I’ve seen several cases of process standardization recently. Those processes don’t translate to the current context. The processes don’t have sufficient agility to deliver the necessary results. Yet, people who want to use agile approaches don’t want to apply agile thinking to their processes. Some clients want to create their custom agile process— and then
Several years ago, a client, Alex, asked me, “What’s wrong with this team? They don’t want to learn anything.” I was surprised. I asked him for more information. “Well, when I ask them to use TDD, they don’t want to even learn about it. When I ask them to use CI, they don’t want to.
As we move to more remote work, especially in these pandemic times, how do we integrate people so they can succeed? See Hiring Geeks That Fit for all the new employee checklists and how to use them. (Want to preview the checklists and templates? Download the HiringGeeksThatFitTemplates for yourself.) I updated the checklists with a
I’ve had the pleasure—and displeasure—of many remote meetings over the past few weeks. The difficult meetings had a common root cause: the meeting leaders attempted to do a direct transfer of how they lead an in-person meeting to remote/WFH meetings. When that occurs, they miss the ability to optimize on our separation by choosing how
I’m rewriting/reorganizing the Lead an Innovative Organization book. I realized I have 7 innovation principles: Clarify the organization’s purpose. Manage for effectiveness. Seek outcomes, not outputs. Flow efficiency at all levels. Encourage small-world networks of relationships. Organizational integrity. Encourage change and experiments. Anytime I’ve seen a successful innovation culture, I’ve seen these principles. (I’m trying
I wrote a number of posts and newsletters over the past few weeks to help you see alternatives in this age of uncertainty. I hope you use these ideas to generate other ideas or ask more questions and create more experiments. The posts on this blog: 7 Tool Tips for Your Newly Distributed or Remote
Many people talk about “going back to normal.” We aren’t going to return to normal. That old normal is gone, at least for a year, if not longer. (I suspect we will cycle between remote work and office work for the foreseeable future.) What we can do is discover a new normal. Discovery requires different
Are you a manager accustomed to Management by Walking Around and Listening (MBWAL)? You can use MBWAL with collocated teams. MBWAL doesn’t work for distributed or dispersed teams. Remember, working remote is Not Business as Usual. (And won’t be for a while.) And, you might still have this question: “If no one’s in the office,
You probably went from the office to remote so fast, you’re still recovering from the whiplash of working from home. I found the biggest change when I started to work remotely was how meetings changed. I’ve learned these tips over the years. You might find them helpful. Tip 1: Start With Cameras On When we
Many organizations heeded the COVID-19 warnings and sent people home to work as remote teams. The managers want to proceed as if the people can work from home and have “business as usual.” They’ve made these requests to their staff: Work at home, as if you were at the office. (Keep the same hours and