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Leadership Tip: Be Present With The Person In Front Of You
Leaders, pretend you are in an office for a second. You’re at your desk near those you lead, filling out a report or working on a powerpoint or typing up an email you’re going to send to the team. It’s time sensitive. Someone on your team walks up to you and starts asking about a…
Keep readingA Journey Into Leadership: Defining My Intuition
Nearly 10 years ago, I was working as a junior producer in the video game industry. My job was intentionally left undefined by the company. At the time, I found this role ambiguity annoying, but it was at least made clear to me that part of my job was ‘leadership’. Of course, I had an…
Keep readingWork Systems – Control is Limited
Work systems! Here we go again, I want to review some of the pragmatic ideas I’ve put forward in the previous articles at the start. First, remember that I see the primary purpose of a good work system as building alignment and relationships. This gives rise to a couple of ideas: 1. A work system…
Keep readingWork Systems – The Who
Ever asked questions like, “Why do we do have all these meetings, who are they even for?” or “Does anyone get value out of this process?” or “Do these documents I make even matter?” There could be a lot of reasons why these questions are asked, and I want to talk about one: incorrectly choosing…
Keep readingWork Systems – The Why
This post is the first in a series about work systems. There’s a lot of talk about what frameworks or scaled frameworks within agile work the best. It is nearly as popular to talk about how the scaled frameworks conversation misses the point. Agile is based on principles and values, and is not about any…
Keep readingValue and Learning – How to Prioritize
(originally published on LinkedIn by the author) I teach a class called “Agile Fundamentals” where I work. Among other things, we spend some time looking at different mindsets, types of work, and approaches to delivering value. We go into some detail looking at when value is achieved in strict plan-driven vs value-driven approaches. There’s a…
Keep readingBlack and White Decision Making – The Problems of Right/Wrong Framing
(originally published in LinkedIn by the author) Over the last 15 or so years I’ve regularly run into a faulty decision-making frame. At first it frustrated me because I couldn’t articulate it, but after putting some thought into it I came up with a way to describe it and a simple alternative frame I want…
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