Resume Driven Development - RDD

RDD is the practice of the developers sliding their own features to try out the latest trend and hip technology. 

Situational Leadership...

• Agile project management is more about leading a team than managing a team (Cohn).
• Understand what the team needs in terms of leadership.
• Servant Leadership is more about Leadership than being the doormat of your team.
• Agile leadership is situational (depending on the set of circumstances).
• Agile works because the team is empowered - a lot of responsibility is delegated to the team (Mackenzie).
• Situational leadership is recognizing that there is no right way of leading a team, but effectively bounce between the following styles:
• Directing: Tell the team what to do
• Coaching: Sell an idea so the team will do
• Supporting: Work along with team to do
• Delegating: Delegate to team to do

Map the above with Tuckman's phases of team development - Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning. You may start with a Directing approach as the team forms, and gradually as the team matures, coach, support and finally delegate.

Agile works the best when the team is in the "Delegating" Mode.

Agile Transformation Steps

It is very important to choose the right candidate projects for Agile Transformation. Too often you will lose credibility of the right projects are not picked up. There will be stiff resistance from teams if they don't see the value of transformation soon enough.

Co existence of old ways of working is another key factor. Ensure the new ways of working are comprehensively implemented. Most often allowing old framework to co-exist will undermine the efforts of agile ways / new ways of working. This may include the traditional documentation, phase reviews and documentation sign offs.

Key Agile Topics

Scrum Master
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1.The purpose of top level scrum ceremonies
2.The value of observed practices during ceremonies
3.Resolve impediments external to the team
4.Write deliverable, vertically-sliced stories
5.“Turn up the good” through frequent retrospectives
6.Make work visible
7.Promote a psychologically-safe team environment
8.Model servant leadership behaviors

Product Ownership
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1.Product Manager / Analyst Role Evolution
2.Product Ownership
3.Customer Experience
4. NFR Overview
5. NFR Considerations
6.The Backlog
7.Value / Return on Investment
8.Technical Debt
9.Market Analysis
10.Product Design
11.Product Marketing Basics
12.Business Value Domain
13.Embedded End User Feedback

Agile Leadership
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1. Team composition
2. Product ownership
3. Portfolio management / work intake
4. Customer experience
5. IaaS
6. Legacy system evolution
7. NFR and considerations
8. Talent management
9. Vendor management
10. Financial management
11.Dependency Elimination

The Coaching Habit - Michael Bungay Stanier - Tips

Questions Coaches should be asking
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1. And what else?

Have you thought of
What about
Did you consider
....

Stop offering advice with a question mark attached.

2. What is the real challenge for you here?

Focus on the real problem, not the first problem

3. Stick to questions starting with WHAT -- 

DONT ASK WHY questions -- it will put the respondents in the defensive / OR it will appear or you indeed are solving the problem.


Example conversation
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Whats on your mind?

Is there anything else on your mind?

So, what's the real challenge for you here?

And What else (in most cases the person will still have something more to add).

Probe further by asking Is there anything else?

4. What do you want?

Untangle / differentiate the NEEDS from the WANTS

5. How can i help?

6. If you are saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?

note: acknowledge the answers you get. This will encourage the speaker.

7. What was most useful to you?