Walking Their Talk, Sustainability, Inspiration
Robert Galen
Sustainability

I saw this wonderfully courageous and informative post by Sabine Canditt the other day where she wrote about Sustainable Scrum. 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sustainable-scrum-responsible-choice-sabine-canditt-x0gef

After just completing a The Week program facilitated by the amazing Ann-Marie Kong, it touched my heart.

That said, I wanted to highlight one comment reaction/interaction between Sabine and Erich Bühler 

Erich said—

Thank you for bringing this approach into the world! Scrum does provide an iterative approach for teams to create value, but its scope is limited to the product level and struggles with dynamics across the whole organization for several reasons.
Without updating the underlying business and financial model at a strategic level, Scrum alone cannot transform organization-wide sustainability.

Sustainability
Short-takes, Inspiration
Robert Galen
Sandy’s Take
Sandy’s Take
Short-takes, Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
The Human Aspects of Agile Coaching
The Human Aspects of Agile Coaching
Coaching, ACGW, Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
Keys to Building your Coaching Relationships

I talk a lot about the first step in coaching any client (individual, system, team, etc.) is to build a relationship, gain empathy and understanding, and then gain an idea of where/how to help initially. So, do NOT start to coach until you’ve done some relationship-building. 

But what does a coaching relationship, or a professional relationship in general, look like? What are aspects of that? Here are a few things that come to my mind—

  • Making + taking the time.

  • Explaining what you do—what is Agile Coaching.

  • Building some empathy; walking in their shoes; understanding where they are coming from.

  • Meeting them where they are.

  • Listening; reflective listening; building metaphors together.

  • Connecting with their language, not yours.

Keys to Building your Coaching Relationships
Personal Thoughts, Short-takes
Robert Galen
Privilege Awareness

I recently replied to a LinkedIn post by David Pereira. It was a wonderful post, and I applaud David’s boldness and courage in sharing it. 

Here’s a post comment from Stefan Wolpers—

While I agree fully with your personal stance regarding professionalism, David Pereira, some people will shy away, given the current economic climate. Some of the previously aggravated people may seek an opportunity to settle scores.

And here’s my comment—

I love the clarity (No BS) here. Clarity for David and clarity for those who want to work with and who don't want to work with him.
That said, David has the unique privilege that allows him to adopt this clarity. Many don't.

This post is not about David per se. Instead, he inspired me to write it.

Privilege Awareness

Personal Reflection

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Reflections for Agile Coaches

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Savita Pahuja is an agile coach who is a principal in CoachingSaga. I’ve met her in user groups for some years, and her balance, thoughtfulness, and experience have always impressed me. 

She recently wrote two articles about reflective practice and self-reflection for Agile Coaches that I want to bring to your attention—

From an Agile Coaching Growth Wheel perspective, reflection is one of the foundational elements of Self-Mastery.

I’d encourage you to read both of them and to follow Savita’s future posts.

Stay agile, my friends,

Bob.

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ACGW—The Importance of Self Mastery

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ACGW—The Importance of Self Mastery

I’ll get right down to it. I think the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel figure needs to be updated. Not in a drastic way, but more to emphasize the importance of Self Mastery in all aspects of an Agile Coaches daily journey in skills and competency development. 

This post is inspired by one that Joel Bancroft-Connors wrote about the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel on LinkedIn and several replies from Huy Nguyen. Here’s the first—

As I've said before, the self-mastery thing in the middle can sometimes dwarf the rest. There's a lot more that goes into that little circle - and it's easier said than done. Everything gets limited by the person embodying the change - especially if they've never dealt with their own issues before.
Good luck with that. And I’m being serious.

I’m reacting to Huy’s point about the importance of, size of, and understanding of self-mastery in the context of the Wheel. He’s right, self-mastery is the most important, least understood, and hardest to navigate competency.

When mentoring fellow agile coaches, I always start with exploring their self-mastery. And, it’s not self-mastery in a vacuum or as an independent competency, but instead related to each of the Wheels’ other competencies.

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My Coaching Journey

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My Coaching Journey

My Colleague and friend, Chris Stone, posted an article on LinkedIn that shared a figure of his interpretation of The Agile Coach Hype Cycle. He asked me—How did your journey look? 

And it made me think…

Of my journey. Had I followed the steps that he had laid out? Where was I currently on my journey? And where might I be going?

A Look Back

I’m going to share some meaningful events and milestones in my journey—certainly not all, but reflecting on my journey to reflect forward.

Late 1990s

  • Introduced to Lean thinking, Extreme Programming, and Scrum.

  • Early direct experience while working at Micrognosis & Bell & Howell.

  • Aligning with earliest Scrum stories and practices.

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I’m a quitter too

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I saw this post from Bob Gower the other day about being a quitter and it inspired me to write this post. 

I’m closing in on a 40+ year career. 1981 – 2023

  • I’ve had ~ 15 jobs in those 40 years.

  • I’ve been laid off twice.

  • I’ve been ugly-fired once. Don’t ask.

  • I’ve quit, without having a backup job, ~5 times.

  • My longest run at one job was ~10 years; my shortest run was ~5-days.

  • I’ve demoted myself twice.

  • I’ve reorganized myself out of a job at least once.

  • I’ve hired my replacement at least 5 times.

Key Observations

  1. My tolerance for corporate bullshit was much greater early in my career.

  2. One consistent theme is that I’ve reflected on each and every job and the drivers for my leaving, and that’s made each step or pivot better for me as I’ve learned, adapted, and grown.

  3. I’ve learned to blame myself less and less for the driving forces behind my decisions.

  4. Looking back, I’m incredibly thankful for the entirety of the ride. It’s made me who and what I am. It’s also made me much more resilient.

Wrapping Up

I just want to thank Bob Glower for his courageous role model and inspiration. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have taken this powerful trip back to memory lane.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

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The Power of Reflection

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The Power of Reflection

Taking the time each day to reflect on the past. Events, meetings, outcomes, discussions, emotions, reactions, triggers, feedback, virtually anything.

For example—

  1. Your last interview

  2. Your last (in person or virtual) meeting or an earlier meeting

  3. Your last lunch meeting

  4. Your last small OR big mistake

  5. Your last small OR big success

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Agile Inspiration from the Strangest of Places

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Agile Inspiration from the Strangest of Places

I subscribe to a newsletter about living overseas. I’ve subscribed for ~10 years, dreaming that one day I might, just might retire to a sunny (and reasonably priced) haven.

https://letters.liveandinvestoverseas.com/archive/9z2z5dvut72rjq21ee6nff1a8duib0ppjelhs9vh33o_rp22sh2s8i66oj2c1hm6ob7cdh2bs

The newsletter is written by Kathleen Peddichord. In the May 26th newsletter, Kathleen shared 10 lessons learned from moving around overseas. As I reviewed them, the synergy with agile principles and our mindset really struck me. So much in fact, that I decided to share them with you…

1. Patience... the kind of patience you learn doing time...

This is something that many (most) change agents really struggle with. Why? Because we typically want things to change…right…now. Or we want things to follow our way of solutioning and problem-solving. Instead of being more patient and allowing things to unfold.

By staying present and in the moment, you’ll have the patience to see how things might unfold. And be prepared to be surprised and amazed.

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The Power of Personal Reflection

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The Power of Personal Reflection

I think one of my superpowers is that I’m highly reflective. I’m continuously thinking about past major (and minor) events in my life. Think of it as nearly continuously running retrospectives as a means of checking myself, reviewing my actions, making real-time adjustments, and learning from my success and mistakes.

I guess a big part of it might be my personality type. I’m an introvert and a quiet learner. I love to read, learn, reflect, and learn some more.

As a leader, this often surfaces as changing my mind. For example, anyone who’s ever worked with me understands that I might take a very firm position (decision) on something given the situation and the expectations that I need to decide right away—making a snap decision. And I can do that.

But as an introvert, I prefer thinking carefully about all sides before weighing in. If I’ve made a snap-decision, then I get to “thinking” about it more deeply and I often see other perspectives as I “sleep on it”. Perhaps 50-60% of the time I’ll come in the next day and unapologetically take the opposite (usually other sides) perspective. This usually frustrates some folks, but hey, then give me a little time in for the first place.

But I digress. Here I want to explore the notion of the value of reflecting. Not necessarily scheduling a periodic retrospective, but more so incorporating active reflection as a part of your daily routine. I’ve found the very act of reflection to be incredibly helpful to me in “figuring out” what’s been happening to me in my personal and professional journey.

Consider it an act of increasing your self-awareness. Let’s explore some examples…