Jon Stahl had an enlightening talk at Agile 2011 where he walked through his process for incubating transformational leadership to achieve an Agile mindset.

Confused about adoption vs. transformation?  Check out ways to make progress with Culture Gaps.

Agile Mindset – Do you want it?

Jon shows the following short video of IDEO design group to illustrate the Agile mindset and the type of servant leadership needed to support it.

After watching the video with executives who want Agile, he checks in with them:

• “Is this what you really want?”
• “Are you prepared to change your own behaviour to support this?”
• “Are you ready to go first?”

The approach outlined here is to go big or go home. Go big means to help transform an organization or division. Go home, means that rather than help adopt a few Agile practices that may disrupt the organization, to stop work and looks for clients who really want Agile.

Leaders Go First!

The remainder of the presentation is about how leaders can go first by adopting Agile principles as a management team. Jon summarizes this as:

• Live the values
• Lead by example
• Be as transparent as the teams they lead

Here are some example activities for the management team:

• Public display of values
• Visualize projects and plans
• Visual management of key information: people, technology, etc
• Daily stand-up meeting in public place

Thank you Jon, for sharing this at Agile 2011.

Barbara Fredrickson gave a great Keynote at Agile 2011 – Why care about positive emotions?

The essential message is that we can create positive environments and emotions to create an upward spiral of openness, resilience, and better performance.

This is in line with my use of Agile as a way to transform the world of work. And of getting innovation and results through play.

The flow of the diagram below is: Positive emotions –> Expand’s Awareness –> Other thinking –> Mind Meld

Dr. Fredrickson argues that Positivity is a lifestyle change that can result in a upward spiral of positivity with all the associated benefits. Masking the negative does not help, we actually need to focus on the positive – at least three positive events for every negative event.

I really appreciated Barabara’s message, however, the one part I will differ on is that in many environments we need to create trust and safety to reduce the background noise of negativity. This needs to happen in tandem with positivity.

You can learn more through Barabara’s website or book.

Update: Full Video is available on Agile Alliance Website.

This post identifies concrete actions. See also: Acceptance Tests and Models for Success.

The final step was to identify concrete actions that the Scrum Alliance organization and membership can take to move toward the goals associated with specific parts of each model. This is the list we came up with. Each item was given a “thumbs up” or support vote. (There was only one thumbs down, but this was cleared with further discussion/explanation).

1. Create an initial Product Backlog of actions and desired future conditions. This list is a start.
2. Make that backlog visible to all members.
3. Create a mechanism to make it easy for members to volunteer for tasks associated with items on the backlog.
4. Find someone (or several persons) to facilitate the volunteer mechanism.
5. Develop ways to detect new trends and opportunities that may impact the SA and/or be influenced by the SA – eg. the new PMI/Agile certification program.
6. Develop a means for official public response to such trends and opportunities.
7. Start/continue building “bridges” with related communities involved with such trends and opportunities.
8. Apply Scrum/Lean/Agile tools (timeboxes, teams,  iterations, WIP limits) to work on these backlog items and management of the overall SA portfolio.

Participants

Note: Sorry we didn’t get everyone in the picture…

• Bob Allen
• Brad Swanson
• Chris Sims
• James Smith
• Heidi Helfand
• Mark Levison

This post identifies two visions for successful leadership within the Scrum Alliance. See also: Acceptance Tests and Concrete Actions (& Participants).

The group was divided into two teams. Each team independently went through the Strategic Play® visioning process:

1. Every team member built a model representing their ideas to support thought leadership.
2. In turn, each team member shared their ideas through the Lego model.
3. The models and ideas were integrated into a shared model. The results are shown below.

Shared Model from Team 1

Some Notes:

• Low barriers to entry
• Transparent
• A source of ideas (not only source)
• Listening to outside ideas
• Building bridges to other communities (PMI, Kanban, etc)
• Welcome other community members into our community
• Stepping places for learning and different approaches
• Many people working to move SA forward with coordination of effort and needs
• Let go of past
• Have awesome tools and capabilities within our community

Shared Model from Team 2

Some Notes:

• Simple machine with inputs and outputs
• Inputs are multiple communities through individuals and “antennas”
• Collect ideas in central backlog with adequate levels of transparency
• Courageous Leadership to move ideas forward
• Other leaders to spread ideas
• Assisting people with entry to so they can grow
• Building bridges with other communities

Discussion

There were a number of key differences between the models.  A few are discussed below.

What kind of leader? The inclusion of the Crown by one group was particularly challenging due to symbolic association to a king and absolute authority. Upon clarification, it was used to represent strong leadership that was inclusive of other voices and opinions. Something more than a facilitator and less than an authority.

What communities? The first group was much more oriented outwards to other parts of the Agile community and even wider. The second was focused more on the different communities or membership within the Scrum Alliance. So, both internal and external stakeholders are important.

This post identifies acceptance tests for successful thought leadership within the Scrum Alliance. See also: Models for Success and Concrete Actions (& Participants)

Process: Everyone built a model for an acceptance test and each group voted to select the two most valuable acceptance tests. So there are four acceptance tests in total.

Acceptance Test #1 – One Leader, one Message & people following

Acceptance Test #2 – Tuned in to community and able to influence it

Acceptance Test #3 – Build bridges between communities

Acceptance Test #4 – Start with one concrete thing supported by multiple communities

There will be a workshop at Agile 2011 on building ideas for improving thought leadership in the Scrum Alliance.

Workshop Logistics

Thursday 1:30 to 4:00pm in the Open Jam at Agile 2011.

We are very excited to have the managing director for the Scrum Alliance, Carol McEwan, participating in this activity.

Workshop Purpose

The purpose is to clarify acceptance tests and generate  ideas for how the Scrum Alliance can work effectively to provide thought leadership around Scrum.

We will use StrategicPlay® with Lego® to share points of view and build a shared vision of ways the Scrum Alliance can demonstrate leadership.

This vision will be shared with the wider community for feedback and action.

Ask not what your SA can do for you, but what you can do for your SA.

Workshop Results

It was decided that it would take to long to publish this via the Scrum Alliance website, so the results are posted here (on Agilitrix website) as an interim step.

1. Acceptance Tests
2. Models for Success
3. Concrete Actions (& Participants)

I am heading off to Agile 2011 and I wanted to share why I am really excited to be attending.  It’s really all about the power of play.

Understanding Flow through Games

I was fortunate to be accepted to the Agile Bootcamp track to present Lean Fundementals: Understanding Flow through games. I am thrilled since this touches on two passions of mine – Lean/Flow thinking and using games for learning.

Strategic Play® with Lego® for Solving Serious Problems

I am going to run two open jam sessions (each with a maximum of 14 participants) to use  Strategic Play® with Lego®  to solve some serious problems or build a shared vision. I will announce the times via twitter (follow-me) and also using the open jam board.

One of these will be focussed on generating leadership ideas for the Scrum Alliance. Some example acceptance tests for leadership are:

• There is a clear compelling vision of the Scrum Alliance that is supported by 70% of the membership.
• Satisfaction with leadership in Scrum Alliance is high. (e..g more than 4 out of 5 on survey).
• Public perception of the Scrum Alliance is positive.
• Members feel like their voice is heard regarding key decisions.

Innovation Games® T-Shirt Contest

You probably already know that Innovation Games® are amazingly powerful for supporting Product Owner/Manager communication and discovery with customers and stakeholders.

What you may not know is that there is a game at Agile 2011 for promoting awareness about Innovation Games® using a photo contest. Get your picture with me and other trained facilitators to win cold hard cash. I am very excited to participate and am bringing my two t-shirts. See front and back below. Sadly, my new tshirt did not get here in time…

Tasty Cupcakes – Game on!

I have been working with Mike McCollough and Don McGreal to accelerate tastycupcakes.org as the destination site to find and share games for learning about Agile and for games that do valuable work.

Games provide a way for people to play to get outstanding business results or accelerated learning.  Spot me wearing a TastyCupcakes tshirt and I’ll help you find the game for you!

Coach’s Corner

As a Certified Scrum Coach I thought I would pay it forward by participating in the Coach’s Corner to help coaches.

If you were thinking that this is not about play or games, well either you are right or life itself is a game. A collaborative one.

My office hours are:

• Monday 8am-9am
• Thursday 5pm to 7pm
• Friday 8am-9am

Product Camp Toronto was above all a great networking opportunity since there were lot’s of breaks between sessions for conversation. The day started with people sitting at tables chatting – and boy was there a buzz!

In this post I am going to give a quick pass at the four sessions I was at:

• Keynote on what is a product manager
• How to treat Customers like a Market and Markets like a Customer
• Open forum on Crowd Sourcing
• Market Research with Innovation Games

 What is a Product Manager?

The short answer is: someone who makes choices on product every day. John Stetic used the graphs below to show the breadth of skill required for product management and walked through some of the archetypal product managers and where they shine.

How to treat Customers like a Market and Markets like a Customer

Nick Van Weerdenburg had an engaging and insightful session. For me, the most engaging concept is to conceptualize a market as a person. Really ask yourself – what are they like? Personality? What do they think of you? Do they know your product? Good stuff. Read more below.

Open Forum on Crowd-Sourcing

I offered to facilitate this session (since I am getting pretty good at facilitation) and there was no one else around. As it turned out, we had a great mix of curiousity, skepticism and practical knowledge.

At the end there seemed to be consensus that:

Crowd Sourcing is a valuable activity that makes the Product Manager’s life easier, results in a better product and all this with minimal additional workload.

Below is a summary of the Crowd-Sourcing Flow:

Market Research with Innovation Games

Like crowd-sourcing, Innovation Games®are a powerful way of connecting with customers. The main difference is that Innovation Games® are focussed on real-time collaborative games as a means of engaging customers and stakeholders to reveal what really matters to them and to get breakthrough ideas.

I ran the session to give people an idea about using in-person and online games support envisioning, identifying hidden needs, and prioritization. We also briefly played Buy A Feature game online – and there were more than a few people hooked on it.

Slides are below:

Also, for reference, here is the handout summarizing the games:

Summary

I had a great day a Product Camp and would definitely recommend it.

I wanted to share this inspiring video on the art of possibility and how our stance in the world can change everything. Stance is very important for coaching.

This video is pretty long, but the best bits for me were in the first 12 minutes. Some great parts:

• Letter using Remember the Future for remembering why the student will have been wildly successful (3:43)
• You can give an “A” grade to anyone – to transform the relationship (4:25)
• “How Fascinating!” as a celebration of errors to maintain an available state (10:53)

Also, Benjamin Zander has a book with this title (haven’t read it yet).

Last weekend, a group of local Agilistas got together for BBQ, drink, and to play with Lego. Well, not just play, but StrategicPlay® – with a purpose. And wow, what a result! The outcome was some deep insights into the Agile community that we’d like to share with you.

Setting the Stage

After a brief introduction and practice with StrategicPlay® model building and sharing, everyone proposed a topic for the session by building a model and explaining it. After voting (with little wee Lego coins), the group decided on the model/topic show to the left: it contrasts the low level of connection within the Agile community and outside with other communities with the ideal/future state where there is a very powerful coherent tower of strength in the community.

Individual Visions of Agile Community Challenges

Now that the topic was establish, everyone built their own model of it and took turns explaining them. Below, for example, is an individual model. Even though it was by the same participant who created the topic, the process of listening and sharing resulted in a dramatically different model. It tells the story of seemingly growing success of Agile as a movement, but coupled with a disconnect in making a difference with much of the corporate world. The possible elephant in the room is that perhaps Agile is and always has been about innovators and early adopters.

Here is another one – showing factions arguing with each other in order to produce commercial success while the great challenge of waterfall waste is left largely unchallenged.

 A Shared Vision of Agile Community Challenges

The next challenge was for the group to work together to create a shared model that:

• Represented the most important concept from each person’s individual model, AND
• Everyone felt comfortable will all parts of the shared model

Although I only facilitated the process, I felt a strong connection with the model and ideas in it.

Credits

Credit for the model goes to : Alistair McKinnell, Jason Cheong-Kee-You, Jeff Anderson, Siraj Berhen, Todd Charron, and Sam DeBoni. Great work!

StrategicPlay® looks powerful – What can I use it for?

StrategicPlay® is great for working out solutions to complex problems. The more complex, the better.

It has a wide variety of applications from: team building and organizational change to product innovation to developing company strategy.

If you are curious to learn more about applications or the science behind why this stuff works so well, please read a more detailed description.