In an earlier post I talked about defining every position in the context five roles:  Producer; Talent & Resource Manager; Innovator & Entrepreneur; Personal & Team Developer; and Friend & Citizen.  In this post I argue for limitations on vertical hierarchy. I think most organizations currently have too many levels of vertical distinction.  In non-management...Read More

I hate most job descriptions; I find them unnecessarily complicated and overly sophisticated. In any organization that is growing and expanding, they are meaningless anyway because they can’t keep up with the rate of change. If you have a job description that says what you actually do, then you are probably part of a nice...Read More

It is now the task of every corporation to examine its own culture, not merely for the sake of its competitive position, although that should be reason enough, but because it is the culture of our business corporations that will determine the future wealth of our nation. – Lawrence M. Miller The topics of “Agile...Read More

“One of our core values is accountability.” “You are accountable for these results or this project.” Chances are, you’ve heard these phrases before. One of the most popular buzzwords across organizations regardless of domain, size or geography is “accountability.”     What Is Accountability? Given the frequent use of the word and the level of...Read More

Is yours is an environment regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and thus also a corporate Quality Management System (QMS)? CARS is a certification program that will teach field-proven practices for incorporating Agile in an FDA regulated and QMS governed environment.Read More

I mean it – your methodology does think you’re dumb. It doesn’t trust you, doesn’t believe that you can think for yourself, and doesn’t want you to inspect and adapt based on your current circumstances. A methodology is a prescribed series of steps that must be completed to encourage the successful completion of a goal....Read More

Over the course of my career, I have created nine new organizations at various levels (four were my own companies); I have renovated four others that were under-performing; and I have redesigned two that were performing well enough, but were not properly tooled for the challenges headed their way. From my experience, I can tell...Read More

Based on our decades of experience in creating organizational agility in real life, we’ve found that there are six characteristics that agile organizations possess. First, and foremost, agile organizations start with, “Why?” Agile organizations understand the purpose of their work—the noble purpose of their work. Achieving an ROI or EBITDA or EPS does not mobilize...Read More

I recently taught a Certified ScrumMaster®(CSM) Class at Watermark Learning. Because our time in class is limited and our class backlog is full of activities, exercises and simulations, I rarely have enough time to address all of the questions raised. Blogging, while limited in space, does allows me the opportunity to address these questions while...Read More

I recently taught a Certified ScrumMaster®(CSM) Class at Watermark Learning. Our two-day class is packed full of real-world examples of how to apply Scrum to solve complex problems. Of course, there is never enough class time to work through the backlog of questions that students raise, and as a passionate Scrum practitioner, this nags at...Read More