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.
Most Read
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... 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... 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
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”... 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),... 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... 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... Read More
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... Read More
Latest Posts
The Three Competencies of Mastering Complex Product Development
It’s mastery, so don’t expect it to be easy. As both a serial entrepreneur and agile coach to teams of all sizes, I have come to understand that mastering complex product development converges into three... Read More
The Two Simple Traits of Performing Teams
What do you do? The dreaded elevator pitch question. I fumble on it every time. Some days I will say that I activate people. One conversation at a time, I activate leaders, teams, organizations. Other... Read More
The Power of Tribes in Agile Organizations
Social and digital is accelerating the service economy transformation in our world. In the service economy, the competitive advantage is knowledge (including skills and expertise) and connectivity (access to resources – technology is the enabler).... Read More
In Praise of Risk and the late Anne Duformantelle
3 years ago today, French philosopher and psychoanalyst Anne Dufourmantelle, best known for her work on risk-taking (“In Praise of Risk”), drowned while saving two children off a beach in France. She died in circumstances... Read More
8 Mind & Heart Hacks for Emotionally Charged Situations
Here are eight mind and heart hacks for immediate deployment in emotionally charged situations. I use Rhythm Section and Observe, Orient regularly. And more than once, Lean-in has saved me (us) from situations with dramatic... Read More
What do we do when we have missing expertise in the Scrum Team?
On the recurring, practical question of what to do when there are missing skills and expertise in the cross-functional Scrum Team: Yes, it’s true that the Scrum Guide says “Cross-functional teams have all competencies needed... Read More
Why learning from failure is so hard: Because we can’t stand looking stupid
There’s one HBR article that I share but never hear back about. It’s Chris Argyris’ “Teaching Smart People How to Learn” (https://hbr.org/1991/05/teaching-smart-people-how-to-learn). Maybe it’s the intimidating title that ticks off the interest to read. Or... Read More
Go with the FLOW to capture your thoughts from Design Thinking customer interviews
So you had some great customer interviews as part of your Design Thinking exercise. You felt that you empathized well with the customers and generated awesome insight. Wonderful. Before your memory evaporates you’d want to... Read More
KISS – Keep It Stupid Simple
KISS, an acronym for “keep it simple, stupid” or “keep it stupid simple”, is a design principle noted by the U.S. Navy in 1960. The KISS principle states that most systems work best if they... Read More
What To Do When Feeling Overwhelmed
1. Breathe Know to stop. Stop. Take a deep breath. Slowly regulate your breathing. Our mind and body is an amazing system. Breathing is the most simple, immediate, no-need-for-tool intervention available to us in times... Read More
Mental Model Dōjō TV: Agile Success Stories – UOB Finlab Felix Tan
What makes UOB’s Finlab not just yet another bank accelerator unit, is its unique focus in helping SMEs with its SME accelerator program. I asked Felix Tan, MD of Finlab to share us the story... Read More
Kill the Zombies in the Eisenhower Matrix
My executive coaching client was being completely overwhelmed. After a download of a long list of things on his plate, I asked him how he would like to do things differently. He continued to list... Read More
Disagreement vs Misalignment
“Shared understanding” is an everyday word in my team coaching. It’s so easy to get into positional talk and convincing mode, because when discussions heat up, it quickly becomes personal. Well, if it’s going to... Read More
Maslow’s Final Theory Z
Self-Transcendence – Beyond Self-Actualization and Theory X & Y Maslow’s Original Hierarchy of Needs Model In 1943, Abraham H. Maslow published his ground breaking paper “A Theory of Human Motivation,” outlining what we commonly know... Read More
Mental Model Dōjō TV: Agile Success Stories – Solaria Labs, Liberty Mutual
Does Agile work? To answer that question, I am starting a new video series of curating Agile success stories. The first story I’d like to share is with Justin Yiu, from Liberty Mutual’s innovation arm... Read More
Mental Model Dōjō TV: Ambidextrous Organizations Explained
Link to case study video: https://youtu.be/EW_PX50NAps Transcript What is an ambidextrous organization? In a nutshell, an ambidextrous organization takes care of current core businesses with the right hand, while taking care of innovation with the... Read More
Stop #failureporn
There’s this thing called failure porn. As Agile professionals, as educators, as parents, we say it’s okay to fail. Go for it, try your best, and if you fail as a result, it’s okay, because... Read More
Mental Model Dōjō TV: Knowing to Stop – a Confucius Teaching
We practice the art of stopping – meditation, mindfulness, reflection, introspection, zen. Confucius says to stop, we first need to know to stop. Let’s see what he means by that. This is the very first... Read More
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
Relentless Pursuit of Product Market Fit is Customer Obsession
Relentless pursuit of product market fit is customer obsession. Reality is, so many distractions in the office… It would be Nirvana for product developers and customer professionals if we can only think about the customer.... Read More
Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress
Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress. – Mahatma Gandhi Nodding one’s head in agreement when reading an inspiring quote like this is one thing. Furthering the thought with questions, is another thing.... Read More
Deductive and Inductive Reasoning and the Divergent, Convergent Double Diamond in Design Thinking
There’s science and philosophy behind Design Thinking’s divergent and convergent double diamond. It’s the logic of deductive and inductive reasoning. Also: “Experience by itself teaches nothing… Without theory, experience has no meaning. Without theory, one... Read More
If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced
“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent van Gogh There’s neuroscientific truth in this. This is the same... Read More
The Cadence of Scrum
I chose this equestrian quote because today I wanted to talk about the time-boxed nature of Scrum, also known as the cadence of Scrum. Sprints that are not consistent, i.e. stretches and shrinks, interrupts, happens... Read More
Zen koan: What is the sound of one hand clapping?
We know the sound of two hands clapping. But what is the sound of one hand clapping? – Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769) A Zen Koan (riddle) made famous by appearing in J.D. Salinger’s Nine... Read More
The Map Is Not The Territory
The map is not the territory. – Alfred Korzybski, 1931 Semantic scientist and philosopher Korzybski coined this term to distinguish our beliefs from reality. The concept is helpful in understanding how misunderstandings happen. > What... Read More
Design Instead of Planning
I actually think planning and designing are pretty similar. It’s just that designing is much more colorful, multi-faceted, free form. Probably more fun too. Planning for your trip? How about, “designing your next trip”? Sounds... Read More
The Two Cadence of User Feedback
This image is from Roland Smart’s “Agile Markerter” (https://amzn.to/2O7W2EA). It’s the cadence difference between feedabck (spot the typo? :-)) that come (1) directly from the consumer (Practitioner User Feedback) and (2) the people who manage... Read More
Robert Fritz’s Concept of Structural Tension
Sharing to fellow coaches this useful visual from Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline book. Bringing awareness to limiting beliefs, while shifting the attention to action, is a recurring yet intricate theme in coaching. We have a... Read More