Traditional organizations are based on hard skills. They hire for detailed position descriptions and look for certain experiences, and once you are hired, they evaluate your hard skills and focus on growing them. It’s all based on the presumption that we know what needs to be done. And because we know what needs to be done, we can plan the work and allocate people with needed skills. Such organizations optimize for individual performance and that is usually supported by detailed position descriptions, and it all works really well, until the business becomes unpredictable, and you wake up in VU ..read more

Every year I speak at many conferences and based on my experience I recommend some places to go for inspiration. Here is my list of the Top 10 Agile conferences to attend in 2024. It’s not my intention to cover them all, I’m sharing places where I like to return. Inspiring places with interaction, high energy, and great speakers. Regional Scrum Gathering Tokyo is organized by an enthusiastic agile community in Japan. The purpose is to provide a “Ba” (place) where practitioners share ideas among Scrum practitioners having a great diversity. Regional Gatherings provides a unique ..read more

Lately, I realized that people start listening more than reading and that podcasts become quite popular. So here is a list of my personal recommendations on top 10s agile podcasts. #1: The #AgileWay Podcast by Zuzana Zuzi Sochova #AgileWay podcast is exploring challenges organizations face on their agile journey. How to become a great ScrumMaster, how to change your leadership style, or how to embrace agility at the organizational level. Zuzi has also Czech language podcast “Jsme Agilni”. Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agileway/id1555101534 #2: LeSS (Lar ..read more

Some time ago I published my new book The Agile Leader: Leveraging the Power of Influence that is looking at organizational agility and is focusing on the shift required from the leaders. I wrote this book to help people understand that agile is more than just some frameworks and practices. There are many stories from my friends and colleagues, which can give you a different perspective on the agile journey. People often ask me what is the biggest obstacle preventing organizations from embracing a greater level of agility. And I usually turn that question back to them. Everyon ..read more

Every year I speak at many conferences and based on my experience I recommend some places to go for inspiration. It’s not my intention to cover them all, I’m sharing places where I like to return. Inspiring places with interaction, high energy, and great speakers. Business Agility Institute organizes several high-quality content conferences every year, bringing the best Executive, Thought-Leader, and Practitioner speakers to NYC to share their experiences and insights with you. No tracks, just the best stories, concisely told in 20-minutes. Join us in the NYC on Mar, 23-24, 2022 ..read more

The article was originally published by Emergence Journal (Sep 2021). Four times a year, Emergence Journal brings together a curated selection of exclusive stories by great thinkers and practitioners from around the globe about business agility. Subscribe for Emergence Journal and get a 10% discount using "agileprague" promo code. Read more about Emergence Journal. References Zuzana Sochova (2021) The Agile Leader: Leveraging the Power of Influence Over the past two decades the world has become increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous – in other words, unpredictable and ..read more

Speaking of creating the right environment – even in the agile world you sometimes need to make a decision. While that’s not surprising to most managers, it’s often something that agile coaches struggle with. On the other hand, managers often struggle to collaborate and participate, while agile coaches are usually much better at it. All over in an agile environment, you need them both. Decision-making and collaboration. Decision-making is not that hard once you have a clear purpose of what you like to achieve. But without a clear vision, there are so many options to choose from and the natu ..read more

Konflikty jsou mezi lidmi běžné. ScrumMasteři ale mají často pocit, že konflikty jsou něčím špatným, něčím, čemu je dobré se vyhnout. Když ale všichni se vším souhlasí, týmu chybí rozmanitost pohledů a kreativita. Na první pohled tým vypadá zdravě, ale obava z konfliktů jim neumožňuje věci rozebrat z více úhlů. Taková prostředí často postrádají energii a jsou v dlouhodobém horizontu méně úspěšná než ty, kde se konflikty objevují pravidelně. Cílem ScrumMastera je postavit dobře fungující, self-organized nebo chcete-li self-managed tým. Schopnost konflikty zvládat je jednou z vlastností dobře ..read more

Jedna z častých otázek je, jak máme začít. Co mám dělat, když zbytek organizace agile vlastně ani nezajímá, berou ho jako pár praktik a změně se brání, tým stále pracuje více jako jednotlivci, hodnota se ztrácí v tlaku na dodání co nejvíce funkcionality. Osobně si myslím, že úspěch je daný mixem několika věcí. Věřit tomu co dělám a být konzistentní Víte sami za sebe jak by to mělo správně vypadat a proč? Tedy jste konzistentní, věříte tomu co říkáte a také se podle toho chováte? Dám vám příklad. Často vidím ty, kteří se (sami) nazývaní agilními kouči, tedy byste čekali, že agilitu budou ve f ..read more

ScrumMaster je nejenom Servant Leader, ale také Catalyst Leader, který popisuje Bill Joiner ve své knize Leadership Agility. Catalyst Leader je třetím krokem na leadership cestě od Experta k Catalystovi. Expert je velmi jednoduše řečeno člověk, který má znalosti a zkušenosti na takové úrovni, že může ostatním radit a vést je svým příkladem. Expert ostatním umí věci vysvětlit a doporučit konkrétní postup. Achiever se zajímá hlavně o výsledek, je velmi soutěživý, má rád jasně definované cíle a věří, že dobrá výzva je nejlepším motivátorem. Achieveři berou lidi jako zdroje, které jim pomůžou do ..read more