As a coach and Scrum Master one thing that always bothered me was the ‘need’ to be certified to show that you are capable of doing the job. This especially irked me because the Scrum Master Certification is so simple to get and having a certification didn’t prove you were actually capable of doing the job well at all. The whole certification model needed a shake up, and I’m glad that the Agile Mastery Institute is aiming to do just that! Geoff Watts heads up the AMI based in the UK and is trying to help Scrum Masters (and other Scrum roles) be better at what they do. The Scrum Mastery Pathway ..read more

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a fan of estimation. Asking a team how big something is when they know the least about the item seems like a bad idea, but I do understand the need to know how long something will take. I was chatting to one of the leaders I’m currently working with when this came up (again) and she asked me ‘if you took your car to a garage wouldn’t you want to know when it will be ready?’. To which my answer was, ‘I did exactly that this morning and it didn’t even occur to me.’. There is a reason why I didn’t ask the ‘how long’ question, and its 2 fold. Firstly I understood ..read more

I’ve been doing a lot of work recently with teams trying to get them to focus more on outcomes rather than output. This is a solid way of improving a team, and I will continue to do that, but one thing I’ve realised recently is focusing on outcomes is not always the best way to improve what a team delivers. There are a few of ways I am starting to think of this, that aren’t necessarily anything to do with work: “You are what you eat” “Garbage in, garbage out” “You can’t polish a turd” The input a team has is just as important as the outcome in many ways. The better a team is, the better they a ..read more

Part 1 AGILE MINDSET: “Mindset” – is this a buzz word or is this truly possible?  Scrum master that is good adopts the responsibilities of the role/ great scrum master adopts the mindset and skills. One of the big buzzwords in the Agile world, is adopting an “Agile mindset”. It doesn’t help to just DO agile, you need to BE Agile. But what does that really mean?  In my first few months as a Scrum master, I was pulling out all the stops. I thought it was my obligation to make the team do new things all the time, to experiment constantly. To immediately fix things and have tangible resu ..read more

Recently we decided to get together as the full Growing Agile team, all four of us now! There was one main reason for this, to meet in person for the first time. Well saying that, I have met Rebecca many times, in fact we’ve been doing quite a bit of training together over the last year or so, but it’s always nice to meet up and catch up. Yogini I’ve also met quite a few times in person, going back many years to SUGSA gatherings where she has been a regular speaker, but since she joined Growing Agile and we’ve been working closely together I had only had the chance to meet her in person a c ..read more

We’re experimenting with a new meetup – Lunch and Learn. Next week, Nilesh Makan, will be joining us at our Lunch and Learn session, talking about Courage. Scrum lists five core behaviours for teams and those communities that are practising scrum to adopt. These values and behaviours are intended to amplify team outcomes. One of the five core behaviours is that of courage. Courage, as per the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is the mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. In these increasingly uncertain times, we need to find the strength and convic ..read more

This blog post is by Nilesh Makan and one of my favourites, thanks for sharing. Alright Stop, Collaborate and Listen Vanilla ice was ahead of the curve when coming up with the lyrics of Ice Ice Baby. The lyrics in the following line of the song are: “Ice is back with my brand new invention”. While there are differences between them, invention, innovation and creativity are part of the same WhatsApp group, and all of them are becoming increasingly necessary in a disruptive world. As I continue to learn more about innovation, why innovation matters, what it means to innovate and how to ..read more

I recently attended the Unmute conference, hosted by the Remote Coaches. It spanned over 12 hours, 7 continents, 20 brilliant speakers and 150 participants. This conference was aimed at leaders, facilitators, coaches and anyone who cares about the quality of collaboration in distributed spaces. It was really wonderful being able to connect with people from around the world, to share experiences and discuss remote working. I had been avoiding meetups and conferences for the past few months after attending way too many prior and spending way too much time online. I’m so glad I chose to join this ..read more

This blog post is by Nilesh Makan While the world has been changing at an exponential pace over the last decade, it doesn’t compare with the seismic shifts that have transformed our lives over the past year or so. With the advent of Covid, we have moved into a discontinuous and digital world, impacting society as a whole.  As parts of the world start to emerge from the pandemic, disproportionally so, we have an opportunity to learn from the past, and we have to make choices on how we move forward. Moving forward is strategy. The word, strategy, is derived from the Greek word, stratēgia, a ..read more

Failing to plan is planning to fail. That mantra has been drilled into me for many years by many managers, and has proven somewhat useful as a habit. Sometimes however, I do fall into the trap of planning and not preparing… what’s the difference? Planning is good because it sets you up in a direction. Helps you understand where you need to go, and can give you a rough idea of how to get there. Preparation is all about getting ready for the journey, ensuring that you have what it takes to nimbly address those pitfalls that will undoubtedly appear in an effort to scupper your plans. Responding ..read more