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Tag: agile leadership

  • Founder Mode: The Dark Side of a Hyped Model

    TL;DR: The Perils of Founder Mode

    This article delves into the darker aspects of Founder Mode, popularized by Paul Graham and others. It offers a critical perspective for agile practitioners, product leaders, startup founders, and managers who embrace this paradigm and probably fall victim to survivorship bias; the Jobs and the Cheskys are the exception, not the rule.

    The article explores how resulting tendencies, such as micromanagement, lack of strategic transparency, team devaluation, and reckless risk-taking, can undermine organizational health, stifle innovation, and conflict with agile principles. These can jeopardize long-term success while making work in organizations with a failed founder mode application miserable for everyone below the immediate leadership level and the founder himself.

    Founder Mode: The Dark Side of a Hyped Leadership Model at Odds with First Principles of Agile Practices — Berlin-Product-People.com

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  • Minimum Viable Library (3) — Agile Leadership Edition

    TL; DR: The Minimum Viable Library for Agile Leaders

    A new edition of the Minimum Viable Library on Agile Leadership is available! Explore a series of carefully curated collections of essential books, newsletters, podcasts, and tools to elevate your agile expertise.

    Read on and learn how the recommendations for agile leaders cover a wide range of topics, from the importance of self-managing teams and trust-based environments to the crucial roles of accountability and resilience. While “servant leadership” as a term may be fading, its principles of empowerment and collaboration endure. Stories of transformation in traditional settings underscore the value of decentralized leadership and quick communication.

    Minimum Viable Library (3) — Agile Leadership Edition — Berlin-Product-People.com

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  • Agile Leadership: 10 Hidden Gems to 10X Your Leadership Game

    TL; DR: 10X Your Agile Leadership Game with 10 Affordable Books

    Agile leadership is tricky, covering a lot of ground, from team building, decision-making, servant leadership, and self-management to including everyone and giving everyone a voice—to name a few of the challenges.

    In the past, I found the following books beneficial to better understand the problem and solution space agile leadership. Moreover, you can significantly improve your leadership game as Scrum Master, agile coach, or manager for less than $ 200—an excellent investment from a professional perspective.

    Agile Leadership: 10 Hidden Gems to 10X Your Leadership Game — Berlin-Product-People.com

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  • Agile Micromanagement — Making Your Scrum Work #27

    TL; DR: Agile Micromanagement

    There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Indeed, given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. For example, the Scrum Guide clearly states the importance of self-management at the Scrum team level. Nevertheless, the prevailing cause of many messed-up attempts to use Scrum result from what I call agile micromanagement, a pseudo-commitment to agile principles only to be overridden whenever it seems beneficial from a stakeholder’s or manager’s perspective.

    Join me and delve into the importance of self-managing Scrum teams in less than two minutes.

    Agile Micromanagement — Making Your Scrum Work #27 — Berlin Product People GmbH

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  • ???? Daniel Stillman: Designing Powerful Questions to help you Coach, Create, Connect and Lead — Hands-on Agile 35

    TL; DR: Designing Powerful Questions with Daniel Stillman

    Powerful Conversations are the environment that drives change. Learn from Daniel Stillman how designing powerful questions helps you coach, create, connect, and lead from the 35th Hands-on Agile meetup of October 5, 2021.

    ???? Watch the video with Daniel Stillman now: Hands-on Agile #35: Designing Powerful Questions to help you Coach, Create, Connect and Lead.

    ???? Daniel Stillman: Designing Powerful Questions to help you Coach, Create, Connect and Lead — Hands-on Agile 35

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  • Adapt How You Lead for Agile Success — Johanna Rothman at the Agile Camp Berlin 2021

    TL; DR: Adapt How You Lead for Agile Success w/ Johanna Rothman — ACB21

    Too many people say, “With agile, we don’t need no stinkin’ managers.” However, because managers create and refine the culture, modern managers create and refine the agile culture. Without modern management, any agile initiative will die. It’s time to invite managers to change their behaviors and create a real agile culture. Learn from Johann Rothman how to adapt your leadership style for agile success as a manager in an agile organization in this 54-minute long video from the Agile Camp Berlin 2021.

    Adapt How You Lead for Agile Success — Johanna Rothman at the Agile Camp Berlin 2021 — Berlin Product People GmbH

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  • The Lack of Agile Leadership Qualities — Making Your Scrum Work #15

    TL; DR: The Lack of Agile Leadership Qualities — When Change Agents Don’t Act as Role Models

    There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. When Scrum becomes an element of an agile transformation, a lack of agile leadership qualities on the incumbents’ side may impede its overall progress significantly despite the best efforts of all other change agents.

    ???? Join me and explore the consequences of a lack of agile leadership qualities and what you can do about it in less than three minutes.

    The Lack of Agile Leadership Qualities — Making Your Scrum Work #15 — Berlin Product People GmbH

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  • Three Essential Agile Failure Patterns in 7:31 Minutes—Making Your Scrum Work #12

    TL; DR: Essential Agile Failure Patterns — When Noise Interferes with Signal

    There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. When Scrum becomes an element of an agile transformation, the following three common essential agile failure patterns prove to be an exceptionally tough nut to crack for any Scrum Master.

    ???? Join me and explore the consequences of foreseeable failure patterns and what you can do about them in a little more than seven minutes.

    Three Essential Agile Failure Patterns in 7:31 Minutes—Making Your Scrum Work #12 — Berlin Product People GmbH

    Update: I am running a poll on LinkedIn—join the voting: “What is your top agile failure pattern in organizations?”

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  • Agile Leadership — A Brief Overview of Concepts and Ideas

    Agile Leadership — A Brief Overview of Concepts and Ideas

    TL; DR: Agile Leadership

    I recently started aggregating my notes, links, and references related to agile leadership to understand better what it — in the context of an agile transition — may look like. In the end, becoming agile is not the goal of a transition; surviving as an organization is. Hence I appreciate whatever appeals to business leaders and their motivation to delve into agile ideas, frameworks, or practices.

    Let’s examine some favorite ideas and concepts around agile leadership. (Please bear with me that the following text is rather bullet-point heavy to concentrate its information.)

    Agile Leadership – Berlin Product People GmbH

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