The importance of remembering being the learner
My son plays bowling in a junior league every Saturday morning. He started playing last year, which led us to our weekly Sunday bowling night together. One of the side benefits this creates is all the time we get to spend together now to share our stories. Because he loves …
NYEPI – A Day of Silence
A few days ago, my friend Caro, who is my writing coach, sent me a Whatsapp message: “Julia, we need to postpone our session which was planned on March the 7th. It is Nyepi in Bali, the Day of Silence.” And suddenly, a memory comes to my mind. In March …
It’s time to step into your personal leadership!
Leadership is something that can be very hard to define sometimes. For example, the classic definition is to examine the distinction between leadership and management. In some organizations, you also need to make a distinction between leadership and directivity. We seem to forget sometimes that leadership does not only happen …
Heroes Are Among Us
Heroes are rare gems, references, key players, people who absolutely need to be there. They are linked to projects that do not start without them. Impossible to change something without their approval, they are essential to the proper operation of the business; their knowledge is guarded and sought after. In …
Kanban: An alternative approach to Business Agility
I’ve been working with Agile approaches for nearly 20 years now, and I only learned about Kanban in 2015, when I joined Pyxis. I was immediately curious about this “new form” of Agility, and as an Agile Coach, I decided to learn more about Kanban to expand my toolbox. After …
Agile leadership is the key to self-organization
Team self-organization is a powerful force that can foster innovation and motivate team members to do great things. The idea is simple: let the people closest to the customer, those with the greatest insight into customer needs, make the decisions about what they deliver and how they deliver it. Yet …
Professional Agile Leadership Essentials
Becoming an Agile organization is a profound transformation that requires senior leaders, middle managers, and agile team members to change the way that they organize their work, manage that work, and measure the results of the work. Agile teams cannot do this on their own; they need help from the …
In service of what do you lead?
In service of whom? In service of what? These are two powerful questions leaders should ask themselves more often. While some people seem to be natural leaders, behind the scenes they lead in service of something. This article will explore the concept of the leadership noble cause; what is it …
A Scrum team needs one (and only one) Product Owner
Recently, I presented some of my conclusions after attending (again) the Professional Scrum Product Owner training. As I wrote, the Product Owner’s role remains the vaguest in the Scrum Guide, because it is very dependent on the company in which he evolves. It reads: “The Product Owner is responsible for …
Professional Scrum Master II
As Scrum Master, your responsibility includes helping managers and stakeholders in your organization understand the benefits of Agility and Scrum. Therefore, it is essential to develop the necessary credibility to be an effective change agent. The Scrum Master must be able to adopt the stance that is most useful to …