Agile Camp 2018 - Become a Better Leader with Legos TheAgileDen
This document describes a Lego game exercise used to demonstrate the Cynefin framework. The exercise involves participants completing a series of Lego building challenges of increasing complexity that correspond to the different domains in the Cynefin framework - obvious, complicated, complex, and chaotic. For each challenge, participants are asked questions about their experience that help illustrate characteristics of the corresponding Cynefin domain. The goal is to show how problems can be classified based on their attributes and how different approaches are needed to manage different types of problems.
Workplace distractions are common and can negatively impact productivity. Some common distractions include social media, emails, and unnecessary meetings. It is important to set boundaries, focus on one task at a time, and take occasional breaks to refocus and recharge in order to maximize productivity and minimize distractions.
The document discusses how to create an environment for innovation within teams. It states that in order to improve, teams must be able to change and have the space to innovate, which sometimes means trying things that appear ignorant or incompetent. This encourages experimentation by reducing the cost of failure. The document advocates building tools and processes that help teams get the right work done at the right time, prioritizing work, limiting interruptions, and providing direction with purpose.
Agile Camp 2018 - Top ten barriers to achieving an agile culture clTheAgileDen
The document discusses cultural challenges that companies face when adopting agile practices. It cites a survey that found the top reasons for failed agile projects were lack of experience with agile methods, a company culture at odds with agile values, and lack of management support. It describes how company culture is shaped by values, habits, and generational factors of employees. Specifically, it notes that IT culture focuses on repeatable processes, unambiguous solutions, and certainty of results, which can clash with agile values like flexibility and collaboration. The document frames ten core agile principles as challenges to overcome cultural barriers, such as embracing transparency, minimum viable products, and servant leadership.
The document discusses the causes and effects of stress on the brain and body. It provides techniques for managing stress, including square breathing and progressive muscle relaxation exercises. It also suggests activities teams can do during short breaks to reduce tension, such as meditation walks, and lists resources for further information on stress and reading body language.
Agile Camp 2018 - The Pitfalls of the Unspoken TheAgileDen
The document discusses plans for an AgileCamp event. It announces that a third location is being added in Madison, WI. Attendees will be able to provide feedback on sessions through surveys to help improve future events. Speakers will be invited from outside the hosting organization's IT department.
Agile Camp 2018 - Experience Personal Kanban TheAgileDen
The document summarizes highlights from a six-week course on personal Kanban. The course covered two chapters per session over six sessions. Participants actively practiced Kanban by visualizing their work and limiting work-in-progress using Kanban boards. An exercise was described where participants estimated properties of marbles in cups to learn about defining work in smaller chunks to improve flexibility and efficiency. Overall, the course helped participants focus on value, eliminate waste, and make better decisions using Kanban principles.
Agile Camp 2018 - Letting No Work For You TheAgileDen
This document discusses the challenges of saying "yes" when we don't want to for fear of disappointing others. It notes that constantly agreeing can increase stress, anxiety, and physical health issues. Alternative responses are suggested such as acknowledging concerns but proposing a better option. Effective communication techniques are also outlined like using others' language, explaining terms, asking questions, restating to confirm understanding, and avoiding extreme questioning. Partners are asked to roleplay times when saying "no" could have improved a situation.
Agile Camp 2018 - Become a Better Leader with Legos TheAgileDen
This document describes a Lego game exercise used to demonstrate the Cynefin framework. The exercise involves participants completing a series of Lego building challenges of increasing complexity that correspond to the different domains in the Cynefin framework - obvious, complicated, complex, and chaotic. For each challenge, participants are asked questions about their experience that help illustrate characteristics of the corresponding Cynefin domain. The goal is to show how problems can be classified based on their attributes and how different approaches are needed to manage different types of problems.
Workplace distractions are common and can negatively impact productivity. Some common distractions include social media, emails, and unnecessary meetings. It is important to set boundaries, focus on one task at a time, and take occasional breaks to refocus and recharge in order to maximize productivity and minimize distractions.
The document discusses how to create an environment for innovation within teams. It states that in order to improve, teams must be able to change and have the space to innovate, which sometimes means trying things that appear ignorant or incompetent. This encourages experimentation by reducing the cost of failure. The document advocates building tools and processes that help teams get the right work done at the right time, prioritizing work, limiting interruptions, and providing direction with purpose.
Agile Camp 2018 - Top ten barriers to achieving an agile culture clTheAgileDen
The document discusses cultural challenges that companies face when adopting agile practices. It cites a survey that found the top reasons for failed agile projects were lack of experience with agile methods, a company culture at odds with agile values, and lack of management support. It describes how company culture is shaped by values, habits, and generational factors of employees. Specifically, it notes that IT culture focuses on repeatable processes, unambiguous solutions, and certainty of results, which can clash with agile values like flexibility and collaboration. The document frames ten core agile principles as challenges to overcome cultural barriers, such as embracing transparency, minimum viable products, and servant leadership.
The document discusses the causes and effects of stress on the brain and body. It provides techniques for managing stress, including square breathing and progressive muscle relaxation exercises. It also suggests activities teams can do during short breaks to reduce tension, such as meditation walks, and lists resources for further information on stress and reading body language.
Agile Camp 2018 - The Pitfalls of the Unspoken TheAgileDen
The document discusses plans for an AgileCamp event. It announces that a third location is being added in Madison, WI. Attendees will be able to provide feedback on sessions through surveys to help improve future events. Speakers will be invited from outside the hosting organization's IT department.
Agile Camp 2018 - Experience Personal Kanban TheAgileDen
The document summarizes highlights from a six-week course on personal Kanban. The course covered two chapters per session over six sessions. Participants actively practiced Kanban by visualizing their work and limiting work-in-progress using Kanban boards. An exercise was described where participants estimated properties of marbles in cups to learn about defining work in smaller chunks to improve flexibility and efficiency. Overall, the course helped participants focus on value, eliminate waste, and make better decisions using Kanban principles.
Agile Camp 2018 - Letting No Work For You TheAgileDen
This document discusses the challenges of saying "yes" when we don't want to for fear of disappointing others. It notes that constantly agreeing can increase stress, anxiety, and physical health issues. Alternative responses are suggested such as acknowledging concerns but proposing a better option. Effective communication techniques are also outlined like using others' language, explaining terms, asking questions, restating to confirm understanding, and avoiding extreme questioning. Partners are asked to roleplay times when saying "no" could have improved a situation.
The document discusses how interruptions can significantly reduce productivity. It notes that a single interruption of just 10 minutes can lead to over 30 minutes of lost time getting back to a complex task. It also shares that in the first 76 minutes of work, only 11 minutes were spent on the actual task due to interruptions. The document advocates limiting work in progress to reduce wait times, making all work visible even if it's ad hoc requests, and measuring and trending data to understand productivity impacts.
This document discusses the importance of team metrics for identifying problems, making forecasts, and driving corrective behaviors. It emphasizes that both qualitative and quantitative data from sources like Jira and Excel can provide leading and lagging metrics to understand team performance. Examples are given around tracking items delivered and forecasting readiness. The goals are to help teams gain intuition on these concepts and find new ways to sell analytics using analogies.
The document discusses using questioning to improve project planning and outcomes. It recommends generating questions before developing solutions to surface issues and ensure the right problems are addressed. Poor planning is cited as a leading cause of project failure. Questioning at the start allows all voices to be heard and contingency plans to be developed. The technique involves clarifying objectives and assumptions before brainstorming open-ended questions without immediate answers. This approach helps focus a group on the most important questions to guide the project in a collaborative manner.
This document describes several icebreaker games that were played at an Agile camp. It provides instructions for games like #onetimeatAgileCamp where participants pass colored balls around in a circle while saying another participant's name. It also describes a game where participants come up with creative names and drawings for "team monsters" that represent problems, and brainstorm ways to defeat the monsters. Finally, it suggests an activity where participants collaborate to tell a story by each adding just one word at a time.
This document discusses the Tadpole exercise, which is used to break down ideas into smaller parts. It can help teams facilitate discussion, focus conversations, and visualize ideas. The document provides tips for running the exercise, such as finding a strong moderator, always asking for clarification, focusing on the current pile, having the group name the piles, and engaging all participants. Potential pitfalls are also listed, like forgetting to clarify meaning and not involving all participants.
This document provides instructions for group activities at an AgileCamp in September 2017. Participants are split into pairs and asked to take turns telling stories and listening. They then brainstorm powerful questions on paper. Next, groups of three are formed with roles of problem holder, questioner, and observer. The problem holder shares an issue while the questioner asks prepared powerful questions and the observer watches the interaction.
The document discusses what makes teams high performing and provides an activity for individuals and groups. For the individual activity, participants use the High Performance Model to identify which behaviors their team has resolved and which are still unresolved. In the group activity, participants discuss as a table what is resolved and unresolved for their respective teams, and if any behaviors are unresolved, they gather ideas from others on how to fully resolve it. They also create a list of activities to take back to their own teams.
The document discusses feedback and defines two types of feedback: performance feedback which is provided by a manager, and impact feedback which focuses on how a person's behavior impacts others. It notes that giving feedback can help reduce employee turnover by 14.9% and that 82% of employees appreciate receiving feedback. An example is also given of how to structure impact feedback by focusing on observable behaviors, their impact, and asking open-ended questions.
The document discusses developing a learner mindset over a judger mindset. It provides tools and questions to help observe situations objectively, understand different perspectives, and make decisions focused on learning and positivity. Specific tools mentioned include using questions to empower observation skills, distinguishing learner and judger questions, making friends with one's inner judger, and questioning assumptions. The overall message is that reframing one's thinking through questions can help navigate challenges and find new possibilities.
The document discusses an AgileCamp that took place in September 2017. It mentions conducting a root cause analysis for recurring ticket issues and intends to fix the underlying issues to prevent future tickets. It also lists a book titled "Turn the Ship Around" by L. David Marquet, which is about turning followers into leaders.
The document discusses the value of experimentation and learning. It notes that experimentation is the process of trying new ideas, methods, or activities and measuring the results. Additionally, the document presents statistics showing that time spent learning decreases dramatically with age, from 30% of the day for ages 15-19 down to less than 1% of the day for ages 35-44. The document encourages experimentation and emphasizes that both success and failure lead to learning.
The document discusses the concept of "extreme ownership" where individuals take accountability for outcomes even when working with others. It contrasts owners who embrace responsibility with renters who place blame. Adopting extreme ownership at all levels of a team leads to improved performance as the team will own obligations, take action, and deliver results rather than make excuses. The document recommends the book "Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win" by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin to learn more about developing extreme ownership.
This document lists books and authors about change and how to successfully implement change when it is difficult. It includes the titles "Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard" by Dan Heath and Chip Heath and "Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change" by Joseph Grenny and Kerry Patterson. The document also notes it was created in September 2017 and includes a hashtag for AgileCamp.
Agile camp2017 motivation through autonomyTheAgileDen
The document discusses different theories of motivation, including Motivation 1.0 focused on survival, Motivation 2.0 involving carrots and sticks approaches from traditional management, and introducing Motivation 3.0 focused on autonomy, mastery, and purpose. It questions what teams may accomplish when given autonomy over their work and cites the book "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" by Daniel Pink which explores modern theories of motivation.
Empowerment refers to measures that increase autonomy and self-determination for individuals and communities, allowing them to represent their own interests responsibly and independently. It is the antithesis of controlling power over others. The goal is to enable self-determined decision making.
The document contains charts showing metrics over time such as commitment burnup, predictability burndown, completed capacity, velocity, rework, throughput, and cycle time. It also shows charts comparing ideal and actual remaining work in hours and story points over the same time period. The text emphasizes that data needs to be understood, visible, and used as the starting point for conversations around improvement.
The document discusses facilitation and describes it as a fluid process using various tools and techniques to empower participants, invite collaboration, and increase commitment to group solutions in order to maximize productivity. An effective facilitator guides a group to their own solutions by listening 80% of the time, building bridges, engaging all styles and ideas, and acting as a "ringmaster". In contrast, an ineffective facilitator is rigid, forces answers, talks too much, and only engages those who are similar.
The document discusses how mutual respect and trust are essential for self-organizing teams to evolve into high-performance teams. It outlines an exercise for teams to identify existing "trust anti-patterns", determine if they are bearable or hurt the team, and propose "trust boost-patterns" to counteract the anti-patterns. The document concludes with an activity where team members and managers make commitments to build trust.
This document outlines various stakeholders for a project including direct and indirect users, managers, senior management, operations staff, funders, support members, auditors, program managers, and other developers. It discusses that stakeholders want their work prioritized, have limited time for additional tasks, and prefer effective relationship building through clear communication and availability rather than large upfront requirements, siloed work, or delays in decision making. Stakeholders want everyone involved from the start to build trust and partnership through an iterative process.
This document provides an overview of the agenda and purpose of various agile ceremonies, including backlog refinement, daily standup, retrospective, sprint planning, and sprint review. It discusses forming groups to discuss the purpose and desired outcomes of each ceremony. For each ceremony, it lists the purpose as gaining a shared understanding of requirements, identifying uncertainties, negotiating acceptance criteria, prioritizing backlog items, synchronizing work and identifying impediments, reflecting on and improving processes, tasking out sprint work, and demonstrating product increments for feedback. The desired outcomes include estimated backlog items, fewer surprises, elaborated stories, understanding of daily work and impediments, agreed-upon process improvements, a committed sprint plan, and accepted stories and new
The document discusses how interruptions can significantly reduce productivity. It notes that a single interruption of just 10 minutes can lead to over 30 minutes of lost time getting back to a complex task. It also shares that in the first 76 minutes of work, only 11 minutes were spent on the actual task due to interruptions. The document advocates limiting work in progress to reduce wait times, making all work visible even if it's ad hoc requests, and measuring and trending data to understand productivity impacts.
This document discusses the importance of team metrics for identifying problems, making forecasts, and driving corrective behaviors. It emphasizes that both qualitative and quantitative data from sources like Jira and Excel can provide leading and lagging metrics to understand team performance. Examples are given around tracking items delivered and forecasting readiness. The goals are to help teams gain intuition on these concepts and find new ways to sell analytics using analogies.
The document discusses using questioning to improve project planning and outcomes. It recommends generating questions before developing solutions to surface issues and ensure the right problems are addressed. Poor planning is cited as a leading cause of project failure. Questioning at the start allows all voices to be heard and contingency plans to be developed. The technique involves clarifying objectives and assumptions before brainstorming open-ended questions without immediate answers. This approach helps focus a group on the most important questions to guide the project in a collaborative manner.
This document describes several icebreaker games that were played at an Agile camp. It provides instructions for games like #onetimeatAgileCamp where participants pass colored balls around in a circle while saying another participant's name. It also describes a game where participants come up with creative names and drawings for "team monsters" that represent problems, and brainstorm ways to defeat the monsters. Finally, it suggests an activity where participants collaborate to tell a story by each adding just one word at a time.
This document discusses the Tadpole exercise, which is used to break down ideas into smaller parts. It can help teams facilitate discussion, focus conversations, and visualize ideas. The document provides tips for running the exercise, such as finding a strong moderator, always asking for clarification, focusing on the current pile, having the group name the piles, and engaging all participants. Potential pitfalls are also listed, like forgetting to clarify meaning and not involving all participants.
This document provides instructions for group activities at an AgileCamp in September 2017. Participants are split into pairs and asked to take turns telling stories and listening. They then brainstorm powerful questions on paper. Next, groups of three are formed with roles of problem holder, questioner, and observer. The problem holder shares an issue while the questioner asks prepared powerful questions and the observer watches the interaction.
The document discusses what makes teams high performing and provides an activity for individuals and groups. For the individual activity, participants use the High Performance Model to identify which behaviors their team has resolved and which are still unresolved. In the group activity, participants discuss as a table what is resolved and unresolved for their respective teams, and if any behaviors are unresolved, they gather ideas from others on how to fully resolve it. They also create a list of activities to take back to their own teams.
The document discusses feedback and defines two types of feedback: performance feedback which is provided by a manager, and impact feedback which focuses on how a person's behavior impacts others. It notes that giving feedback can help reduce employee turnover by 14.9% and that 82% of employees appreciate receiving feedback. An example is also given of how to structure impact feedback by focusing on observable behaviors, their impact, and asking open-ended questions.
The document discusses developing a learner mindset over a judger mindset. It provides tools and questions to help observe situations objectively, understand different perspectives, and make decisions focused on learning and positivity. Specific tools mentioned include using questions to empower observation skills, distinguishing learner and judger questions, making friends with one's inner judger, and questioning assumptions. The overall message is that reframing one's thinking through questions can help navigate challenges and find new possibilities.
The document discusses an AgileCamp that took place in September 2017. It mentions conducting a root cause analysis for recurring ticket issues and intends to fix the underlying issues to prevent future tickets. It also lists a book titled "Turn the Ship Around" by L. David Marquet, which is about turning followers into leaders.
The document discusses the value of experimentation and learning. It notes that experimentation is the process of trying new ideas, methods, or activities and measuring the results. Additionally, the document presents statistics showing that time spent learning decreases dramatically with age, from 30% of the day for ages 15-19 down to less than 1% of the day for ages 35-44. The document encourages experimentation and emphasizes that both success and failure lead to learning.
The document discusses the concept of "extreme ownership" where individuals take accountability for outcomes even when working with others. It contrasts owners who embrace responsibility with renters who place blame. Adopting extreme ownership at all levels of a team leads to improved performance as the team will own obligations, take action, and deliver results rather than make excuses. The document recommends the book "Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win" by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin to learn more about developing extreme ownership.
This document lists books and authors about change and how to successfully implement change when it is difficult. It includes the titles "Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard" by Dan Heath and Chip Heath and "Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change" by Joseph Grenny and Kerry Patterson. The document also notes it was created in September 2017 and includes a hashtag for AgileCamp.
Agile camp2017 motivation through autonomyTheAgileDen
The document discusses different theories of motivation, including Motivation 1.0 focused on survival, Motivation 2.0 involving carrots and sticks approaches from traditional management, and introducing Motivation 3.0 focused on autonomy, mastery, and purpose. It questions what teams may accomplish when given autonomy over their work and cites the book "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" by Daniel Pink which explores modern theories of motivation.
Empowerment refers to measures that increase autonomy and self-determination for individuals and communities, allowing them to represent their own interests responsibly and independently. It is the antithesis of controlling power over others. The goal is to enable self-determined decision making.
The document contains charts showing metrics over time such as commitment burnup, predictability burndown, completed capacity, velocity, rework, throughput, and cycle time. It also shows charts comparing ideal and actual remaining work in hours and story points over the same time period. The text emphasizes that data needs to be understood, visible, and used as the starting point for conversations around improvement.
The document discusses facilitation and describes it as a fluid process using various tools and techniques to empower participants, invite collaboration, and increase commitment to group solutions in order to maximize productivity. An effective facilitator guides a group to their own solutions by listening 80% of the time, building bridges, engaging all styles and ideas, and acting as a "ringmaster". In contrast, an ineffective facilitator is rigid, forces answers, talks too much, and only engages those who are similar.
The document discusses how mutual respect and trust are essential for self-organizing teams to evolve into high-performance teams. It outlines an exercise for teams to identify existing "trust anti-patterns", determine if they are bearable or hurt the team, and propose "trust boost-patterns" to counteract the anti-patterns. The document concludes with an activity where team members and managers make commitments to build trust.
This document outlines various stakeholders for a project including direct and indirect users, managers, senior management, operations staff, funders, support members, auditors, program managers, and other developers. It discusses that stakeholders want their work prioritized, have limited time for additional tasks, and prefer effective relationship building through clear communication and availability rather than large upfront requirements, siloed work, or delays in decision making. Stakeholders want everyone involved from the start to build trust and partnership through an iterative process.
This document provides an overview of the agenda and purpose of various agile ceremonies, including backlog refinement, daily standup, retrospective, sprint planning, and sprint review. It discusses forming groups to discuss the purpose and desired outcomes of each ceremony. For each ceremony, it lists the purpose as gaining a shared understanding of requirements, identifying uncertainties, negotiating acceptance criteria, prioritizing backlog items, synchronizing work and identifying impediments, reflecting on and improving processes, tasking out sprint work, and demonstrating product increments for feedback. The desired outcomes include estimated backlog items, fewer surprises, elaborated stories, understanding of daily work and impediments, agreed-upon process improvements, a committed sprint plan, and accepted stories and new
Quantitative
Research is all about numbers. uses mathematical analysis and data to shed light on important statistics about your business and market. This type of data, found via tactics such as multiple-choice questionnaires, can help you gauge interest in your company and its offerings. For example, quantitative research is useful for answering questions such as:
Is there a market for your products and services?
How much market awareness is there of your product or service?
How many people are interested in buying your product or service?
What type of people are your best customers?
What are their buying habits?
How are the needs of your target market changing?
How long are visitors staying on your website, and from which page are they exiting?
Perhaps most importantly, because quantitative research is mathematically based, it’s statistically valid, which means you can use its findings to make predictions about where your business is headed.
Qualitative
Research isn’t so much about numbers as it is about people — and their opinions about your business. Typically conducted by asking questions either one-on-one or to groups of people, qualitative research can help you define problems and learn about customers' opinions, values and beliefs. Because qualitative research generally involves smaller sample sizes than quantitative research, it’s not meant to be used to predict future performance; rather, it gives you an anecdotal look into your business
Whereas quantitative research asks short-answer questions that begin with “to what extent,” “how much” and “how many,” qualitative research asks long-answer questions that begin with “how” and “why.” It’s particularly useful if you’re developing a new product, service, website or ad campaign and want to get some feedback before you commit a large budget to it. Some typical questions that “qual” research may ask include:
Why do you think this product is better than competitive products? Why do you think it’s not?
What would you do to improve this new service to make it more appealing to you?
What do you think of this new company logo?
How would you characterize this website design? How friendly and easily navigable is it?
What does this print ad say to you?
Ask the group - Nelnet specific value factors
Incoming call volume, hours to work a manual report, FTE to support daily operations, volume of errors to be worked
How do these rank in terms of importance to one another?
Measuring these factors – how good is “good enough”?
Translating in to real dollars and why it is important (prioritization/ROI)
Ceremonies
Incentives and motivations are too tied to adopting the practices that have encouraged a checklist culture. This culture ensures teams follow certain ceremonies in a cadence—without considering the value that the software delivers to the customer or the long-term impact of not resolving deficiencies in the systems.
The focus of the conversations has been on what scope to deliver within this artificial time constraint, rather than the value produced and how value can be realized quicker.
When a team is not able to fit the next valuable deliverable within the timebox, they scramble to identify what else the team can work on within the given timebox. Should be looking at what value they can deliver – maybe an exciter, low hanging exciter
Incremental Delivery and Delivering Incremental Value
Stop trying to fit stuff in to just fit it in. Deliver incrementally to gather feedback
By delivering frequent value, we keep our customers engaged and can more easily pivot
Keep building on value as long as it makes sense
20% of the work could mean 80% of the value – get something now vs waiting multiple months for something.