Badass Agile

Does Agile Need Leaders? I mean, self-organizing teams and down with hierarchy and all….is there value in leadership, and what should it look like? That’s this week, on the Badass Agile podcast. It’s time to update the podcast, tune the mission, and move into advanced topics Maybe we don’t like the sound of it, but we do need leaders Leaders set vision Leaders set the example Leaders facilitate In the real world, leaders do what needs to be done, They stand up against the unjust, ineffective, self-serving…and we need more of that – in life, and in work

The only way to create a culture of trust, and to fully leverage the power of teams, is to make sure you keep promises you make. Keeping promises is a crucial component of building tight teams. Everyone pledges, few are truly good to their word Use the words ‘promise’ and ‘committments’ in the team room instead of ‘task’ – it tends to carry more weight Use the stand up to track these promises – the three questions then become “what promises did you keep yesterday”, “what promises do you make today”, and “what prevents you from keeping your promises” Think of improvement items in retrospectices as promises – from team member to team member Try using a daily team promise or committment

What can we learn from the sweet science? I learned more from boxing than anywhere else Team sports are great, and obviously applicable, but when it comes to leadership being the best, nothing calls on your character, strength and will like a good old 1-1 Defence, of self-protection, does not win a fight. There are no points for safety. You have to go slow to get fast. Tension and fear ruins absolutely everything Find a good cornerman Look for opportunities. Finding and fixing your gaps, and finding and exploiting HIS gaps are the key to success. Be patient, graceful, and stay in the fight. That way, even when you lose you win.

There’s so much focus on frameworks and subtlety of practice Frameworks – definitions of roles, processes, interactions, flows, inputs and outputs Subtleties – prescriptive techniques and tools Frameworks Don’t fix Fear. They attempt to compensate for it, and fail Frameworks are expensive. So are elite teams. We shouldn’t try to build them across an entire enterprise and Subtlety and Complexity really only feeds the cash register I think we should focus on something more organic. Vision Courage Influence Focus High-Performance Teams Focus on the fundamentals – the Agile Keys. The things that make great work no matter what arena Have a Vision Prioritize Do Focused Work Keep Promises Be Open about where you are Always Improve Great Leadership, and the Will to Execute, come from the Gut Frameworks are more safeguard than meaningful work. If you need safeguards, why not learn and build as you go? In 6 months, would you rather roll out a safety framework, or product that works?

Magic matters. I was having a conversation today and I realized some of the most impactful things that I do with my team have nothing to do with coaching Agile. It’s not teaching them Scrum techniques, which they could easily learn on their own. Of course this is an important part of what I do, but none of that stuff builds better teams. At all. There are parts of my job that come down to voodoo. Things that appear in exactly zero agile texts, and barely in the leadership canon either The truth is we hate this stuff. It scares us to talk about things that aren’t quantifiable The groomed leader would have you believe that a deep knowledge of the art and science of business plus some natural breeding is what makes a great leader Others are more comfortable thinking that great leadership can be learned. Both are a little bit true The one thing I do that grabs more attention than any other is an ability to read people, lock down their core essence, and even predict their next move, sometimes after only one meeting. If you think about it, this is a badass trait. The badass just has your number. He calls you out on your bullshit. He may be inarticulate but he still has you dead to rights. It’s almost like he has a street wisdom that no amount of education or social grace could substitute for. That’s kind of true. Our animal heritage actually gives us all the equipment we need to read people. Being able to observe, distinguish patterns and then observe variations from those patterns and being able to assemble a complete picture from a person’s words, body movements and postures AND microexpressions is how we detect threats Can you learn this? First you have to learn to observe people, which means taking the focus off yourself and putting on the other. Next is knowing where to look and when. I believe in learning skills from the people who are the absoulute best at what they do – they understand their craft and can do it more accurately and faster than anyone else In this field, law enforcement agents and interviewers – also customs agents have the best knowledge. Check out books from some of these guys. Here are some tips. Posture – Open versus closed. Open means upright, expansive, and not protecting the vital organs. Crossed legs, crossed arms, or covered body parts (neck, chest, sides, groin) indicate fear and discomfort. Eye contact Fidgeting and movement Automatic responses – dry mouth, dilated pupils, sweating, over-explaining or repeating Of course you have to get comfortable enough to be an observer yourself but 90% of people don’t really bother to observe consciously. HOWEVER – whether you know it or not, every persons reacts subconsciously to these cues. That’s why its so important for a badass to practice the right ones. Look for baselines. If they’re always like this, they might just be anxious people or nervous in groups. What’s illustrative is how a person’s behaviour changes in different situations. Watch for this very closely in leaders or people you are trying to negotiate or bargain with. It can give you tremendous competitive advantage if you know how to do it right. If you want to build trust, do two simple things. Mirror and Echo.

Failure is initially perceived as a bad word – especially for new agile teams, and especially in ‘vintage’ cultures. Fear of failure is well over half of the cause of the Resistance. Avoiding failure will cost your teams and business – because you will spend all of your precious time and money planning for perfection to avoid it. The secret is to flip your thinking on failure immediately, and this requires the skill of a coach to keep people from panicking, backsliding and even turning against one another. The biggest cultural block when starting agile is that fear of failure Mastery of Failure is a badass trait Most other people will need some practice and exposure to feel ok with failure As they learn, your job is to shield them from negative side effects You can’t stage failure – you have to go through some as a team (because the only way to know about failure in advance is to plan excessively for them) Once experienced, all that is needed is a) a commitment not to repeat it and b) an enthusiasm to look for the next one

In environments where we can’t control how the team is composed, how can we control the team’s attitude, commitment and performance? The culture you create has a lot to do with it. We think incorrectly about teams. The way the team functions is perhaps more important than any other component of agile. If the team is not bonded, aligned and committed, they’re not going to accept agile principles or scrum techniques, and it probably wouldn’t help much if they did. Although teams are made of primarily non-leadership people, organizational leadership alone determines the health of the team The leaders create the culture that allows the team to function well, or to condemn it to failure Teams need the same things all individuals need – to be Safe, Free, and Supported As an agile leader, you can help promote this by creating a Team Creed Team Creed can include the teams purpose, but also our code of conduct or behaviours The creed should be advanced by the agile leader as a template and baseline, but evolved by the team to help buy-in

A high-performing team doesn’t just evolve naturally. What are some of the things you can do that will help kick-start team synergy, trust, and communication, even on day 1? There’s a hack I use that is a hybrid of techniques for building trust, likability, understanding and acceptance Take them to a bar Ask 2 simple questions: Why do you get up every morning and come to do this job? What is something you think very few people know about you? These work to expose vision and passion – usually if the first doesn’t exist, the second still does – that you can use to anchor future conversations and find common ground. This technique is fast to use, easy to remember, and super effective. For even greater results, establish an culture of ‘helping you get what you want’ If you want a truly elite team, you want some kind of crucible experience. Easy to do in the Marines, not so easy in a corporate setting. You’ll be surprised at my favourite substitutes.

What could I do to set me apart from every other Scrum Master, Coach, or Leader? It’s fine to rest on the shoulders of giants and imitate their mindsets and habits, but you can’t imitate their innovations. You have to make your own Our practice only advances when new thoughts and voices come to the fore. Don’t waste a moment of your practical field experience – turn these into opinions which you can test and evolve into your own philosophy for adopting Agile, or just leading well There is tons of room for new perspectives. Don’t be afraid of the inevitable resistance. The resistance exists to make sure you have the stuff of true leadership.

Of all the Agile Keys we’ve discussed – ‘Team’ is the most mysterious, and yet the most powerful. How do you build great teams, and what qualities does a great team have? Done right, a team is not a collection of people stuffed together by competency or role…A great team is a tribe. Done right, a team is a force multiplier that is highly efficient and competitive. Tribes have very strong trust, strong values, unbreakable customs and very high standards A great team is a privilege to serve on, and can be the best part of your job. Very few people know how to create great teams.

In product delivery, there are so many variables and so much unpredictability. What’s the best way to manage all the unknowns? “There’s an app for that”. Begin with a standard role definition and simple agreement about how we manage scope. Use the car-owner mechanic or home-owner/contractor analogy to drive the point home The technique is based around ‘communicate, estimate, agree, execute” to get started and then when changes happen simply re-communicate, re-estimate, re-prioritize, and keep on rolling.

How the heck did I go from World of Warcraft to Technology Director, or Agile Coach? How can someone like me lead? You already have everything you need. The archetypal leader is not what we aspire to. We now value people who are pushing the edge of innovation, and that means a lot of scientific, technical people are making their way into leadership. The world needs more people of vision and passion The same skills that got you there will get you here. If you have some purpose, some change you want to make in the world burning inside you…you already know what you have to do. You need to get badass.

Why is there a dividing line between the Product Owner Role, and the Rest of the Solution Team? How do we run our interactions to honour that? The division is meant to enforce the freedom of teams to solve problems the best way they collectively know how This doesn’t mean the owner can’t have input, but the best way to communicate those inputs is as needs – requirements, stories, Definitions of Done, etc

A badass doesn’t respect positional authority. How do you pull that off? True authority is earned, and is service-based. A positional leader is one who has the title, but neither leads nor serves Disrespecting authority is not ‘the way’ – rather, do not blindly follow those with a title Beware the motives of those who crave power for its own sake Instead, lead respectfully from where you are. Let your vision and service guide your work

Do You Ever get knocked down? What do you do when you feel like you’re not winning? When you want to quit? Success Is Not The Absence of Failure The Goal is not to avoid getting hit…the goal is to avoid getting hit twice the same way Sometimes the failure feels devastating. Like you’re losing ground. You needed this setback to show you where the gaps are…so you can handle your business. Change your mindset. The setback is a gift. Learn to process it quicker and you’ll be on your way toward mastery.

What is the most ominous, highest priority barrier to Agile adoption that we should prepare for? The Resistance. From Teams and From Management To Overcome the Resistance, you have to activate your service-based mindset, your vision…get your head right first, and then start changing minds by showing them. Remember, if you build a spectacular fire, people looking to get warm will come to it.

How Long Before Agile Starts Paying Dividends? Agile is about change. Mindsets take time to change, and right action takes time to become habit Like anything else in Agile, work with the highest-priority fundamentals first, then continue to perfect and expand with time Like anything else in Agile, demo (show), and measure.

What makes a remarkable leader? A common person with uncommon resolve and steadiness when the safety and certainty everyone depends on suddenly changes The secret to this skill is the reprioritization habit – focusing on responding to change rather than bemoaning or resisting it.

What mindset/habit pair moves you toward goals the fastest? The ability to be an adaptive planner begins with sharp focus on the things that matter most What you value determines your priorities, and figuring out the biggest, closest things that get you closer to your goals is the calling card of visionary teams and leaders

Why is failure such a dirty word? What effect does this have on teams, and how can you change it? Fear of Failure is the antithesis to experimentation and innovation It is impossible to learn and grow without failure. Big Failure. Early and often. Fear of failure is cultural, and change starts at the leadership level. Reason and logic can’t change a culture of fear. You’re going to have to show, measure, prove, and repeat…and as a badass leader, you’ll have to take uncommon accountability.

How do great leaders inspire others to work WITH them – how do they change minds and build support? How do truly powerful people seem to get whatever they want in life? The first principle is that your reasons have to be right. You can’t want influence so you can have power or sway over people. Your ‘argument’ – the thing you are trying to convince people of, whether its selling Agile to a monolithic management team, making a sale, or negotiating a contract – must come from a place of genuine service The other influence skills are the Badass Agile principles we’ve already been discussing – learning to leap, leading by going first, staying in control of your emotions, being persistent and resilient, remaining confident, being happy and other-focused, and learning and adapting from failure.

What’s the best way to plan projects to ensure success? You don’t really ‘plan for success’ at all, in the sense that you don’t plan for certainty or safety. As an Agile Leader, Adaptive Planning is your greatest asset. Minimize planning so that you can start, and adjust your plan as the environment changes.

What is the easiest way to make Continuous Improvement work for me? Ask yourself and your team one simple question – what can I cut? The biggest mindset shift we have to make is that of letting go of the old way. Constantly seek things we can discard that are weighing us down

We have started our Agile Journey, but I don’t see much improvement. How do we get better faster? Mastery is lifelong. And the first few steps are usually the most painful. Remind teams and stakeholders alike that the first few sprints are mayhem. This is true of individual development as well. The initial stages are tumultuous, frustrating, as if they were designed to shake off those who are not serious about mastery. By adopting a culture of continuous improvement, you will get better. Adoption and acceptance will be slow, and benefits accrue gradually at first – patience will be your most important quality Don’t expect too much too soon; and stay humble so you keep learning and growing

What Is the ‘Secret Sauce’ of Every High Performing Team? They create a culture of extraordinary – uncommon people who are unusually committed to uncommon results Build a team that others envy

I can see the imbalance and injustice everywhere. What is the badass meant to do about it? * As a leader with a clear service-oriented vision, only you can decide what causes you serve * But once you’ve decided, you need to act with courage if you expect to build and maintain trust, and truly lead.

What is the single biggest change you can make today to shift your clunky, bureaucratic teams into high gear? * Stop Planning for Perfection * Focus on Go

What do legendary leaders have that the rest of us don’t? * Superhuman Accountability – the refusal to blame others, but rather the acceptance that all of our outcomes are within our ability to change * This is what allows people to achieve the impossible….they own their outcomes and know the only thing that influences their destiny is THEM

How do we level-up feedback skills to build a super-charged dream team? * You will have to go first * You will have to be vulnerable * You will need to leverage and build trust * You need to build a sense of accountability and duty

What is the badass’ contribution to Agile at Scale, or any large scale organization? * The bigger it gets, the more it seeks certainty and safety. There’s nothing theoretically wrong with that * Scaling will alway be a compromise between predictability and agility * Try to infuse agile mindsets and principles everywhere you go. That alone has the potential for massive improvement. * A badass is not strictly agile. A badass is someone tenacious enough to work tirelessly to find the right balance

How do all these podcast episodes make you more badass? * Integration of all the mindsets and habits are key. We focus on fundamentals * Each episode gives you some practical implementation advice – use it. * Review old episodes – as you grow, they will provide deeper wisdom * As you listen to this checkpoint, decide which areas need work and go back to revisit the appropriate episodes

In Personal and Team performance, How do you overcome blind spots so you can see your own gaps – and that of others – clearly and objectively so you can supercharge your continuous improvement? * You need to be in tune with Actions and Reactions, and what causes them – both yours and other people’s * You need to be able to separate stimulus, or triggers, from the automatic responses and thoughts they invoke * You need to learn how to put some room between triggers, your responses, and action * Use Silent Reflection and In-Flight Internal Checks to build this skill * See Also Episode 18 on Control

Why do we fail to address areas of greatest need by never really getting to the big pain points? * We need to measure ourselves against goals we set for achieving our vision * We need to practice looking at our strengths and gaps every day

THIS IS A CROSS POST from my podcast for artists and entrepreneurs. I accidentally posted this to Badass Agile and removed it; however it was one of my more popular episodes so I added it here anyway! See you next week.

Why do we really do retrospectives, and what qualities must they have to be truly powerful and effective * Retrospectives are about a continuous improvement mindset * Making changes should be aggressive, prioritized and experimental. * Everyone is involved. Executive/Leadership too. * Feedback must be meaningful, honest and democratic. Outcome-based is better than behaviour-based.

How do you become the leader you’ve always wanted to be? What qualities does a badass have that makes other people trust and follow their leadership? * A Badass Leader exhibits control * We discuss Two kinds of struggle – chaos (fight-or-flight, rational fear) and triggering irrational fear (ego-based) * How you react is everything. Negativity, fear are self-propelling and spread virally * Finally we discuss 9 rules for staying in control, and how this affects the kind of leader people perceive and experience you to be.

In this episode, we explore some techniques that are often overlooked when examining team performance and productivity – being able to focus exclusively and free from distractions. From team co-location to multitasking to room noise, distractions cause people to shift focus from what’s important to whatever is popping up in front of them. In these environments it is difficult for teams to thrive. We look at the importance of freedom from distractions for doing focused work in this final episode of the series on Focus.

The quality of the decisions we make determine our success. That’s a lot of weight to carry, and as a result we place too much importance on being ‘ready’ to make decisions – so we make them slowly, and the outcomes are seldom better than when we decide quickly. In this episode we are reminded of Badass qualities, how they can help us make better decisions faster, how Agile can support and foster more efficient decisions, and how to get the courage to make more decisions and stand up for the consequences – on behalf of ourselves or our teams – so we can become better leaders.

Continuing our series on the mindset/habit pairs that create great leaders and great teams, this episode discusses two very important elements of Doing Focused Work – Discipline and Resilience. The ability to work consistently and reliably, as well as the ability to endure hardship (and in fact embrace it) bring serious competitive edge to you, your teams and your organization. We discuss how Discipline and Resilience affect performance in an Agile setting and outside of the team – in your daily life. Finally we discuss simple techniques to grow your discipline and grit.

While recovering from a nasty head cold that has destroyed my voice, I’ll keep you guys busy with a short tip on that helps with new mindset/habit pairs – using a habit tracker. If you truly want to become more badass and develop mastery over your leadership game, you will need to change and correct a number of behaviours. Pick a few you know you want to change and use technology as a lever…habit trackers can help accelerate wherever it is you want to go.

In this interlude, we consider the edge you can claim by looking for people who are unsure in social situations. The habit of paying attention to your body language and that of others allows you to negotiate and influence much more effectively. This short podcast suggests some tips to get you started.

In this episode, we touch on the sometimes delicate issue of people who resist change. More than any other skill, our economy demands adaptability. The landscape is ever-evolving, and we are expected to be more than ‘trained and knowledgeable’. What was relevant yesterday may not be relevant tomorrow. Agile teaches us adaptability – the skill of reacting to a changing current and course correcting with grace and speed. Particularly in new transformations, your team must adopt this mindset and skill to survive the the change.

In this episode, we look at the nature and motives of a ‘hater’, and, recognizing that they are inevitable but wholly irrelevant to your mission, address the best mindset for handling them.

This episode continues the ‘Focus’ series of Badass Agile Mindset/Habit pairs by examining how breaking larger goals into smaller chunks makes them more achievable. Similar to the Sprint concept of scope management, inherent in this technique are a number of mind-hacks that make it easier to stay motivated and focused when faced with overwhelming difficulty or complexity.

In this episode, we discuss the first of the mindset/habit pairs that comprise Badass Agile – Focus. Focus has many variations and components; in this episode we will look at the importance of prioritization. Although we commonly think of prioritization as being directly related to the product backlog and value delivery, it needs to be applied to everything we do as practitioners.

If great leaders and badasses are made, not born, how do you become one? This podcast discusses a number of different techniques. but this episode reveals one of the most overlooked and underused – keep yourself inspired every chance you get. We have so many options in the physical and digital realm to learn new things, and to get ‘virtual coaching’ by reading and hearing the words of the masters who have gone before us. To experience it once is to learn; to hear it repeated over and over, at times when we need it most (and sometimes when we don’t) ensures that your game is continuously improving.

In this Episode, I’ll discuss the source of so much mindset dissonance in spreading Agile (and elite leadership) in large-scale organizations. The need for safety, certainty and sameness – and outright fear – govern so much of how we think and how we build and lead. The solution rests with us – the Badass Agile tribe – and our ability to ship something incredible, one team at a time.

An exploration of why Agile really ‘works’ – creating better product, hopefully more quickly and efficiently, with happier teams. These principles – Focus, Continuous Improvement, Adaptive Planning, and ‘Team’ are the mindsets and behaviours that actually produce the results – and they are the same principles and mindsets used by athletes, artists, achievers and leaders around the world.

Whatever you think to be real is real, whether its true or not. Your perceptions and interpretations of the world create automatic physical responses in your mind and body that further reinforce how you think and feel. The actual truth of the situation may not be available to you – you go on what you know. So let’s try Knowing differently. This podcast examines the methods and effects of simply believing your own leadership skill and capacity to achieve.

In this episode, we discuss how to spread excellence through an organization using Agile means and mindsets. Rather than analyzing and and strategizing endlessly to roll out Agile to an entire organization – which will take way longer than you can afford to start yielding any sort of benefit or advantage – simply choose a high-priority project that feels like a natural fit for agile (can ship early and often, has a willing and supportive business and technical team, etc) and focus on doing that one project with excellence. You will attract the right kind of attention from people who are willing to try something new. Create an awesome fire and allow others seeking light to come to it!