Book & Video Recommendations –  Product Owner

Comment

Book & Video Recommendations – Product Owner

If you’ve read any of my work, you probably know that this role is incredibly near and dear to my heart. I’ve written a book about it. About 50% of my agile coaching revolves around aspects of product ownership. And if you search my blog, you’ll see many references to the role and activities surrounding it. For example, backlog grooming or refinement.

So, it’s hard for me to be unbiased on the topic, but I’ll try my best. And it’s even harder to keep my recommended list limited to three.

Comment

What do I need? Everything!

Comment

What do I need? Everything!

I’m often caught up in a pattern with clients.

They’ll come to me and ask me to help them either start on their agile journeys or improve / accelerate their current efforts.

But then, when the actual logistics are discussed, we try to minimize everything. That is coaching and training time. The primary two reasons are budget and the time investment. I guess folks are focused on getting the max for the minimum. (sounds like a department store doesn’t it?) https://m.tjmaxx.tjx.com

So, I keep reducing my recommendations and approaches until at some point it fits the budget and time tolerances. But often that comes at a cost. 10 years ago, I would minimize to the point where the results would be impacted, but I try not to do that anymore.

Now, I’m much better at holding the line. At negotiating, by keeping their needs and the ultimate outcome in mind. At keeping everyone focused on the goals. 

So, where are you going with this, Bob?

Comment

Scrum Product Ownership, 3'rd Edition

3 Comments

Scrum Product Ownership, 3'rd Edition

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to share some great news. I’ve just completed the 3’rd Edition of my Scrum Product Owner book.

It’s been a true labor of love that’s taken far longer to finish then I’d originally expected. (sounds like software products, right?) But, to quote a common agile phrase…I am now…

DONE.

Stick a fork in it, Baby!

E-copies (PDF, EPUB, and MOBI) are all available immediately on LeanPub. What’s nice about connecting via LeanPub is that I plan on continuing to evolve content & ideas in the PDF, so it will be a way to “stay in touch” with any future developments of the books’ themes.

Also not that I’ve published several short PDF, blog link books that make it easy to explore my blog posts on 3-specific topics:

  • Agile Coaching

  • Agile Leadership

  • Product Ownership

More information on ALL of the LeanPub copies can be found here: https://leanpub.com/bookstore?search=Robert%20Galen

Amazon

You can find the paper version here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/098850264X/

And the Kindle version here: https://www.amazon.com/Scrum-Product-Ownership-Navigating-Forest-ebook/dp/B07PBGN5NW/

And here’s a link to my Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B00287V534/

Previous Owners Offer

I’d like to make the following offer for ALL Edition 1 and Edition 2 book owners. If you’ve previously purchased a paper or e-copy of my two previous editions, I’ll give you a free e-copy of the 3’rd Edition. All you have to do is drop me a note and I’ll forward you a coupon for LeanPub to get your copy.

Wrapping Up

It’s been a long time in coming, but I’m incredibly pleased with the results. I hope you pick up a copy of the new book and hope even more so that it provides value to you.

And if you do read it, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. It means so much to me to gain feedback.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

3 Comments

The Leadership Circle – Initial Thoughts…

Comment

The Leadership Circle – Initial Thoughts…

Late last year I took the Leadership Circle Profile certification class with Shahmeen Sadiq. It was a 3-day class for the core Leadership Circle Profile and then a 1-day follow-up for the Leadership Culture Survey.

I was looking for an instrument (360-degree tool) to use in my Certified Agile Leadership (CAL I & II) workshops to provide insights for leaders making the shift towards a more agile mindset. I’d been using Bill Joiner’s, Leadership Agility tool and I found it unwieldy for my purposes in the class.

Well, after four days, I’m excited about my new tools. I believe the LCP is a great tool for individually coaching leaders. And I’m even more excited about the LCS and how it will nicely dovetail into my private CAL I classes.

The Leadership Circle

I can’t do the instruments/surveys justice in a short blog post. What I will say is that the focus is on showing us the balance between our reactive tendencies and our creative competencies. Reactive focuses more on controlling and managing our teams. While creative attempts to achieve results by building and leveraging our teams’ capabilities.

Comment

Creating Business Agility

1 Comment

Creating Business Agility

My colleague and friend, Anthony Mersino runs VitalityChicago. And agile coaching and training firm in, you guessed it, Chicago. He recently shared a post about 3 Key Steps that leaders should be taking to create business agility. The steps are: 

  1. Get Executive Buy-in and Agile Mindset

  2. Agile Leaders Should Get the Right Mix of Talent

  3. Foster an Agile Friendly Culture and Organizational Structure

While I really like Anthony’s 3 Key Steps, I’d like to add to or augment them…just a little bit.

For #1

In my experience, there’s a HUGE difference between getting buy-in and achieving an agile mindset. Most executives have a modicum of buy-in. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be embarking on an agile journey. However, achieving an agile mindset is different.

1 Comment

What is Business Agility?

Comment

What is Business Agility?

I was approached to speak at a startup event for a local Business Agility Institute user group here in the Raleigh/Durham area. I was quite pleased to be approached and am more than willing to present an agile topic to the group. 

But the request made me think…

I’ve been engaged in agile approaches for nearly twenty years. So, I have quite a lot of experience with the core methods, practices, scaling, agile leadership, cultures, etc. But what the heck is “Business Agility” and what sorts of topics would that group be interested in?

The answer escaped me and I realized I had to do some research.

Basic Definitions

Here’s what CA (Rally Software) had to say regarding a definition and 3 key aspects:

A company’s way to sense and respond to change proactively and with confidence to deliver business value—faster than the competition—as a matter of everyday business.

1.     It’s making the customer the central focus of your organization

2.     It’s driving value faster, better, and more efficiently

3.     It’s transforming how your business operates to achieve successful outcomes

Comment

Building a First Team

2 Comments

Building a First Team

During the years 2009 – 2012, I worked at a small company called iContact here in the Raleigh/Durham area. iContact had developed an email marketing, SaaS application that competed (still does) with the likes of Constant Contact and MailChimp. 

Ryan Allis was our CEO at the time and he was very innovative when it came to organizational change & evolution and leadership development. He happened to read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni at that time, and became enamored with the ideas contained within.

At the same time, we were adopting agile (Scrum, Kanban, and Scrum of Scrums for scaling) across the organization. Quite successfully, I might add. So, the two efforts naturally converged. And I was pleasantly surprised how well our Agile efforts and the 5 Dysfunctions blended together. That’s really what this article is all about.

5 Dysfunctions & Agile, like Peanut Butter and…

2 Comments

Choosing Trust

Comment

Choosing Trust

A colleague and friend of mine, Jamie Howard, wrote a short but interesting piece on trust. He called it Choosing Trust and you can find it here - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/choosing-trust-jamie-howard

What I found most interesting is the personal nature of it. Jamie was introspective, honest, and vulnerable all at the same time. I applaud him for the courage to share what many of us are feeling.

It’s a short read, so please take a look.

Extend Instead

But it also made me think about a different approach to it that I’ve used. I write about it in this blog post.

http://rgalen.com/agile-training-news/2014/7/17/what-comes-first-the-chicken-the-egg-or-trust

I personally think the key is EXTENDING trust. Unconditional trust. A good example of this is the film – Yes Man. And yes, I wrote about that one here.

http://rgalen.com/agile-training-news/2016/4/17/agile-leadersbe-a-yes-man

I’m not disagreeing with Jamie. I’m basically saying, Yes, And…and extending his thoughts ;-)

Wrapping Up

I want to thank Jamie for his courage in sharing. And for the inspiration! I also want to re-encourage all of us to aspire to the mindset of Yes, Man. Try it for a day, a week, or a month. It might be an interesting experiment for you to try…

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

Comment

CIO’s – Technology, Business Process, or Culture Builder?

1 Comment

CIO’s – Technology, Business Process, or Culture Builder?

I received an email from Strategic CIO Journal entitled – Top CIOs Become Business Process Czars. 

The key focus of the article was raising the bar on CIOs to become more broadly engaged in the overall business and the processes to deliver value.

https://thestrategicciojournal.com/2018/07/23/top-cios-become-business-process-czars-2/

Now, I’m not going to critique the article. Because it was the title alone that inspired this response. It made me think about senior technology leaders – CTOs, CIOs, and any senior technology leader in a larger organization.

It made me think of their Prime Directive. Is it: 

  1. Technology Leadership?

  2. Business Process Leadership?

  3. Or is it, Culture Builder?

The article seemed to allude to role moving from a focus on #1 to #2. And that is a relevant and important shift given today’s Digital Transformation strategy focus.

But that being said, in some ways, I think the article set the bar too low or in the wrong direction.

1 Comment

The Two Most Fundamental KEYS for your Agile Transformations

5 Comments

The Two Most Fundamental KEYS for your Agile Transformations

This is a short blog post. But I hope the brevity doesn’t undermine the seriousness of the message. 

Most firms focus on:

  • Reorganizations or flattening their structures

  • Bringing in coaching firms that only coach the teams

  • Buying a TON of tools

  • Sending everyone to certifications classes (everyone on the teams that is)

  • Expecting a bottom up success without top down engagement

  • Getting more done, lots more!

  • When challenged, reorganizing again…and again

  • Converting the PMO to an Agile PMO

  • Executing agile “projects” with “resources”

  • Buying a scaling framework to rule them all…

  • Literally, “leaders & managers” are focused on “making” the firm “agile”…

The most fundamental steps…

  1. Bring in a coaching partner that has real experience coaching at all tiers of your organization. Starting with your leadership team. A partner who understands the principles of agile and isn’t selling you classes, certifications, and frameworks.

  2. Realizing that your teams are your fundamental value proposition. You have to engage or invite them to participate in ALL aspects of your transformation. Listen to their ideas, trust their advice, and act based on it. No longer are the managers running the asylum, Nor the inmates. You are all in it together.

Everything revolves around activating your workforce to deliver customer value. You serve your workforce first and customer value (and ROI) will follow.

Oh, and you need expert help. Help that you trust. Help that is deeply experienced. Help that looks to partner with you, while also being willing to challenge you and tell you the truth.

Wrapping Up

There. That’s it!

Value your teams and get a trusted and experienced partner to help guide your path. 

It’s as simple as that.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

5 Comments