Archive for category agile
Faces of Power in the Organization
Posted by David Bland in agile, enterprise on January 11, 2012
The lines between political science and organizational culture continue to blur. Those who venture into organizations need to become well versed in the dynamics of power. One such explanation of these dynamics that helps me stay oriented is Steven Lukes’ the “Three Faces of Power”.
Three Faces of Power
1. Decision Making – The power to make and implement decisions
2. Non-Decision Making – The power to set agendas and therefore limit what is even being discussed
3. Shaping Desires – The power to manipulate what people think they want
Lukes’ work is an extension of Max Weber’s Three Types of Authority, in which Lukes argues that Weber only focused on the first face of power, Decision Making… [Read More]
Candy Driven Development
Posted by David Bland in agile on December 5, 2011
Ever walk into the kitchen of a technology company? Chances are you’ll find a mind boggling supply of candy, snacks, treats and a variety of caffeinated drinks. One could just pass this off as the bad eating habits of pale geeks who go home after work and live in their parent’s basements, but I’m beginning to believe something deeper is at work here.
New research leads me to believe that we may be collectively suffering from ego depletion.
Ego depletion is the idea that self-control or willpower is an exhaustible resource that can be used up. Interestingly enough, sugar (or glucose) intake helps us prolong our ability to make decision after decision throughout the day.
Initially it sounds far fetched, until you think about all of the decisions you make throughout a work day and how they correlate with your sugar intake… [Read More]
Impediment Colored Glasses
Posted by David Bland in agile, lean, scrum, scrumban on November 19, 2011
impediment – a hindrance or obstruction in doing something: “an impediment to progress”.
When you are an acting ScrumMaster or Agile Project Manager, it is common to seek out impediments so that you can help to remove them. Before you know it, impediments seem to be all around you ranging from the individual, team and organizational levels. A person can quickly feel consumed and overwhelmed by this new found responsibility.
A few years ago I was having a conversation with a colleague about all of the impediments I’d uncovered and how I needed to remove them as soon as possible. About half way through the conversation he interjected “These are not impediments, these are merely the tasks we need to complete our user stories”.
Then it dawned on me, I was so focused on removing impediments that I had begun to view our tasks as blockers to progress.
I was wearing impediment colored glasses…. [Read More]
AgileDC Recap
Posted by David Bland in agile, agiledc on November 1, 2011
AgileDC is a wrap and I’m pleasantly surprised by the turnout (400!) and quality of presentations. Other than me being absent during the keynote (you know the one where Sanjiv was looking for me) and the fact that my car was locked in the overflow lot with David Bulkin… I have no complaints!
I will call out two specific moments that really caught me by surprise and made the conference for me:
Siraj Sirajuddin’s session on The Influencers Mantra – This session blew my mind. It challenged the way I approach agile adoptions and stripped many biases away in the process. Siraj has a mojo about him that is rare. His session could have easily been several hours on one bullet point alone.
LeanKitKanban conversation with Jon Terry – I had met Jon once before at Agile2011 where we spoke about all of the cool things that the Startup America Partnership was doing, but this was the first time that it dawned on me how LeanKitKanban was different. It is a kanban tool applied as kanban. It also allows you to do what you need and then gets out of your way. I cannot say I work with too many tools that can do this elegantly. I found it refreshing to see people bootstrapping it up and not attempting to please everyone by turning their product into bloatware.
The other highlight of my experience was of course… [Read More]
Course Canvas
Posted by David Bland in agile, course canvas, kanban, scrum, tools on October 28, 2011
In attempting to create courses and workshops to educate people on agile techniques, I found that I’ve struggled to find the right flow.
So I created a tool to help me do just that.
Introducing the Course Canvas.
It uses techniques rooted in agile and visual management to allow me to craft a course with less effort than a cumbersome outline.
It is also a Minimum Viable Product, as I only built just enough to learn whether or not you will find it useful.
Take it for a spin and let me know what you think.
