Reminder: Secrets of Agile Teamwork in June

Secrets of Agile Teamwork: June 6-8 in Portland

Back by popular demand: Secrets of Agile Teamwork!

This workshop is for people who want to hone their collaboration skills, learn to navigate confict, and enhance communciation. This isn't theoretical stuff... you'll go home with practical tools that you can use the next day.

Beyond technical skills, Agile success depends on productive self-organizing teams. How do you develop, grow, and maintain a functioning self-organizing team? It’s not magic, but it doesn’t just happen either. Effective self-organizing teams rely on personal and interpersonal effectiveness. In this hands-on workshop, we’ll discover the secrets to developing the skills you need to succeed and lead on a self-organizing team.

Audience: Team leaders, team coaches, XP coaches, ScrumMasters and others leading and working in teams.

Pre-requisites: A desire to be best team member or team leader possible.

Logistics: We'll be at the Kennedy School in Portland, Oregon.

Benefits:

Improve the quality of interactions with customers and others outside the team

Increase the speed and effectiveness of feedback

Contribute to an environment for team success

Here’s what people who have attended the workshop are saying:

“Great workshop! Very thought provoking.”

“This workshop gives you great skills in communicating with co-workers.
Finally, I have a nice, friendly way to tell my coworker about that
annoying habit they have.”

“I think this is a must-attend workshop for almost all levels of
career.”

“Very positive. Worth the time and energy if you want a better
understanding of communication with your peers. Informative and
useful.”

“Not boring corporate techniques. Real processes that help and
accommodate everyone’s feelings.”

“Interesting. Illuminating. Introspective.”

“Esther and Diana teach the soft skills that you think you already have
down. Attend it and you’ll know the value.”

We still have a few places -- register soon! If you want more information email me.

Motivation

I hear a lot of managers worry about how to motivate people. I don't think you can motivate people... people create their own motivation. But you can de-motivate people and unfortunately, too many managers do.

Here are some of the de-motivators I see:

Certificates, awards, ceremonies, and other forced fun

Relentless deadlines

Micromanagement

Withholding information

Not making time to meet with people individually on a regular basis

Taking a one-up position

Ranking

Carrying poor performers

Treating people as “resources”

Dictating rather than including

Blaming team/system problems on individuals

Saying one thing and doing another

When managers stop de-motivating, people find their own intrinsic motivation.

Here’s an HBR article that outlines actions to create a motivating environment. I've also written a bunch about management action to create a motivating environment. Some of the articles are posted on my website (which I'm having overhauled -- hope to have a new shiny version with more articles up soonish).