Agile Notes (No. 15)

Every Friday, I send out an email highlighting a concept relating to Agile/Scrum/Continuous Improvement. Lets get to it….

This week, we continue with Notes from the excellent Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins. I absolutely LOVE how Lyssa brings her practice of mindfulness and being present into her coaching. Being an agile coach is about listening and communication.

Two screen grabs this week! Bonus!

I love, love, love that Adkins called this out. You will always meet what Eckhart Tolle and Steven Pressfield (take your pick) refer to as the RESISTANCE. There are always going to be people that will put Journey Lines or Personal Maps into the dreaded “Team Building” category. I get it. I’m not doing a trust fall - or even worse - I was once at a corporate offsite where we were forced to carry and pass people between gaps in a scaffold made of PVC pipe. It was not pretty and it does absolutely NOTHING to build relationships.

The two big learnings from this Note are: a) assume the close. This is a sales concept. When you present this to the team, do it with a PMA - positive mental attitude. Don’t go into it thinking that the team is going to hate this - because they will feel that coming off of you. The second is b) another sales concept - overcoming objections. When people balk - hit them with the script in the second capture. There is value here.

Thanks for reading. Please, leave a comment. And, if you think about it, maybe forward this on to someone you know. They don’t have to be Agile or even be thinking about being Agile.

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