You Might Be an Agile Leader If...

K2
Keynote
11/8/17 10:00 AM

You Might Be an Agile Leader If...

Presented by:

Bob Galen
Zenergy Technologies

Brought to you by:

350 Corporate Way, Suite 400, Orange Park, FL 32073
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Bob Galen
Zenergy Technologies

An agile methodologist, practitioner, and coach, Bob Galen helps guide leaders
and teams in their pragmatic adoption and organizational shift toward Scrum and
other agile methods. Bob is often called "a Coach of Coaches" because of his
deep and broad experience in the agile arena. He is director, agile practices at
Zenergy Technologies; president of RGCG, LLC; and a frequent speaker at
international conferences and professional groups on topics of agile software
development. Bob authored Three Pillars of Agile Quality and Testing, Scrum
Product Ownership, and Agile Reflections. A prolific writer, blogger, and
podcaster, Bob can be reached at bob@rgalen.com or at LinkedIn.

You might be an agile leader if…
But, first…
A HUGE thank you
to my social
community for
helping me co-
create these ideas.
Crowdsourcing
rocks!
Copyright © 2017 RGCG. LLC 2

Journaling for Leadership Growth
Aha moments
Ideas
Realizations
Observations
Events
What if?
Possibilities
Goals
Outcomes
Dreams
Tomorrow…
Copyright © 2017 RGCG, LLC 3
you realize that to be a good leader you need to be
a good follower and that it’s an inside job…

you are more concerned about real outcomes over
raw output…
you are more than willing to
coach the team in servitude
to their needs and let them
fly without your
interference...even if it
means they may fall to the
ground every now and then,
as they try out their new
wings

you sometimes wonder if
you've lost your mind
since no one else seems
to understand what
you're talking about:
Lean, Cycle & Lead time,
DevOps, Scrum,
Kanban, SAFe, MVP,
Velocity, Story Points,
Refactoring…
someone starts a conversation with “I know you
won’t like it, but…”

you suddenly realize
that you don’t “test
in” quality…
and that testing is a
profession and that
testers are first class
citizens…
you never stop learning; you are insatiably curious
about the roots, tactics, and why of agility…

you’ve had the “A tool does not make you agile”
conversation more than 10 times…
you recognize that the
terms Leader and
Leadership are
nominalizations of the
verb "to lead" which is
an action that anyone
can engage in as the
situation calls for…

you’re willing to “piss people off”…
you mull things over
continuously, carefully
considering when, and
when not, to engage…

you understand the power of basing decisions off
of the objective evidence of working software…
you understand that asking questions is far more
important than giving answers…

you seek out others
within your
organization that are
championing agile
methodologies and
you support and
empower them…
you’ve found yourself
telling your managers
and teams that they
need to “slow down to
go fast”…
and you believed it…

you understand that open office space isn’t the
only collaboration setup. Remembering “Caves &
Commons”…
you can control your desire to inflict help…

you’ve take the time
to share your vision
and mission with
every member of your
team. Then
reinforced it in
everyday
conversations…
you discovered that plans are valueless, but
planning is invaluable. Even if you have a PMP
certification…

you are willing to take a risk,
make a “leap of faith”…

Saturday breakfast with the family kicks off with
"what did you do yesterday, plan on doing today,
..."
you listen twice as much as you speak; I'd guess
that's why we have two ears and only one mouth…

instead of looking for individuals to blame, you look
for improvements in the system…
you understand the importance of technical
excellence and the power of the XP practices…

you are willing to provide a vision and let the crew
steer the ship toward it...
your "honey do" list on the fridge is actually an
operational Kanban board…

sticky notes and note cards make you happy…
and sharpies delight you…
you truly believe that the success of the team is
more important than your success…

you never, ever get stuck in your plans. Realizing
that plans must change based on results…
you create the space for agility. While also
providing “cover” when required so that your teams
feel protected…

your budget favors value streams rather than
projects…and people rather than resources…
you realize that Spotify (Facebook, Valve, Google,
Zappos, etc.) aren’t silver bullet, role models…

you set clear goals, objectives, and explain the
why behind them. Then you get the hell out of the
way…
you burst into spontaneous applause as one team
“blew you away” with their efforts in the sprint
demo…

you realize that agile doesn’t hurt people. Agile
scaling frameworks and other silver bullet thinking
hurts people…
you’ve invested in
successful distributed
teams: via tools,
travel budget,
chartering, clustering,
and a team
commitment to
collaboration

you’ve proven to be a patient and guiding
presence as everyone navigates change…
you believe that - logic (agile) clearly dictates that
the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the
few…

you realize that
cross-functional,
leadership alignment
is crucial…
And I mean REAL
alignment on
principles, tactics,
and goals…
you’ve concluded that the culture of an
organization is shaped by the best behavior that
the leader (you) is willing to amplify…

your two dogs are named, Inspect and Adapt…
you’re a role model for other leaders,
walking your talk, doing, and mentoring them in
their journeys…

you realize that leadership is totally situational and
context-driven. In fact, “what’s the context?” is your
favorite question…

when in doubt, you ask team members for their
advice. Pushing decision-making as low as
possible…
you have an
insatiable curiosity
(joy) to see how
much teams, when
empowered,
supported, and
trusted, can
accomplish…

you don’t shy away
from the “hard
conversations” with
all levels of your
organization. You’re
a courageous,
straight-shooting,
truth teller…
you’ve just signed up
for a 3-week, bucket
list vacation without
worrying about your
organization and
teams handling your
absence…

you are occasionally prescriptive with your teams
in their missions, goal-setting, and agile
behaviors…
you haven’t used Microsoft Project since your
final Y2K project…

you never use
“Trust, but Verify”
thinking with your
teams; instead you
freely extend trust
to those wonderful
folks you’ve
hired…
you’ve leveraged
effective story-telling
as a communication
device in guiding
transformational
change…

you discover that when you leave your
organization, everyone around you says that – we
did it our way…

you collect potato heads, considering them an
essential part of your agile team,
with no spud left behind…
Copyright © 2016-17 RGCG,
LLC 60
Introduction
Bob Galen
Independent Agile Coach (CEC) at RGCG, LLC
Director, Agile Practices at
Somewhere ‘north’ of 30 years overall experience
Wide variety of technical stacks and business domains
Developer first, then Project Management / Leadership, then
Testing
Senior/Executive software development leadership for 20+ years
Practicing formal agility since 2000
XP, Lean, Scrum, and Kanban experience
From Cary, North Carolina
Bias Disclaimer:
Agile is THE BEST Methodology
for Software Development…
However, NOT a Silver Bullet!

Contact Info Bob Galen
President,
RGCG
Experience-driven agile
focused training, coaching
& consulting
Cell: (919) 272-0719
bob@rgalen.com
www.rgalen.com
@bobgalen
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobgal
en
Podcast on all things ‘agile’ -
http://www.meta-cast.com/
61Copyright © 2017 RGCG, LLC 61

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