We are highly functioning professionals. When we see a pattern, we know what to do. So, Know-Do. The challenge of Know-Do, is predictable results. What if we want out-of-the-norm break-throughs? So, Stop. Think. Design. Make. Sharing my favorite visual from … Read More
Design Thinking is process driven. It is a process to help us activate our creativity. Meanwhile, our brains don’t necessarily work in linear fashion, particularly when we’re being creative. So, by nature, Design Thinking can be non-linear, and non-sequential. Go … Read More
Either it’s the artist in us or the perfectionist taking control, but many of us have a tendency to start creating quality body parts ahead of putting together a skeleton. Remember, it would be a tragedy if we spend an … Read More
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
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
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
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
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
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
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