You may be surprised
“We have just one last question”, the manager leading the interview said.
This was the wrap-up for the hour-long session, in what sounded like a lengthy search for the right agile coach to consult with their team.
“Can you tell us what your vision is?”
That was a bit unexpected. I hesitated for a second — actually, when it comes to agile, I do have a vision.
But I wasn’t sure if she or the other two people in the meeting were ready to hear it.
But she asked, so I dived in. I replied:
“Here’s my vision. Imagine one of your colleagues is sitting at the dinner table with his young son or daughter. He’s one of those managers you mentioned that has heard about agile but not sure if it really…
While the work is important, the value is even more important
A few years back, sitting at the conference room table with a half-dozen other project managers, we listened to a senior manager visiting from the corporate office, most definitely the HiPPO¹.
He was there to tell us how to improve our projects.
“The problem is you are doing it all wrong!”
He stood up, grabbed a marker, and started drawing boxes on the whiteboard. Then connecting them with lines in a hierarchy, while speaking over his shoulder:
“You need better work breakdown structures!”
We looked at each other. Most of us had managed projects for years and created many work breakdown structures (WBS). …
Watching these two indicators really helped!
In the early days of my project management career, as a traditional project manager, agile practitioners that I worked with would sometimes tell me:
“You just need to adopt an agile mindset!”.
This drove me nuts. What is a mindset? How do I find one? How do I know if it’s agile? And how do I “adopt” a mindset anyway?
I just didn’t get it.
Looking back, after years of leading agile teams, working with other agile coaches, and obtaining agile certifications, I finally got it. There is such a thing as an agile mindset. …
About
