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Ben Linders Consulting
Problem? What Problem?
Learn how to deal effectively with impediments
Agile Management Congress Prague
November 25 2019
Ben Linders Consulting

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Ben Linders Consulting
Agile, Lean, Quality & Continuous improvement
Freelance Editor for InfoQ.com
Ben Linders - Trainer / Coach /
Adviser / Author / Speaker
Books: Valuable Agile Retrospectives Problem? What Problem?
What Drives Quality Self-assessments Continuous Improvement
Games: Agile Self-assessment Game Retrospectives Bingo Impediments
Quality Coaching Cards Agile Testing Cards

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Ben Linders Consulting
Impediments
anything that
slows people
down and
needs to be
dealt with

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Ben Linders Consulting
Handling Impediments
 Recognize impediments
 Understand how they hinder the team
 Explore effective solutions
 Decide how to solve and who takes action

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Ben Linders Consulting
Recognize: Catch Signals
 Something somebody said
 Behavior, what’s being done
 What people are not doing/skipping
 Anomaly in data or measurement
You can observe a lot by just watching –Yogi Berra

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Ben Linders Consulting
Examples of Signals
“My work is done, I’m waiting for other people”
There’s no stand-up meeting when the Scrum
master isn’t there that day
“We can only deliver on time by skipping the
retrospective”
The R&D manager just dropped in and told team
members they need to do some other work

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Ben Linders Consulting
Recognizing Impediments
 Signals, not problem
 Stop and reflect
 Probe & Sense (Cynefin)
 Analyze to understand
 Don’t shoot messenger
 Ignoring doesn’t make the
impediment go away

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Ben Linders Consulting

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Ben Linders Consulting
Share what you learned
?

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Ben Linders Consulting
Questions?Questions?
Ben Linders
Independent Consultant Agile, Lean,
Quality & Continuous Improvement
info@BenLinders.cominfo@BenLinders.com
@BenLinders
www.linkedin.com/in/benlinderswww.linkedin.com/in/benlinders
www.facebook.com/BenLindersConsultingwww.facebook.com/BenLindersConsulting
www.benlinders.comwww.benlinders.com

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Ben Linders Consulting
Impediment Training & Coaching
Download Coaching Cards Board Game
Improve impediment skills
For agile teams, Tech leads,
Scrum masters, Agile
coaches, project or line
managers, consultants,
anyone involved in or
working with agile teams.

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Ben Linders Consulting
Assessing your Agility
Over 80 tools:
• Self-Assessment checklists
• Readyness checks
• Maturity assessments
• Agile health checks
• Measurements
• Books
• And much more! Agile Self-Assessments

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Ben Linders Consulting
benlinders.com - @BenLinders 14
Services for Agile Self-assessments
Becoming agile is a journey, which can be difficult to travel. The Agile
Self-Assessment game is there for you to self assess how agile you
are and smoothly and successfully travel your agile journey.
Services for assessing your agility and increase delivered value:
• In-house workshop for playing the Agile Self-assessment Game
• Public workshops to experience the Agile Self-assessment Game
• Agile assessment for your team, department, or organization
• Facilitation for playing the game at your event (conference, meetup,
hackathon, game lab, etc)
• Tailoring the Agile Self-assessment Game to your specific needs
• Licenses for playing the game
Contact: benlinders@gmail.com +31 6 2901 3863

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Ben Linders Consulting
Making Agile Work for You
Practices for teams and stakeholders to develop the right
products, deliver faster, increase quality, and create
happy high performing teams.
Full Day Workshop:
Deploying practices effectively
Improve Collaboration
Tips & Trick for Agile & Lean
Improve Continuously
Increase your organization's agility!
BenLinders.com/agilelean