I don’t doubt that its possible to have an organization with out traditional managers. I’ve read about Semco and Morningstar Farms. I’ve talked to people who work at Gore. My husband works for a less well know firm that doesn’t have traditional...
Slides from a talk I gave on Double Loop Learning in Retrospectives: Double Loop Learning in Retrospectives View more presentations from Esther Derby And take a look at PROMOTING DOUBLE LOOP LEARNING IN RETROSPECTIVES.
“The thinking that got us here isn’t the thinking that’s going to get us where we need to be.” attributed to Albert Einstein I have this niggling concern about retrospectives. I have no doubt that retrospectives that are too short,...
Many managers ask me, “How can I motivate my team?” I’ve certainly seen many efforts to motivate teams. Contests, prizes, pep talks, badges, points, canned thank you notes, and recognition events. Most of this comes down to using rewards to motivate people to...
A while back I was talking to a manager who complained that “no one” in his organization was “accountable.” Of course, he exempted himself form that category. This manager, (I’ll call him Tom) feels like he’s accountable— he knows that if they people creating...
Sometimes, when I hear people talking about “resources,” I ask if the speaker means people. When I do, the responses fall into three groups. Some people look a bit blank for a moment, as if coming out of a trance. They realize resources isn’t the...
I’ve seen lots of managers struggle to help teams. Often, they are driven by deadlines and goals set by their managers. They do what they think will help, acting out of their current view of how things work. Sometimes they look for new ideas on how to manage....
In two recent posts, I offered cautionary tales for managers of self-organizing agile teams: Tale of a Yo-Yo Manager Tale of a Too Hands Off Manager. So what is it that managers should do to move from big boss to partnership? It’s actually quite a long list, so...
Questions matter. The questions we ask open one avenue of inquiry, but close others. If we want to change the way we manage, we need to change our questions. And so, here are my slides from my talk at Agile 2010: 14 Essential Questions aimed at refocusing...
If you have ever said to yourself “It couldn’t be X, Y, or Z” when trying to find an exploration, you’ve put options beyond belief. And that hampers problem solving. Let me tell you a little story, a true story. The Facts Some time ago my...
I’m uncomfortable with the manager vs. leader dichotomy that’s bandied about lately. Most of the time, the conversation is reduced to a sound bite: “Managers do things right, leaders to the right thing” (from a Warren Bennis quote). Cute, but...
I often work with groups who know where they want to go, have some good ideas on how to get there, but they are blocked. When I ask why they can’t achieve the results they envision, they tell me things like: –We lack resources.–We lack...
Yesterday I was re-reading The Myth of Fungible Resources in Slack by Tom DeMarco. Here’s the definition of fungible that appears in the book (p.13): Fun.gi.ble ….(especially of goods) being of such nature or kind as to be freely exchangeable or...
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