I have to admit: I am German. Us Germans are well-known in the world to deliver good results. That said, we are very dedicated to deliver efficient results. There is one thing that troubles me about that. Having our main business in Germany, I often face questions with regards to efficiency while introducing agile methodologies. You can efficiently drive your car right into a wall. That would be very efficient, but unless you try to kill yourself, not very effective. The English saying ‘don’t try to run before you walk’ expresses this gallantly from my point of view. Let’s explore that thought.
Continue reading Don’t try to run before you walkCategory Archives: Leadership
Technical and personnel leadership
To project or not to project
Over the years, I became more and more suspicious about the concept of a project. I have worked in several companies, at times working with products, at times working with projects. I have seen more waterfall projects, I have seen waterfall products, and I have seen both agile projects and products. What strikes me most is the amount of ignorance most companies have with regards to the effect that projects have in the longer run. Let’s see some stories.
Continue reading To project or not to projectGetting external help
Over the course of the past week, I realized the importance of external help – and some of my cultural biases for admitting that I might need it. Here is my story, hoping that it might help others seeking out for help.
Continue reading Getting external helpThe blueprint fallacy
When it comes to consulting, I notice three kinds of solutions out in the field: the blueprinters, and the emergenters, and the ones that float between these two worlds). Dealing with blueprint solutions is a fallacy in my point of view. Let’s take a closer look on each of these three patterns I saw, and see what’s going on.
Continue reading The blueprint fallacyOn being helpful
I am guilty. Over time I have served in several online communities. I have tried to provide some of my limited knowledge to help people overcome some of the struggles they were facing. I have a confession to make: I am addicted. I am addicted at offering help. I am addicted to help others. I am addicted to keep them in a symbiotic relationship. Over the years, here is what I learned by trying to be more helpful.
Continue reading On being helpfulShallow Disagreements
Stick long enough in context-driven testing, and you will hear the term “shallow agreement” one time or another. A shallow agreement happens when we forget to confirm our understanding regarding a user story before starting to work on it, and find out during the Sprint Review – or worse: later – that the functionality did not meet the expectations of our ProductOwner or end-user. Shallow agreement happens when we find out too late that we seemed to agree on something, but really weren’t. We didn’t check our assumptions, and usually both parties end up being disappointed by each other.
Last year, I realized there is also something like shallow disagreements – and I am not sure whether these are worse than shallow agreements.
Continue reading Shallow DisagreementsScaling Agile – A Meta Framework
Scaling Agile appears to be a theme. At times, I am wondering how many organizations there actually are that would adopt large scale Agile to start with. Currently, I have the impression there are as many scaling frameworks out there as participants that joined a casting show. But I am exaggerating at bit here. With all these frameworks out there, how do you pick the right one for you? Or should it be a mixture of all of the frameworks available? While diving deeper into scaling frameworks, I found some considerations at picking the right one fruitful. Here they are.
Continue reading Scaling Agile – A Meta FrameworkBeer Coaching
To avoid any upcoming confusions, beer coaching is not about coaching people to drink beer. It’s more coaching a larger organization by putting a crate of beer in the middle in the evening, and have chats with people. I didn’t invent this one. A few weeks ago, a colleague, Christian Dähn told me that he was bringing a crate of beer to a client to have an opportunity to talk to some folks, and reach a deeper relationship with the ones attending.
I wasn’t convinced.
Up until a colleague, Anna Lorenz, convinced me to try that out at a client we are both working right now. She actually had to push me. Here is what I think now about it.
Continue reading Beer CoachingLessons Learned from the “Danger Zone” in Hamburg, early 2014
When I went back to work in the first week of January 2014, I was surprised. Right before Christmas some rallies started in Hamburg. For whatever reasons, some folks started to make fun out of the high demand of police that was present in certain areas of Hamburg – the so called danger zone. Let’s see what I learned from the news about those folks.
(Image credits: http://www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik/rote-flora-gefahrengebiet-hamburg,10808018,25818092.html)
What if…
What if you found out that you were living in a matrix? That the world before your eyes has been blurred. That a lot of the things that are dear to you actually are counter-productive to your goals. How would you recognize this?
Some years ago, with Systems Thinking, I started to realize some problems with my own thought processes. Ever since then my realizations went worse. I am too frank to face you with the full truth. Still here are some stories worth thinking about.
Continue reading What if…