Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant
Expert in Managing Product Development
One of the problems I see in projects and organizations is when people wish for certainty. Too many agile project managers and Scrum Masters want a known velocity. They don’t realize that velocity is a relative capacity measurement, not a guarantee. Product managers, the people who manage the project portfolio, all seem to want certainty …
Are you looking to help support your team, management, or organization’s agile adoption? Do you feel as if you are part of the formal or informal team leading your agile transformation? You need what Gil Broza and I teach and facilitate at the Influential Agile Leader Workshop. Early registration ends May 1, less than two weeks …
Continue reading “Influential Agile Leader Early Bird Reg Ends May 1, 2018”
Part of what makes an agile transformation difficult is the cultural change required. That’s what makes an agile transformation a journey. A client said to me, “I want the agile. The agile is good stuff: faster delivery of smaller stuff that we can get revenue for. I want it now. How fast can I get …
Continue reading “Agile Transformation is a Journey, Part 6”
I’ve been thinking more about possible measurements in an agile transformation journey. The first Possible Measurements post focuses on product throughput measurements. This post will focus on measurements you might see when the culture changes with an agile transformation. Again, do start with your why. Without knowing why you want to use agile approaches throughout the organization, …
Continue reading “Agile Transformation: More Possible Organizational Measurements, Part 5”
“What should I measure???” is one of the questions I see when I work with people going through an agile transformation. Too often, managers measure people as individuals. (Traditional measurements focus on resource efficiency instead of flow efficiency.) Resource efficiency measures don’t measure what the organization delivers or what prevents the organization from delivering. This …
Continue reading “Agile Transformation: Possible Organizational Measurements, Part 4”
If you read my scaling agile series, you can see that becoming an agile organization requires seeing your organization as a system with a culture. You can start with teams, move to programs and the product part of the organization. If you don’t also address the cultural problems of rewards, you won’t continue with your …
Continue reading “Agile Transformation: See Your System and Culture, Part 3”
Agile culture is about the ability to change. (You need to know why you want to change, but once you know that, agile cultures promote change.) We (as agile teams and organizations) deliver something to get some feedback and learning. We use that feedback and learning about what we just did to challenge our assumptions …
Continue reading “Agile Transformation: Practice Change, Part 2”
Introduction to an Agile Transformation series… I’ve seen several agile transformation challenges. Since I want to address those challenges, this is a series of posts about agile transformation. The problems I’m planning to address are: Understanding why agile, why now Change and why we might not be so facile with change and how that challenges …
Continue reading “Agile Transformation: Introduction & Answering Why (Part1)”
Gil Broza and I are thrilled to announce the updated version of our flagship workshop, the Influential Agile Leader. We’re leading the workshop in the Boston area, June 7-8, 2018. If you have these kinds of challenges: Your business can’t “stop” to recreate itself as an agile organization. You need to continue and to nurture …
Continue reading “Announcing Influential Agile Leader, 2.0, June 7-8, 2018”
I’m (finally!) circling back around to Joe Berkowitz’s statement: There is no template for how to be a good man in the #MeToo era. I said that respect provided that template. (And, we can say “good people” instead of only men because abuse of power is not limited to men. See Power, Management, and Harassment: It’s …
Continue reading “Families vs Organizations and Organizational Culture, Part 6”