One of the great things about working with Agile teams is that people gradually lose their inhibitions and become more open with their ideas. This is more common with a team that has been together for a few releases. There is an inherent trust in the group, and people voice their thoughts or opinions without any fear of being ridiculed or struck down – and even if they Are struck down, they can hold their own and expand on their ideas, argue, or banter till the cows come home. This is something I miss a lot from my old workplace.
This is a collection of my tweets, thoughts, opinions etc. that have come up over some time – some while discussing the concept of Agile/Scrum with co-workers, some while reading someone else’s blog or some literary article etc. Each of these could be a blog post, or the topic of a group discussion. So whether you practise Agile or not, possibly whether you are in the IT industry or not, here are some thoughts on qualities and values I believe in, such as openness, integrity, customer centric actions, collaboration, knowledge dissemination, diversity etc. Maybe they will be quoted with my byline some day?
While evaluating market conditions, how much analysis is too much, and how much is too little?
What is the smallest unit of time you break down your work to?
Is Avoidance always the best choice while resolving a conflict? Or could it worsen an already problematic situation?
Facilitate – help bring about, or make easy. Facilitation does not involve telling people HOW to do something.
Is attitude more important than aptitude? What if you had to choose one?
Collaboration means not holding back on your wildest ideas! An idea kept to yourself stagnates; talking about it leads to fruition!
Cross training is not only for contingencies - it can also create a better respect of what fellow team members do!
Collaboration begins in the mind.
Do colors contribute to the efficacy of information radiators? Imagine all task cards, charts etc. only in black and white!
Do you jump in and emulate your competition, or take the time to analyze?
Fear is often the underlying reason for resistance to change.
How often are you accommodating while resolving conflicts?
What would you rather do – empower your team, or hold power over them?
Whether you use Scrum or not, capturing and retaining tacit knowledge is still a big challenge for continued product success.
Your Scrum team is only part of your complete end to end business cycle. Are they in sync with your Scrum team?
Shorter time to market may not be very lucrative unless you have the pulse of your target users.
Welcoming change is the best thing you can offer your customer.
How does diversity affect your team throughput? Or is a group of similar people more productive?
Some of those should definitely be blogs! You are a great writer!
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