A Systems modeling technique to visualize and act on deeply entrenched systemic issues.
Decide how you are going to decide
Deciding how you are going to decide can be the most important team decision you can make. Clarity in your teams decision making modes can unlock your team productivity.
Distributed Agile Simulation
Simulations reveal ones default behavior. I have learned a lot about myself and my default settings when I have participated in simulations. Shout out to AYE conference, PSL workshops and may other excellent learning opportunities that have immersed me in...
Kanban Exercise
Kanban at its essence is a signaling device that instructs the moving or creating in a "pull" based system. Kanban when applied within a system enables synchronization between the rhythm of demand (customer) and rhythm of production...
CPR Technique
The software world has misused so many terms from the medical profession that one more would not hurt. CPR - Categorize, Prioritize, Resolve. This is simple mnemonic that aids me to be methodical in my approach towards uncovering and resolving impediments. Categorize:...
Virtual Parkbench
For large distributed retrospectives, where participants in the retrospective are in different cities, I have created a variation of popular group discussion technique called as “Park Bench”. Some Background: I was coaching within a large organization with different...
Walk the dog
This is a simple technique with a marketing twist to its name. This title came to me while coaching a team that was struggling to behave cross functionally and were paralyzed at delivering working software at the end of their sprint. It is a simple mental discipline...
Coin toss exercise
This is a variation of "Value Flow" exercise that Sanjeev Augustine did at Scrumgathering 2009 in Orlando. I found this exercise very useful to demonstrate the benefits of prioritization and lower batch sizes. I have facilitated a variation on this exercise...
Sharing Values, a team building exercise
A few months ago, I was facilitating sprint retrospective for a multi-cultural team that had members of different national origins (UK, South Africa, Angola and United States). We started gathering information regarding their first sprint. I realized that this team...