places equal emphasis on purpose maximization. Employees are not Resources, Employees are Partners

Three tips from the book:

Replace IF…Then motivation with NOW…That.. motivation
Management is a Technology, and we need to update it to new operating system Motivation 3.0
Turn company-wide meetings to FedEx days

Tools/techniques mentioned in the book:

FedEx days
Goldilock Tasks
Now..That rewards
Autonomy Audit
ROWE
Sawyer Effect
20% Time
Flow
Sagmeister / Take [365-day] Sabbatical
Brain Bombs
Take a Page from Webber and a card from your pocket
Make it ‘no competition’ zone

[bctt tweet=”Type I personality draws on resources that are easily replenished, inflict little damage, inexpensive and clean. Are you Type I, Type X, or Type Y? http://bit.ly/2a83ZYV” username=”beyondCSM”]
[tabby title=”TED Video”]

[tabby title=”Type I toolkit”]