May 31Emergent Strategy and the Power of Small Improvements781Paul Stansikthis is a great piece!this is a great piece! Going to share it out. One thought - for me this is describing a Process Scientist 🧑🔬 even better than Process Engineer. I’m wondering though which of these will resonate more with leaders and especially sales leaders (and engineer probably does … while it doesn’t immediately infer the emergent / empirical feedback loop you’re describing )1 min read1 min read
Dec 7, 2022Member-onlyFix Your OKRs — Back to First PrinciplesContext OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) have become the latest management framework to suffer the fate of becoming popular too quickly, to the point where in many organizations, OKRs are a theater/charade with little useful substance or benefits. That’s a shame because OKRs have huge potential if used effectively. …Okr9 min readOkr9 min read
Sep 27, 2022Member-onlyAgility / Evidence-based Management and their role in improving returns in the Private Equity EcosystemIn this article, I’ll explore the need for and the attributes of an agile business operating system related to Private Equity (PE) portfolio companies. …Private Equity8 min readPrivate Equity8 min read
Jul 18, 2022Implementing the Scrum Master Accountability — Organizational design/Leadership ConsiderationsThe Scrum Master is accountable for establishing Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide. They do this by helping everyone understand Scrum theory and practice, both within the Scrum Team and the organization … Scrum Masters are true leaders who serve the Scrum Team and the larger organization” (The Scrum…5 min read5 min read
Dec 6, 2021Member-onlyWorking towards Sustainable Pace in Scrum, SAFe and KanbanAiming towards Sustainable Pace “Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.” — The Agile Manifesto Principle “programmers or software developers should not work more than 40 hour weeks, and if there is overtime one week, that the next week should not include…Scrum3 min readScrum3 min read
Dec 1, 2021Member-onlyConnecting OKRs, KPIs, OVSs, and DVSs in SAFe® — Scaled AgileThe title of my post may read like acronym soup but all of these concepts play a critical role in SAFe, and understanding how they’re connected is important to success. After exploring some connections, I will suggest some actions you can take while designing, evaluating, or accelerating your implementation. KPIs and OKRs The…Scaled Agile Framework5 min readScaled Agile Framework5 min read
Nov 30, 2021Member-onlyIterating faster with SAFeHere’s a frequently asked question in the SAFe community: I wanted to understand what SAFe says about someone who wants to go faster than 2 weeks of iteration? I mean the whole PI concept is based on 5 iterations worth of planning. What if a team/organization wants to develop and…3 min read3 min read
Nov 29, 2021Member-onlyINVEST in effective SAFe PI ObjectivesINVEST in effective SAFe PI Objectives Could the INVEST criteria Bill Wake came up with for evaluating User Stories help us come up with effective PI Objectives in SAFe as well? I think a good PI Objective should be: – Independent — meaning ideally it could be delivered and evaluated on its own without any dependency…Scaled Agile Framework2 min readScaled Agile Framework2 min read
Nov 29, 2021How Vendors Can Apply Customer Centricity When Organizing Around ValueA lot of our clients are technology vendors that struggle to use the SAFe Operational Value Streams “out of the box”. Here, I explore how such a B2B vendor should organize around value when building products that are used to support its customer’s business operations. This article was originally posted…Scaled Agile Framework6 min readScaled Agile Framework6 min read
Nov 29, 2021Member-onlyImproving Focus and Alignment by Organizing around OKRs and managing OKR FlowImproving Focus and Alignment by Organizing around OKRs and managing OKR Flow Today, I wanted to share two quick observations about OKRs. Too many teams working on each strategic OKR I encounter many organizations that use OKRs. Too many of them have this crazy matrix where the high-level OKRs — those that aim to achieve the organization’s strategy — map to too many teams/functions in the organization. This creates a…Okr3 min readOkr3 min read
