Leadership – Leading Answers

March 28, 2024October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Teams, Warning Signs

People Problems: Dealing with Dark Triad Traits

Most of us will experience challenging and downright toxic people at some point in our careers. If you ever have, then you can probably see, in retrospect, how much those individuals differed from ordinary people. Yet, at the time, their impacts may have seemed so upsetting and jarring that it is quite common to question whether we had it wrong or contributed in some way toward the situation. So, having some strategies for dealing with these people can save your sanity and provide pathways through the issues while also protecting others. Fortunately, truly toxic people are few and far between. Most people we deal with are generally helpful or at least neutral. Occasionally, we encounter people with challenging personalities: people […]

April 14, 2023September 27, 2025Agile Project Management, Books, Exceptions, Leadership, Planning, Risk Management, Tailoring Approaches, Theory of Constraints, Warning Signs

Definition of Broken (DoB): A Tool for Improving Communications and Outcomes

Communicating project issues is challenging. Exactly when should we escalate? Who to, and how much of a chance to correct things should be given first? This is why some projects create control limits around critical parameters and develop escalation plans to communicate exceptions and agree on the next steps. However, on most small to medium size projects, these escalation plans are often missing or left to the project manager's discretion. This creates further problems if the response is too late, not far-reaching enough, or not aligned with sponsor expectations. Also, what are the expectations for communicating delays, risks and issues at the team level? Do we want to hear when something takes a couple of hours longer than planned (probably […]

September 27, 2022October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Books, Events, Leadership, Tailoring Approaches

Beyond Agile presentation this Friday

On Friday, September 30, I will be presenting a session on Beyond Agile at the HTEC Project Management Virtual Conference. The session is free to attend and is part of a program that also features Scott Ambler, Sanjiv Augustine, Nader Rad, and Frank Turley. You can register here. “Yes, And, And” A colleague recently described Beyond Agile as a “Yes, And, And” toolkit, and I thought it was a great way to summarize the two elements of combining hybrid agile with the Theory of Constraints, and value stream view. “Yes, And” “Yes, And” is a term from improv comedy that refers to the idea of not undermining what has come before and adding valuable new elements. For example, we can […]

August 6, 2022September 27, 2025Books, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Teams

Extending Servant Leadership with Host Leadership

This article talks about adding tools to the servant leader toolkit. However, let’s start by examining what servant leadership already contains. Servant leadership was popularized by Robert Greenleaf and described as a mindset and set of practices. It flips the power pyramid, so instead of the team working to serve the leader, the leader supports the team. Servant leadership is a mindset and value system which recognizes that the team members deliver the project benefits. So, the best thing a scrum master or project manager can do is serve the team and help them succeed. This maximizes the amount of value they can produce and increases the capabilities and capacity of the group. Scrum masters and project managers […]

June 22, 2022October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Books, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Tailoring Approaches, Teams

From Servant Leadership to Shared Leadership

This is part one in a series on leading agile teams from the Beyond Agile book. We will examine what leadership entails and how it applies to agile teams. Then discuss the transition from servant leadership to shared leadership. EQ as a Foundation for Leadership As we saw in the previous articles about Emotional Intelligence (EQ), leadership is built on top of EQ. We need good EQ to be able to recognize and manage our own emotions. This is a prerequisite for others to consider us credible and worth listening to. So, a firm grasp of EQ, either gained intuitively or improved through study/training, brings us to the starting line with engaged stakeholders. Then leadership involves bringing this collective […]

March 2, 2022October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Books, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Teams

Emotional Intelligence for Scrum Masters, Team Leads and Project Managers – #2

This is post #2 in a multi-post series about EI and leadership taken from my book Beyond Agile. Check out Post #1 first, if you have not seen it already. In this article, we will explore what EI is and why it’s often such a tricky topic to define due to the proliferation of different models with similar-sounding components. EI – Better Results by Becoming More Effective Let us start the EI exploration journey with a process we are all familiar with, growing up and becoming independent adults. Stephen Covey talks about a progression of maturity and effectiveness that people go through as they get older. We start as children, dependent on our parents for food, shelter, and support […]

October 21, 2021Agile Project Management, Books, Leadership, Personal Agility, Tailoring Approaches, Teams

Beyond Agile Gratitude #1 – Weaving People and Process

Now that my Beyond Agile book has been published, I would like to thank some people who helped shape its content and ideas. Alistair Cockburn and Joshua Kerievsky helped me appreciate the balance between people-focussed activities and effective processes. “…Agile approaches combine a mixture and equal balance of people and process approaches to delivery. One way to picture these interwoven elements is like the twin strands of DNA. In figure 4.1, we see a blue thread of people elements such as empowerment, collaboration, and team decision-making, mixed with gold process elements such as backlogs, prioritization, and short iterations. If you have not noticed it before, agile approaches weave people elements and process elements together through the agile mindset, values, and […]

August 20, 2021October 12, 2026Agile Project Management, Books, Certification, Events, Games, Leadership, PMI-ACP, Visual Learning

Announcing “PM Illustrated” – The Fun Way to Prepare for Your PMP® Exam

I know, “Fun” and “PMP Exam” are rarely used in the same sentence. When I studied for my PMP credential in 2001, materials were text-based, process-focused, and dry! Unfortunately, not much has changed since then. However, fun is a serious business in adult learning, it boosts retention and cuts study time. We recall facts about our favorite hobbies and sports teams much easier than boring information because our brains prioritize fun experiences for recall. It is why good trainers who can make a topic enjoyable are so valuable. Visual Learning The other secret weapon in slashing our study time is Visual Learning. Research into visual thinking by David Hyerle, reports that 90% of the information entering the brain is visual. […]

June 18, 2021Agile Project Management, Books, Events, Leadership, Lean, Teams, Visual Learning

Beyond Agile – Webinar Recording

Last month I did a 20-minute overview of my new Beyond Agile book for the Washington D.C. Lean-Agile MeetUp group hosted by Sanjiv Augustine. I outline how Beyond Agile grew from studying high-performing teams and trying to distill what they did differently than most other teams. In the video, I cover Agile Myopia, Buffet Syndrome and the need to drop agile processes when they no longer bring enough value to warrant their use. I would like to thank Sanjiv and the entire team at LitheSpeed for hosting me and allowing me to share this video with you here. Anyone interested in my Beyond Agile book can get a paperback or electronic version here.

May 30, 2021Agile Project Management, Books, Certification, Events, Leadership, Lean, Personal Agility, PMI-ACP, Tailoring Approaches, Teams, Theory of Constraints, Visual Learning

PMI-ACP and My New Book “Beyond Agile: Achieving Success with Situational Knowledge and Skills”

It has been 10 years since the PMI-ACP exam was created, and I published my PMI-ACP Exam Prep book. I recall the Steering Committee meetings where we discussed what we believed was necessary for agile practitioners and team leaders to have experience in and an understanding of. Since then, the exam has been updated a couple of times based on Role Delineation Studies (RDS) and Job Task Analysis (JTA), which is how PMI surveys practitioners and asks what techniques are commonly used. However, the core content has mainly endured unchanged, which is testimony to its usefulness. I remember discussing the scope and goals for the credential among the committee that comprised: Alistair Cockburn, Mike Cottmeyer, Jim Cundiff, Jesse Fewell, Mike […]