In Stuck in the Middle, Part 1, I discussed possible management problems with agile. Those aren’t the only stuck problems I see. Sometimes, I see team problems.
What if the teams are “almost agile”—they still have too many experts, their stories are too big, they don’t always deliver value on a regular basis? You know they could see the benefits of agile if they retrospected, or changed the way they work. Maybe they don’t quite know what to do.
I also tackled some of these concerns with blog posts:
- Three Alternatives for Making Smaller Stories and Making Stories Small When You Have “Wicked” Problems
- Who Removes Your Obstacles?
- Are You Running from Problems or Solving Them?
- How Long Are Your Iterations, Part 1 and How Long Are Your Iterations, Part 2
Understanding the problems—and helping the team understand the problems—is your first step in helping to solve the problems.
I wrote some newsletters that might help:
I admit, it would be nice if we could tell people what to do. I have found that telling doesn’t work so well when we want people to be self-managing. (!!) What can you do?
- Build your coaching skills so you can coach across the organization.
- Build your influence skills so you can influence anywhere.
- Understand the dynamics that prevent the teams from succeeding as well as they could.
We do all of these at the Influential Agile Leader. I invite you to join us this year, in Boston or London.
In Part 3, I’ll discuss the system of agile that makes being stuck in the middle uncomfortable.
