Many organisations and teams around the world are currently figuring out what a distributed world looks like for them, and if having and supporting great agile teams remotely is even possible. The good news is “YES, it absolutely is, but it takes deliberate thought and effort”. Timely is a NZ-based... continue reading

The performance of an individual is much less important than you think it is. The way we measure, assess, evaluate and reward individual performance is no longer relevant in the modern workplace. We need to look at different behaviours and skills and instead consider the performance of the team. W... continue reading

Feedback is a funny thing. We crave it, get disgruntled if we don’t get it, and often get upset when we do get it. As someone who requests feedback on a relatively frequent basis, I have been on a journey from being a terrible receiver of feedback, to a much less terrible one. It’s something I am al... continue reading

I’ve seen more than 100 people leaving their companies and teams in the last 5 years. Sometimes they go to chase exciting challenges, get promoted or they're just looking for something new. Unfortunately when someone leaves the knowledge that they've created and gained leaves the organisation as we... continue reading

I’ve been meeting new people lately, work-related. And one of my pet peeves has resurfaced with a vengeance… people who don’t listen. Not just not listening, but basically just waiting for their opportunity to jump into the conversation and talk about their angle on whatever I just raised, as if the... continue reading

Do you ever get to the end of a day, week, or month and wonder where all that time went? What did you do? What did you achieve? Why do you feel so exhausted and yet your to-do list looks just as long, if not longer? Research has shown that people regularly take on more work than they are capable of.... continue reading

I have been working for many years now. Around 20. And I have always wanted a manager who really cared about my learning as much as I did. For most of this time, I was just provided with courses and/or books that I wanted.. Now as a coach I hear regularly from managers that they want workers that ar... continue reading

“There is a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.” Ken Blanchard It happens often - something new comes up and it sounds exciting and we totally w... continue reading

Holacracy has great mechanisms to deal with governance and tactical issues. But what about the human side? What about relationships? What about our personal interactions in the workplace? Many have criticised Holacracy for not being complete, for being a system that only deals with the work and not... continue reading

Recently I’ve heard more and more stories of newly minted Agile Coaches crossing the lines between coaching* and counselling during 1:1 coaching sessions - that shit has to stop! It’s creepy, irresponsible and dangerous - mental wellbeing is not something to play around with. Since the roles of Agil... continue reading

Getting to purpose - a quick path to creating a purpose statement . I recently found myself having to come up with a format on the fly for a new leadership team to create a purpose statement. Here’s what I did.... continue reading

I created the Facilitation Canvas as a tool to help facilitators prepare to run a session. We use it as part of our ICAgile team facilitator course. The canvas is made up of 8 boxes, each with an associated set of prompt questions that I have found work well as a guide when filling it out.... continue reading

Working Agreements, Team Norms, Team Charters… Call them what you want, they’re great in theory but in practise they can be awkward to come up with and difficult to implement. Committing to “don’t be a dick” and “respect each other” is well and good, but it’s pretty much implied. We shouldn't need a... continue reading

There are many approaches to carrying out planning. Here's what I use for situations that require any kind of planning at all - from working across organisational transformation to figuring out what to do at the weekend. I like it because it’s simple, easy to remember and it sets me up naturally to... continue reading