Thoughts and conversation from our nomads.
Holacracy for Humans
How we created a networked organisation 5 Key take-aways Holacracy provides radical transparency and timely decision making at the right level. Decision making by consent is awesome! The freedom, autonomy and responsibility to achieve a clear purpose enables self-organisation. Holacracy will amplif...
How to Use a Meme to Increase Collaboration and Understanding
Empathy is a good thing and understanding what your colleagues actually do can be a very useful boost to collaboration. When we work in cross-functional teams or with people from other parts of the organisation it is helpful to get an understanding of what they do, how they can contribute and what w...
Modern Agile Principles
I often teach Agile to people who have nothing to do with software development, such as leadership teams or organisations that operate entirely outside of the digital world. In this context I only teach the Modern Agile values (read more about the modern agile movement at modernagile.org)....
#JAFAC 2017 - impressions of an organiser
This is the second year we have organised JAFAC (Just Another F#$%ng Agile Conference) and as I’m slowly coming down from the buzz and enthusiasm I’m reflecting upon the experience of organising and attending the conference. Here are a few things that stood out for me: 1. The #JAFAC vibe Several att...
Multitooling: Kanbanfor1 with other productivity techniques
Kanbanfor1 gives you a simple visual overview of your to do list. It helps you keep an eye on your progress and get visibility over what you’re actually achieving—helping you to work more efficiently and become better organised. As a productivity tool Kanbanfor1 is great on its own—but it becomes tr...
Giving teams the best start
How you kick-off a team is important! In fact it’s so important, that when you get it right your team can perform up to 30% better. That's what research by J. Richard Hackman tells us and it’s certainly consistent with my own observations. What exactly is a kick-off? A kick-off is a series of meetin...
Agile2016: Self-Selection, paradigm shifts and the Agile Alliance of NZ
David and I were super excited to head to Agile2016 in Atlanta. We had a really great five days: catching up with old friends, making new acquaintances and eating Atlanta's "streetest" BBQ! A new phase for New Zealand’s Agile community Shane Hastie and I signed the papers to establish the Agile Alli...
Everyone needs Kanbanfor1
I've never met someone who doesn’t have a problem managing their time. We all wish there were more hours in the day! While we can’t add extra hours to the day, we can find ways to be more effective with the time we have. Experience and research show that the best way to do this is to: stop multi-ta...
Self-selection on a Page
Everything you need to know about Self-Selection on a page. Download the quick overview guide. Download the Self Selection On A Page If you'd like to know more get our book "Creating Great Teams - How Self-Selection Lets People Excel"....
Case Study: Xero
Inspired by our squadification experiences at Trade Me and other large companies, Xero set out to try self-selection for themselves. People were asked to figure out who should be in which team and choose who they wanted to work with. Read our interview with Jordan Morris, a software engineer and Agi...
Case Study: Fairfax Media
Guest post by: Jaume Durany, Agile Coach at Fairfaxmedia. This post originally appeared on fairfaxmedia.co.nz Boundaries are everywhere, always. And, as Jurgen Appelo explains in his book Management 3.0, a complex system can self-organise only when there’s a boundary around it. That is, every outbre...
Just Another F&#k!ng Agile Conference - We did it!
So, we (Nomad8) are now the proud creators of #JAFAC - just a another fk!ng Agile conference, which we ran for the first time on April 22nd and 23rd at GridAKL. It was a conference and an unconference. A day of speakers followed by some food, drinks, music and conversation. Then a day of Open-space,...
Personal Kanban as an Organisational Lens
One of the most useful tools when introducing Agile into an organisation is personal Kanban. It gives me unique insights into an organisation's culture and values, and helps me determine my next steps. As an Agile coach, the process of getting people into personal Kanban facilitates insights into ho...
Case Study: Trade Me Property
Guest post by: Zhi Lee, Trade Me Property Delivery Manager. We’re very thankful that Trade Me as an organisation allows employees to select teams and themes they’d like to work on, on a regular basis. It’s something we try to do twice a year in Trade Me Property. Now, it’s a huge leap of faith to ba...
Squadify with Self-Selecting Teams
"No one had ever done this on the scale we were contemplating. Could it possibly work?" Fast growth has a way of forcing organizational change on a business, but it also presents opportunities to try new ways of working. When Trade Me, New Zealand’s biggest e-commerce provider, hit a new level of gr...
Yay, we published a book!
Our book "Creating Great Teams - How Self Selection Lets People Excel" was published with Pragmatic Bookshelf last week. Yesterday, the first paper copies arrived. A picture of the calm and collected authors (David Mole and me). So, what's the book about? And why should you read it? Here's a brief...