Jim’s Blog
Jim’s Blog
How to Never Issue a Command
If you've ever wondered how effective a leader you really are, consider the following line: A strong leader doesn't command. Can you and your staff do what needs to be done, every day, without you telling them what to do? Or, are you constantly having to check the work your staff has done, making
What’s the RIGHT Way to Use Metrics With a Scrum Team?
In my years working with teams, nothing I have ever encountered can be more demotivating, more demoralizing, or more USELESS than poorly considered metrics. There is a fundamental misunderstanding in the world today that metrics are an end in themselves. In other words, we create the metrics we believe make the most sense and then
Agile Transformations – Is It All-Or-Nothing?
If you're thinking about transforming your organization to more of an agile mindset, your first question is going to invariably be "where do I start?" Should I pick a single team? A single project? Maybe we should just training everybody and go? These aren't easy questions to answer. Depending on the situation, the right
The ScrumMaster’s Call to Action
The 2020 Scrum Guide has thankfully put something in words that many of us in the industry have known for years: the Scrum Master is "accountable for the Scrum Team's effectiveness." As in, getting things done without unnecessary waste. But does that mean that the Scrum Master now has some kind of authority? Absolutely
3 Power Skills of Strong Leaders
On January 6, 2021, Artisan Agility hosted a webinar to discuss The Three Power Skills of Strong Leaders. To learn more about Artisan's The Leadership Edge, you can also look here.
Was That Supposed to be Helpful?
In this blog post, we continue our series on the failures of leadership today. You can find the other blog posts in this series here and all of our posts on leadership here. It's probably happened to you at one point or another. You are sitting at your desk and your boss
No Talking Without a Manager Present
You can see all of the blog posts in our series on Leadership Failures here. In this blog post, I wanted to talk about managers that restrict access to their groups with an unusual demand... In my 35 years of coaching executives and teams, Workers sometimes tell me that they have been instructed not
Leading the Way to Organizational Change
Helping an organization learn how to change means getting an organization to learn that “the way we’ve always done it” works but doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve found the BEST way to do something, or even a reasonably good way to do something. As a ScrumMaster and change advocate, you’ll need to teach your organization
What Causes Conflict on a Team?
Creating change in an organization is also going to create conflict. A good change agent in an organization, and that should be the ScrumMaster, knows what kind of conflict will be encountered and how to handle it. In this section, we’ll discuss how people respond to change and what causes conflict in an organization.
The 2020 Scrum Guide
December 28 Update: we're having some trouble with the video. It'll be posted within a couple days. If you want to be notified when the video is posted, just leave a comment below. Thank you! On December 11, 2020, Artisan Agility hosted a webinar to discuss the 2020 Scrum Guide. This post will contain
Has Your Company Chained You to Your Desk?
You can see all of the blog posts in our series on Leadership Failures here. Today, the greatest challenge to the 21st century organization is failures in leadership. We live in a pivotal age where the world is changing with remarkable speed. Consumers demand more choices, better prices, and faster response. To remain competitive,
The Truth About Sprint Reviews Webinar
On December 3, 2020, Artisan Agility hosted a webinar to discuss The Truth About Sprint Reviews. The recording of the webinar is here. The slides used in the webinar are here.
Story Slicing Webinar
On November 11, 2020, Artisan Agility hosted a webinar to discuss Story Slicing. This post contains a recording of the webinar. The slides used in the webinar are here. You can find out a lot more about user story slicing by going here: Slicing. We've also built an online course called Amazing Stories! It includes
Servant Leadership in Scrum Webinar
Updated with new information on December 14, 2020. A personal note from Jim: I apologize for the fuzziness of some of the video. I had to make some changes to ensure that other people's faces did not end up in the video as I did not have their permission to include their images. So,
Scaling Scrum Webinar
On October 9, 2020, Artisan Agility hosted a webinar to discuss Scaling Scrum. This post contains both a recording of the webinar. The slides used in the webinar are here.