Coach Takeshi’s Insights
Coach Takeshi’s coaching journal. Sharing the many mental models that Coach Takeshi actually uses for client sessions.
The Reflective Leader and Learning Organization Guide
Coach Takeshi’s collection of thoughts on helping leaders use the power of inquiry and introspection for building the mental facility needed in developing Learning Organizations.
Sharing experiments and experiences from work with clients on their Agile organizational transformation journey. Includes work on Agile Scrum, Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and all other “experimental and iterative” approaches.
Latest Posts
Innovator’s Dilemma and Organizational Ambidexterity
A tribute post to Professor Clayton Christensen, author of “The Innovator’s Dilemma” (1997), who passed away after a long illness. I am a big fan of Organizational Ambidexterity, made famous by Charles O’Reilly (Stanford) and... Read More
Waterfall Agile: Addressing the Irony of Delivering Agile Transformation with Waterfall
The Irony of Delivering Agile Transformation with Waterfall Agile and digital transformation projects are abundant today. The irony is that too frequently, they are planned and delivered in essentially waterfall project management style. Waterfall is... Read More
Knowledge is for Consumption
Knowledge is for consumption. This is my street philosophy, but I really abide to this. I really, really like to practice what I learn. Practice – both in the application sense, and in the repeat... Read More
Premature Scaling is Startup Death
#1 Cause of Startup Death? Premature Scaling This is what INSEAD professor Nathan Furr said in a 2011 Forbes article. I can attest it still holds so true: premature scaling is startup death. Steve Blank... Read More
Don’t Mix What I Want FROM You with What I Want FOR You
Frustrations about others, are (not surprisingly) frequent topics of my coaching conversations. The clarifying question “So, what are you frustrated about him/her?” is often answered with a mix of (1) unmet needs and what I... Read More
Karpman’s Drama Triangle
In coaching enabling conversation skills, I find Karpman’s Drama Triangle (1968) very useful. (1) Blaming, shaming and guilt tripping, (2) victim mentality and (3) “chief problem solving officer” are three recurring patterns of impediments to... Read More
Most Read
A Pretty Good Summary of Lean, Agile Scrum
Glossary: Lean, Agile, Scrum, Sprint, Kanban Consider Lean & Agile as pretty much the same thing, they are basically really good approaches to handling projects with a lot of uncertainties, which is why successful startups take this approach. (For a … Read More
Lean, Lean Manufacturing, Lean Startup: Clarified
Lean: not just a hype word for efficiency Yah sure, we do “lean” here and we operate a tight ship with just a few of us doing everything – you know, everyone is multi-taskin’. “Lean” is such a convenient term, … Read More
Knowing to Stop – A Confucius Teaching
Confucius’ 7 spaces of learning Knowing to stop – is a simple notion but difficult to practice skill. In “Great Learning (大学)”, written around 2,500 years ago by one of his first disciples Zengzi (曾子), Confucius (孔子) teaches the following: … Read More
Radical Candor: My Go To Feedback Routine
In search of better feedbacking As a coach and mentor, challenging people is a natural part of my work, and sometimes they are in the form of tough messages. Not always though, the messages go down well with the recipient. … Read More
Try Design Thinking + Scrum: A Powerful Hybrid Agile Approach
Classic Scrum’s Achilles’ heel One of the weak areas of classic Scrum, in my opinion, is the relative simplicity of the ideation phase. “What to build” is sometimes an arbitrary discussion during the Scrum Backlog building and Sprint Planning exercises, … Read More
Liberating Structures
Liberating Structures is a collection of powerful team exercises curated by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless (www.liberatingstructures.com). The following slides are abbreviated instructions and some modified contents to their original work. For original instructions, please visit their website. Here’s the … Read More
How to Get Scrum Right on First Attempt
Pilot objective Within the Scrum community, there is abundant writing suggesting that the two main factors of Scrum implementation failure are: (1) sub-optimal team structure at the onset, and (2) the Scrum Team failing to reach critical formation maturity early … Read More
Strategy Session Facilitation with Design Thinking & Liberating Structures
Why brainstorming doesn’t work That was fun, but… Why do we get that slight, lingering feeling of doubt and dissatisfaction after brainstorming sessions? Here’s why: Group dynamics: 80/20 rule applies. Domination: The vocal minority dominate the space, crowding out the … Read More