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Post-session recording: MMDojo How to healthily storm

Facilitating Healthy Storming

Transcript

What is Fair Process?

Fair Process – A Primer

INSEAD is big on “Fair Process”, a leadership mental model formulated by the creators of Blue Ocean Strategy W. Chan … Read More

Reflections on "Think like a farmer" | https://agile-od.com/mmdojo/14045/reflections-on-think-like-a-farmer

Reflections on “Think like a farmer”

This visual on “Think like a farmer” has been going around on LinkedIn for a while. It’s good advice and … Read More

Capital A Agile lower case a agile/agility

Capital “A” Agile and lower case “a” agile/agility

(This is an excerpt post from Coach Takeshi’s Agile 101 with edits.) One VERY helpful framing we use when we … Read More

Is Agile a Methodology?

(This is an excerpt post from Coach Takeshi’s Agile 101 with edits.) Question: would you agree with me, along with … Read More

7 Telltale Signs of Waterfall Agile

7 Telltale Signs of Waterfall Agile

waterfall agile [ˈwɔːtəfɔːl aj-ahyl]: the paradoxical phenomenon observed in large organizations where agile transformation is attempted to be delivered with … Read More

Try this simple two step approach to conflict resolution

Conflict Resolution: Try This Simple Two Step Approach

Caught in an argument, tough negotiation or even a full-blown office battle? Try this simple two step conflict resolution approach. … Read More

The Many Faces of a Learning Professional

The Many Faces of a Learning Professional

Our need to be right is persistant and we learning professionals are no exception. The key to be an effective … Read More

Gong Xi Fa Cai 2023! @coachtakeshi

Gong Xi Fa Cai 2023!

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Wishing all those who celebrate the Lunar New Year a wonderful 2023 ahead! After another fruitful … Read More

Essence of High Performance Leadership Development

What is a High Performing Leader?

At Agile Organization Development we regularly design and deliver High Performance Leadership Development Programmes for MNCs. The set up by … Read More

It's seductive to assume that data is really knowledge

It’s seductive to assume that data is really knowledge.

Dr. W.E. Deming, the father of TQM (Total Quality Management) and the whole Lean movement, once said: Without data, you’re … Read More

Can agile coaching hours count towards ICF credentialling?

Can agile coaching hours count towards ICF credentialling?

Hi Coach Takeshi, I am working towards ICF PCC through ACTP ROUTE. I am not clear about what activities as … Read More

Lean lingo

Lean Lingo

Kaizen, Kanban, Gemba, Muda and other Lean lingo we always hear, what do they actually mean? Coach Takeshi explains. Download … Read More

Coaching Fair Process to the Impatient Leader

Coaching Fair Process to the Impatient Leader

“It’s not that they don’t get it. It’s that they’re resisting.” “I don’t get it. This plan makes so much … Read More

c2it: confirm, communicate, dot the i's, cross the t's

c2it to follow-through

As boss, how do we ask our team members “can you see to it?” without sounding hard-pressing and controlling? Getting … Read More

How to Build a Kanban Board from Scratch

How to Build a Kanban Board from Scratch

Your Kanban is a living, breathing artifact. Use it daily and update it frequently. Keep it live and fresh. Why … Read More

Remote and Hybrid Teamwork Success: Asynchronous Communication is the Key

Remote and Hybrid Teamwork Success: “Asynchronous” Communication is the Key

Addressing the “Always On” Fatigue of Remote and Hybrid Working with Asynchronous Communication “I miss working in the office, at … Read More

Separating Thinking Doing Time Blue Red Work

Separating Thinking & Doing Time: Learnings from David Marquet’s “Blue & Red Work”

David Marquet’s “Blue & Red Work” Red Work: Doing Time We continue to be haunted by the ghosts of Taylorism … Read More

What, So What, Now What x 1-2-4-All

Team Alignment in VUCA”O” Times: Try W3 x 124A (What, So What, Now What x 1-2-4-All)

The situation is volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, overwhelming (VUCA”O”). We have an immediate, mission critical challenge to tackle. We need … Read More

Understanding the Science of Motivation for Leading with Inspiration and Purpose

Understanding the Science of Motivation for Leading with Inspiration and Purpose

Watch on YouTube References Transcript How do we lead with inspiration and purpose? It’s a good question and every leader’s … Read More

How to influence without manipulating

How to Influence, Not Manipulate (Follow-up post to “Aristotle’s Influence Model”)

Dear Eli, Frankie and team, thanks for the follow-up questions to our group coaching session on “Aristotle’s Influence Model”. What … Read More

Authentic Conversations and the Art of Feedbacking

Authentic Conversations and the Art of Feedbacking

Watch on YouTube References Transcript Why is it so hard to have an authentic conversation? The type of conversation that … Read More

Why Design Thikning plus Scrum makes a lot of Sense

Why Design Thinking + Scrum Makes a lot of Sense

Watch on YouTube Learn How To Do Design Thinking + Scrum Transcript In doing so, first, I’d like to take … Read More

Rapid Design Thinking Template

Rapid Design Thinking template: Ideate customer solutions in less than 30 minutes

Stuck with a customer challenge? No problem, let’s visualize it. Sharing my Rapid Design Thinking Template that I frequently use … Read More

Coach Takeshi's Scrum Crash Course

Coach Takeshi’s Scrum Crash Course

Learn Scrum the right way! This is a one hour fifty minute condensed version of my otherwise one day Scrum … Read More

Lay Your Lobster Traps

Lay Your Lobster Traps

It bewilders me. Sitting by a calm sea, single line and hook. No catch for today. That’s okay and probably … Read More

Measuring Coaching, Training, Consulting Intervention Efficacy and Needs

Measuring Coaching, Training, Consulting Intervention Efficacy and Needs

Practicing Empiricism in Learning Interventions As learning professionals, we coach, train, consult and facilitate our client teams to measure their … Read More

Agile Organization Development Practitioner’s Community: Why, How and What

Join us at: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13940775 Dear members of the Agile Organization Development Practitioner’s Community, thank you for joining and welcome to … Read More

Curious Active Listening Mindset as a Leadership Modality - Directional Talk or Dialogue?

Curious Active Listening Mindset (CALM) as a Leadership Modality

Directional Talk, or Dialogue? Previously I shared CALM for receiving critical feedback. You can also have a Curious Active Listening … Read More

Curious Active Listening Mindset for Receiving Feedback

How to Receive Critical Feedback in a Breeze: Try CALM – “Curious Active Listening Mindset”

Receiving critical feedback is dreadful. Our defensive routines get triggered and however we might understand that the feedback giver is … Read More

Welcome to Design Thinking

Welcome to Design Thinking

Download the deck in PDF | Watch on YouTube Transcript

Learn Design Thinking in 30 minutes: Origami Gift Exercise

Learn Design Thinking in 30 minutes: Origami Gift Exercise

Here’s a rapid Design Thinking practice exercise that I do in my training sessions. It’s really simple. You pair up … Read More

Structured + Unstructured Learning, Vertical + Horizontal Learning, Shu-Ha-Ri (守破離)

Structured + Unstructured Learning, Vertical + Horizontal Learning, Shu-Ha-Ri (守破離), Spirit of Kizuki (気付きの精神)

I use four mental models to describe my pedagogy (theory and practice of education): Structured + Unstructured Learning Lecturing, teaching, … Read More

Coach Takeshi's 2020 Wrap Up and 2021 Wishes

Coach Takeshi’s 2020 Wrap Up and 2021 Wishes

310. Wow. This is how many people I coached in 2020. Now of course, I didn’t do this alone: I … Read More

Cognitive, Emotional, Compassionate Empathy

Three Chairs of Empathy: Cognitive, Emotional, Compassionate Empathy

There are three types of empathy: cognitive, emotional and compassionate empathy; each respectively the desire to understand, to feel and … Read More

Feed-Forward Positive Feedback with the FFF Feed-Forward Formula

Feed-Forward Positive Feedback with the FFF Feed-Forward Formula

When we think of feedbacking, we tend to just do “corrective feedbacking”; i.e. feedbacking on things to improve. Don’t do … Read More

デザイン思考へようこそ

日本一わかりやすい、デザイン思考の説明ビデオを作ってみました。 スライドダウンロード PDF Transcript

Scrum RACI

Scrum RACI

Our coachees affectionately call it the avocado. We use this to describe the required boundary conditions and effective organizational support … Read More

Delegation, Empowerment Spectrum

The Delegation, Empowerment Spectrum

“I don’t delegate, I empower.” The mantra of the modern enabling manager. I don’t disagree. Though caveat emptor. The delegation, … Read More

Classic Leadership Balance Still Holds for Agile Leadership

Again, it’s all in the balance. If it’s just all vision and empowerment, the team won’t move. Even as an … Read More

Aristotle’s Influence Model

Aristotle’s Influence Model

We use “logos” (rational) too much. It’s “pathos” (empathy), “ethos” (credibility, presence), and “kairos” (right time, right place), in balance. … Read More

Three-Compentencies-of-Mastering-Product-Development

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 … Read More

Performing teams have two simple traits: 1. They have team processes that work. 2. People talk to each other.

The Two Simple Traits of High Performing Teams

What do you do? The dreaded elevator pitch question. I fumble on it every time. Some days I will say … 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 … Read More

In Praise of Risk

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 … Read More

8 Eight Mind and Heart Hacks for Emotionally Charged Situations | agile-od.com

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, … Read More

Coach Takeshi's Agile 101

Agile 101

What is agile? Why agile? How do we do agile? What’s the difference between Agile, Scrum, Lean, Design Thinking? Tell … Read More

What do we do when we have missing expertise in the Scrum Team?

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 … Read More

Smart people can't stand looking stupid

Let’s Talk About Fear of Failure

There’s one HBR article that I share but never hear back about. It’s Chris Argyris’ “Teaching Smart People How to … Read More

Go with the FLOW to capture your thoughts from Design Thinking customer interviews | agile-od.com

Go with the FLOW to capture your thoughts from Design Thinking customer interviews

Example: While adoption of the pre-order app for our Daily Greens salad store has been going up, we’ve been observing … Read More

KISS - Keep it Stupid Simple

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 … Read More

What to do when feeling overwhelmed - agile-od.com

What To Do When Feeling Overwhelmed

0. Acknowledge The very first step even before the first step of handling overwhelmingness, is to acknowledge it. We often … Read More

Agile Success Stories - UOB Finlab Felix Tan

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 … Read More

Kill the Zombies in the Eisenhower Matrix | agile-od.com

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, … Read More

Disagreement vs Misalignment

Disagreement vs Misalignment

“Shared understanding” is an everyday word in my team coaching. It’s so easy to get into positional talk and convincing … Read More

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - Revised Pyramid Visual Interpretation

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 … Read More

Mental Model Dōjō TV - Agile Success Stories - Solaria Labs Liberty Mutual

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 … Read More

Mental Model Dōjō TV - Ambidextrous Organizations Explained

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 … Read More

Stop #failureporn - only real failures count - agile-od.com

Stop #failureporn

There’s this thing called failure porn. As Agile professionals, as educators, as parents, we say it’s okay to fail. Go … Read More

Mental Model Dōjō TV - Knowing to Stop - a Confucius Teaching

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 … Read More

Innovator's Dilemma - agile-od.com

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. … Read More

Addressing the Irony of Delivering Agile Transformation with Waterfall - agile-od.com

Addressing the Irony of Waterfall Agile

The Irony of Delivering Agile Transformation with Waterfall Agile and digital transformation projects are abundant today. The irony is that … Read More

Knowledge is for Consumption | Coach Takeshi | agile-od.com

Knowledge is for Consumption

Knowledge is for consumption. This is my street philosophy, but I really abide to this. I really, really like to … Read More

Premature Scaling is Startup Death | agile-od.com

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. … Read More

Don't Mix What I want FROM you with What I want FOR you | agile-od.com

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 … Read More

Karpman Drama Triangle | agile-od.com

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) … Read More

Relentless Pursuit of Product Market Fit is Customer Obsession | agile-od.com

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 … 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 … Read More

Inductive, deductive reasoning and Design Thinking

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. … Read More

Vincent Van Gogh Three Sunflowers

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 … Read More

The Cadence of Scrum | agile-od.com

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 … Read More

We know the sound of two hands clapping. But what is the sound of one hand clapping?

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 … Read More

Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication

In Praise of NVC – Learnings from Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication

The late Dr. Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication, made famous by Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella as required reading for his board, … Read More

Shared Understanding | agile-od.com | Lifecycle

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 … Read More

Design Instead of Planning - agile-od.com

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. … Read More

The Two Cadence of User Feedback - agile-od.com

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 … Read More

Robert Fritz's Concept of Structural Tension - agile-od.com

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 … Read More

革新 kaku-shin

Kaizen (改善) and Kaku-shin (革新)

My stance is that, change and transformation is a result. We don’t change for the sake of changing. Rather, I … Read More

The many flavors of experimental and iterative approaches

The many flavors of Experimental and Iterative approaches

The importance is to experiment and iterate. What approach you take is of secondary importance. Chose whatever approach that best … Read More

know do vs know design do

From Know-Do to Know-[Stop/Think/Design/Make]-Do

We are highly functioning professionals. When we see a pattern, we know what to do. So, Know-Do. The challenge of … Read More

Design Thinking is non-sequential

The non-linear, non-sequential nature of Design Thinking

Design Thinking is process driven. It is a process to help us activate our creativity. Meanwhile, our brains don’t necessarily … Read More

Prototyping a Walking Skeleton

Prototyping a Walking Skeleton

Either it’s the artist in us or the perfectionist taking control, but many of us have a tendency to start … Read More

VUCAO agile-do.com Lifecycle

VUCA”O” – Why I add Overwhelming to Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous

Because when we’re overwhelmed, we make simple and complicated situations, complex and chaotic. Complexity & uncertainty handling is starting to … Read More

Design Thinking + Liberating Structures

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 … Read More

Scrum Sprint Pilot

Pilot objective Within the Scrum community, there is abundant writing suggesting that the two main factors of Scrum implementation failure … Read More

The Art of Kanban + User Story Mapping

Kanban is deep… Combine that with Jeff Patton’s User Story Mapping (USM), it becomes a powerful visualization tool in Scrum.

Liberating Structures

Liberating Structures is a collection of powerful team exercises curated by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless (www.liberatingstructures.com). The following slides … Read More

Design Thinking POV Templates | agile-od.com | Lifecycle

Two Templates for Design Thinking POV (Point of View) Statements

Two versions of Design Thinking POV (Point of View) Statement templates. Download PDF version with editable text boxes here: DT … Read More

Try Design Thinking + Scrum | agile-od.com | Lifecycle

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 … Read More

Systems Thinking | Mental Model Dōjō | agile-od.com | Lifecycle

Systems Thinking

We tend to confront complex, dynamic realities with a language designed for simple, static problems: normal verbal language extracts simple, … Read More

Radical Candor: My Go To Feedback Routine

Radical Candor: Care Personally, Challenge Directly Scott’s idea is that guidance is praise and criticism. And the best way to … Read More

Knowing to Stop - A Confucius Teaching

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 … Read More

Lean, Lean Manufacturing, Lean Startup, Clarified | Lifecycle

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 … Read More

A Pretty Good Summary of Lean, Agile, Scrum | Lifecycle

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 … Read More

Shared Understanding | agile-od.com | Lifecycle

Shared Understanding

I’m glad we all agree. (Really?)

Dialogue vs Directional Talk Tell Sell Yell | agile-od.com | Lifecycle

Dialogue vs Directional Talk and the Tell Sell Yell Escalation

Our need to be right is pervasive. Suspend your assumptions, create a conversational space and have a dialogue, less a … Read More

Sprint Till You Drop, and three other tales of Scrum gone wrong

(This post is an excerpt from our earlier article A Pretty Good Summary of Lean, Agile, Scrum.) ‣ The Spiritless … Read More

Vision HierarchyLean & Agile Organization Development | agile-od.com by Lifecycle

Vision Hierarchy: Making Your Vision Connected with Your Team – An Agile Exercise

Sharing your Vision Leaders, why is it all so often that when you “share” your vision to your people, you … Read More

Spirit of Agile/agility

Spirit of Agile/agility

(This is an excerpt post from Coach Takeshi’s Agile 101) Agile is about relentlessly pursuing customer value. We accept uncertainty … Read More

Lattice Work of Mental Models

Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet’s 95 years old “right hand man,” on “lattice work of mental models”: “You’ve got to have … Read More

Great Product, Not Selling | agile-od.com by Lifecycle

Great Product, Not Selling

Sound familiar? Let’s talk about product market fit. Your angel investor invested in your idea. Your VC and series A … Read More

How to Fix Startup Marketing

Four Areas of Focus We focus on the following four areas to help startups build strong foundations for marketing and … Read More

The 3 Challenges Of Startup Marketing

My name is Takeshi. I am the founder of Lifecycle. We help startups succeed with better product development, and marketing. … Read More

Start From Here: 5 Recommended Reads For Learning Lean & Agile

The Lean Startup, Eric Ries, 2011 Scrum, Jeff Sutherland, 2014 The Startup Owner’s Manual, Steve Blank and Bob Dorf, 2012 … Read More