You can courageously foster psychological safety anywhere — even on the soccer (football) pitch. On Saturday, in England’s most famous soccer tournament (the FA Cup), Chelsea hosted Leicester City in a high-profile quarterfinal match. Chelsea led 2-0 when one of their players, Axel Disasi, accidentally scored an “own goal” for the opponents: “The 26-year-old, under pressure from Foxes forward Patson Daka, went to pass the ball back to Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sanchez. Yet Disasi hugely overhit the ball, sending it flying past his teammate and into an empty net.” BBC Sport called it “a nightma ..read more

A colleague recently forwarded me an email thread that reflected some confusion and complexity. The thread had gone back and forth several times and included 47 different people. It was an occasion to apply my Email Rule of Threes heuristic: I consider it a “smell” when I see an email thread that is: more than three messages and/or more than three people on the thread. It usually – but not always – means a problem of coherence and coupling. That is, there is lack of coherence and too much coupling. We want to aim for high coherence (having the quality of a unified whole) and low coupling (el ..read more

Inspired by Donald Reinertsen‘s front-loaded lottery thought experiment from his Principles of Product Development Flow, I created a simple activity to help groups learn about the importance of fast feedback in product development and how to look for optionality and “truncate unproductive paths quickly.” As always, I am releasing it under a Creative Commons Share-and-Share-Alike license. Please play, enjoy and give me feedback. Miro template Presentation (Google Slides ..read more

In honor of International Literacy Day (September 8), I’m writing with a few suggestions to help us brush up on how we communicate, both in writing and speaking. You know what they say: You can take the English major* out of the classroom, but… * Curmudgeon alert! Simple mistakes The first category is simply improving on the basics — reducing the unforced errors: Centered around: This is longstanding bugaboo. It should of course be centered on, as nothing can center around anything. (If you don’t believe me, take a pencil and try drawing it. See?) Literally: Literally means literally, actuall ..read more

The first time I traveled to Thessaloniki to visit my Greece-based colleagues, Leo, who lived in the city, offered to pick me up from my hotel and take me to the office in a nearby suburb. When he pulled up to the hotel, he greeted me warmly — I had only interacted with him via video calls, so it was a treat to meet him in person. After we exchanged pleasantries, I noticed that he had three cups of coffee in the car. “Are we picking up someone else?” I asked with a confused smile. “No, these are for you,” Leo replied. “I didn’t know what kind of coffee you liked, so I have three options: One w ..read more

How do you respond when someone makes a mistake? Hopefully, you don’t do what the English Premier League has been doing this season to its referees who make “human errors”: Publicly humiliate them and suspend them from work. One longtime referee actually left the English refereeing organization “by mutual consent.” The message is clear: Mess up, and you’re fired. That should instill confidence among the remaining employees.  In other news, the beatings will continue until morale improves. How we respond to mistakes hugely impacts psychological safety and motivation. The disturbing part in ..read more

The quintessential American sports tradition that is March Madness concludes this weekend, and with it a chance to observe team dynamics that, although enjoyed in the context of college basketball, are often applicable to work environments. Yes, I’m talking about kanban on the court. In particular, some basketball teams have a unique use of a kanban, one that you may not expect or even notice if you’re not paying attention during substitutions. Can you spot the kanban? To substitute, a player will check in at the scorer’s table, then await the next whistle, at which time he is allowed to enter ..read more

Understanding first-hand what motivates people Do you know what motivates people? Why would they choose to stay or leave? If you care about the people you support and want them to stay (and moreover, thrive), it’s pretty easy to find out how to help: Conduct a Stay Interview. If you know what an exit interview is, you know how to do a stay interview. Simply move the timing up. It’s like the pattern of moving from a project post-mortem to a regular retrospective; by bringing the learning forward, you have a chance to do something about it. My own lessons from stay interviews I’m learning a few ..read more

It’s that time of year again when many of us in the northern hemisphere look at the weather forecast in anticipation of that lovely winter precipitation to see whether we’ll have a white Christmas. And that leads me to my annual reminder about forecasting events in the future: Always forecast with a range! Anyone with a weather app is familiar with the concept: Since the future is probabilistic and not deterministic, we should think of our work forecasts in the same way — always give a range of possibilities, each with its own probability of occurring: Like the weather, we need to account fo ..read more

I read Mik Kersten’s helpful book Project to Product shortly after he published it, and I didn’t comment on it at the time. However, a colleague recently asked about The Flow Framework contained therein, so I am now sharing some thoughts on it. In general, anytime someone promotes the principles of flow management and thinking — especially when he or she is well received for it — I am grateful. That’s largely the case with Kersten’s book. Insofar as it has increased awareness and even the practice of flow management, I commend it. In the interest of giving credit where it’s due, I offer just a ..read more