article thumbnail

Where I Think “Agile” is Headed, Part 5: Summary

Johanna Rothman

I started asking if you actually need an agile approach in Part 1 and noted the 4 big problems I see. Part 2 was why we need managers in an agile transformation. Part 4 was about how “Agile” is meaningless and “agile” is an adjective that needs to be applied to something. That would be resilient.

Agile 65
article thumbnail

Leadership Tip #13: For Innovation, Remove at Least One Policy or Procedure a Week

Johanna Rothman

Now, these same managers want business agility. The more we remove, the more agility or improvement we might see. As the teams used agile approaches, they requested more and more frequent deployments. What about guidelines? A lot of the friction we see is anti-agility. What culture do you want?

Policies 130
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Management Rewards: Doing Work vs Creating an Environment

Johanna Rothman

My agile transformation clients struggle with this big question: How do we effectively reward managers? The more the organization wants or needs an agile transformation, the less the current reward structure works. Cindy wants this agile transformation to succeed. Agile Transformation Requires Management Collaboration.

article thumbnail

Minimum Requirements Documentation: A Matter of Context

Johanna Rothman

I use the guideline: If I can't write large enough on the front of the card to see, my story is too large. Note: In From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams , Mark and I recommend any other approach than an agile approach if you don't have enough hours of overlap. for ways to use lifecycles other than waterfall or agile.

Agile 68
article thumbnail

Managers: Are You Responsible “To” or “For” People?

Johanna Rothman

We talk a lot about self-organizing teams when we talk about agility. Because especially agile teams might want to experiment with these practices on a regular basis. Establish guidelines and constraints for the work—if necessary. We might see many changes in behavior, such as self-directed or self-organizing teams.

article thumbnail

How Well Do Your Policies Create Desired Outcomes and Trust?

Johanna Rothman

The more we want an agile organization that might be able to bounce forward , the more we need to create an environment of thinking and trust. Your policies create your culture. Your policies create and refine your actual culture. We do need guidelines and constraints for our work. The less trust we have.

article thumbnail

When Writing Has Two Focuses: Invite Ideal Readers to Change and Assure Secondary Readers

Johanna Rothman

Therefore, please use the attached guidelines for reporting status weekly. However, that's not Polly's corporate culture. Her culture says everyone gets to see everything. That “everybody sees everything” culture creates a problem in the last sentence. As a company, we need more demos and more data.

Report 88