This article first appeared on stickyminds.com. Not long ago, I received a call from someone who wanted to hold a retrospective. “Tell me about your goals for the retrospective,” I prompted. The requestor proceeded to describe what amounted to a mini-witch...
I’ve seen retrospectives help teams make major improvements. Yet, each time I talk to a group about retrospectives, someone always tells me, “Retrospectives don’t work.” Why might that be? My inquiries revealed eight common reasons behind...
This article first appeared on Stickyminds.com. Recently, a reader wrote to me with a concern about retrospectives. “We make decisions,” he wrote, “but we don’t have the discipline to carry them out. The team is starting to feel like...
Systems drive behavior. Therefore, if you want to change behavior in an organization you need to understand the factors that influence the current pattern. An Example The managers in an organization have decided that they want the productivity and morale benefits of...
A while back, I sat in on a birds-of-a-feather session on organizational change. The main theme was bemoaning the difficulty changing even mid-sized organizations. When people talk about how hard it is to bring change there’s a tendency to blame: people who...
You’d think that since I’m president of a one-person company, I could change anything in my office in a snap. But a recent incident reminded me that top-down change is always a process. My dog, Miss Pudge, comes to the office with me every day. Until recently, she...
I received an email advertising a workshop for managers, titled “Overcoming a Culture of Entitlement,” last week. Here’s the hook: “When employees feel “entitled,” they resist change, they drag their feet, they’re not accountable, and leaders...
Between Kent Beck’s post on Capital Efficient UI Design and attending a UI conference this week, I’m prompted to write down a few thoughts on incorporating UI design into development iterations. Establish critical design standards at the beginning and work...
If you have ever said to yourself “It couldn’t be X, Y, or Z” when trying to find an exploration, you’ve put options beyond belief. And that hampers problem solving. Let me tell you a little story, a true story. The Facts Some time ago my...
Most of my clients want to change something: they want to deliver software faster, reduce the number of defects the software they do deliver, and improve financial results. Affecting these changes neither simple nor easy. Improving organizational results involves...
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act II, Scene 2 The other day I was skimming the Harvard Management Update when a section in bold red print caught my eye: “Why don’t more organizations...
ac-count-a-ble adj. 1. Subject to the obligation to report, explain, or justify something; responsible; answerable. 2. Capable of being explained; explicable. (The Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition, 1988.) Did you know that’s what accountable...
Came across this quote today–seems a propros the discussion of management and leadership. It seems to me that whereas power usually means power-over, the power of some person or group over some other person or group, it is possible to develop the conception of...
I’m uncomfortable with the manager vs. leader dichotomy that’s bandied about lately. Most of the time, the conversation is reduced to a sound bite: “Managers do things right, leaders to the right thing” (from a Warren Bennis quote). Cute, but...
(c) 2003-2010 Esther Derby This column originally appeared on Computerworld.com Twice a week, I go to the gym and weight train with Brooke Darst, a Certified Personal Trainer. As I perform my exercises, Brooke provides a constant stream of feedback: Minor corrections,...
“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when it’s the only one you have.” Emile-Auguste Chartier There are three states in problem solving. Not enough ideas Too many ideas Just the right number of ideas In the first case (stuck) the task is to...
When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness A few months ago, I began writing a “Technically Speaking” column for this issue and just couldn’t make myself finish it. I...
At the start of my series on Performance without Appraisal, I listed the goals that organizations hope to achieve with annual performance appraisals and so-called performance management systems: improve individual performance improve organizational results determine...
Part of my definition of a successful team is that the members of the team increase their knowledge and capacity as a result of their work on the team. That means that giving the team the opportunity to learn is part of the job. One of challenges I see when managers...
