Deviation From the Norm
It's obvious that the Agile movement is not producing the kind of transformative results that are entirely possible. If current approaches actually worked well, then by now, thousands of organizations would have reached a state of self-sustaining, "freestanding" agility. Clearly, that is not the case. Stories abound about typical failure patterns. Organizations that seem to start well eventually slide ...
Perfect Agile Coaching
Imagine if it was possible to for an organization to reach a state of self-sustaining, freestanding agility after just 5 coaching days. Just FIVE. What might that mean for the spread of agility throughout the world? I met Chris Rufer, Paul Green and Doug Kirkpatrick last May when I presented a session on Gaming Happiness At ...
OFFICE HOURS concall for Q&A on The Culture Game Book
Starting in May 2013, you can get direct real-time answers to your questions about implementing the patterns and practices in THE CULTURE GAME book. Every week, you can now hop on a 'Office Hours' conference call where I will take questions, provide guidance, and help you use the book in a bigger way. Perhaps most importantly, you'll also hear directly ...
Safety, Engagement and Productivity
There's a Gallup poll out there that says disengaged workers are costing the US economy 300 BILLION DOLLARS per year. Now let's get clear on what is happening. Productivity is being lost. Productivity is correlated with engagement. Engagement is nil. Engagement is associated with a space where it is safe to say when you think, want, feel, etc. What we have here is ...
Agile Coaching and Sports
Question: why do sport teams employ coaches past training camp? Aren't the athletes professionals capable of their own learning? This is a question I received recently when I explained that 'embedded" or "integrated" coaching (where a Agile coach is present 5 days a week for 3 months or more) is probably a very bad idea. For those of you new to ...
Agile Coaching: Core Values & Supporting Principles
The idea of hammering out a set of guiding Values and Principles for Agile Coaches is an idea whose time has come. Increasing reports of problems in Agile Coaching are tarnishing our profession and diluting our effectiveness as change agents. This is a very serious problem. A set of community-built, open-source Values and Principles is one solution we can all act ...
Organizational Permaculture: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Organizational permaculture is a concept whose time has come. The idea of doing planned, predictable, scheduled, and altogether LARGE campaigns of culture change in organizations is not useful. It does not work. It is ineffective. It is misguided. This idea is analogous to clear-cutting a forest, bringing in bulldozers, moving colossal amounts of earth, and repurposing the land for a ...
Organizational Permaculture: The 12 Design Principles
The principles of permaculture are an important and perhaps even essential in working rationally with organizational culture. For those of you intrigued by the Organizational Permaculture concept, I am providing you with a detailed enumeration of the 12 essential principles of permaculture design. NOTE: These detailed essays come from http://permacultureprinciples.com You might want to think about your teams,
Organizational Permaculture
In a previous post, I explained how Kanban is a tool of Organizational Permaculture. In another post, I told you about Cognitive Recycling, and how a very small adjustment to your meeting scheduling can have potentially huge leverage in terms of obtaining better results... by harnessing a readily ...
Engagement & Disengagement Part2: Perceived Progress
In the previous post, I explained how when we are denied a sense of control over our space or environment, we check out, aka "disengage." When taken to extremes, we might even disassociate. This can happen for example when we experience a trauma. Knowledge workers need to have a sense of autonomy. Mandates ...
