Think about how human life has developed in the course of the last say 50 years – I turned 44 this year btw. Think how societal, political, religious, technological and scientific landscapes has evolved, cemented or regressed during this period. Then think of the diversity of an organisation’s roster; each individual’s date of birth, societalRead MoreTrivialising complexity highlights ignorance
As promised in my last post I will deep dive into the subject of shared understanding in this post. I’ll specifically provide details of how to create shared understanding. Let’s jump straight in. When people get together to identify, prioritise and find solutions to complex opportunities and problems it often results in different and divergingRead MoreHow to create Shared Understanding
In a business, collaborative and goal oriented context achieving shared understanding is crucial. To do so you would have a way to validate if you have shared understanding. I’ve found that the simplest exercise is also the most effective at highlighting the level of shared understanding a team has when coming out of a collaborativeRead MoreHow to validate if you have Shared Understanding
It’s time we start to push ourselves to move beyond agile. Specifically in terms of the discussions we’re having and the lack of positive effects those discussions leads to. I see way too many conversations where the focus is centered on agile vs Agile, on what it is and isn’t, who is and who isn’t,Read MoreBeyond Agile
I’m excited to announce that Anna Hedlund and I are releasing our first episode of Adaptive today! The topic is ‘how being product led helps organisations’. Have a listen and tell us what you think. Leading organisations and teams during change and complexity is challenging. Which is something both of us have experienced and keepRead MoreHow to lead during change and complexity
According to research 49% of work teams and 60% of leadership teams have not found effective ways to deal with conflict! In this post I share tools and techniques that are highly effective in managing conflicts in teams.
In order for tech companies to be competitive and successful they need to shape their work around teams. But just organising work around teams is not sufficient, teams must also be high performing or your company will not utilise the benefits of teamwork. In my work with companies, founders, managers, leaders and team members I’ve
Are you spending considerable time discussing how to improve your team’s process? Are those discussion frustrating? Do you come up with a considerable number of action points during your retrospective? Do you spend time prioritising them? Are you only able to address a few of them and build and manage a backlog with the remainingRead MoreSpend less time on process and ship more
Relatively commonly I find myself in situations where managers and leaders (the “leaders”), i.e. people in roles with both formal and informal authority, state that some teams don’t meet expectations. Specifically expectations on their performance as a team and their collective behaviour. The leaders have commonly been unclear to why that is and what canRead MoreThe two reasons why a team fails to meet expectations
A considerable number of teams and individuals that I’ve worked with have failed to reach satisfactory results and progress because of how they communicate. I’ve found that they commonly aren’t aware that communication is a substantial culprit. This is specifically true when the level of uncertainty in a situation or topic is considerable, e.g. whenRead MoreHow this simple and engaging exercise improves a teams productivity in challanging situations