Top 10 Reasons Why I Don’t and Shouldn’t Write Blogs

I need to write blogs. Everyone knows that. Everyone has to write blogs. Really? What if I don’t? What does it say about me? What I know? What I don’t know? Or am I just busy?

This is not a motivational tale. No happy ending. Enjoy.

So what are my Top 10 Reasons Why I Don’t and Shouldn’t Write Blogs?

1. It’s already been written. Of course it has. It’s 2014, I mean what can you write that has not been written? Leadership coaching? Agile leadership programs? A blog on estimation? Get in the battle on scaling agile? How about professional coaching? ORSC? Being a Scrum Master? I mean, we have years and years of people blogging and writing books and presenting on this stuff. Are there REALLY any unanswered questions? {Note to Self: If I do find a topic that has not been written – see #2-#10! } Continue reading →

Agile Alliance Analysis & Product Management Program

by Jake Calabrese

The Agile Alliance approved a new program – Analysis and Product Management in Agile! I included the full announcement below.

Based on this, we have a great group who we are going to be running an Agile Open Jam at the BBC Conference in Las Vegas in a few weeks. If you are heading that way – check it out!

A bit of the Background

Kent McDonald has a great summary how things happened on his blog as well – beat me to the punch! I’m glad you mentioned the comic sans discussion!

My recollection… and some links to Twitter for any of these fine people you may want to follow (HINT HINT).

There has been a lot of things happening over the last 6 months – including an unconference organized earlier in the year in New York by Gojko Adzic (@gojkoadzi). There were a number of great folks who attended. Lots of learning and exploring in the product space.

From there things have moved in a few directions and I’m 100% sure I do not know all of them! A few of us found ourselves up late one evening at the Agile 2013 Conference in Nashville – and the topic of what is next came up. That group was Kent McDonald, Jeffrey Davidson, Inger Dickson, Kupe Kupersmith, and myself. Then more conversations went on with Chris Matts (highly recommend his book Commitment BTW) and Leslie Morse.

Kent and Ellen Gottesdiener (update: Read Ellen’s Post on the Agile Open Jam at #BBCCon) really got this nailed down and finalized – so thank them if you run across them in your travels or tweeting. I’m sure I am missing others as well.

Continue reading →

The Beginning, Again…

by Jake Calabrese

We are all on a journey or likely a number of journeys! As I write this, the new Agility Street website is nearly done, and this will be the first “new” post on the blog. One part of the update is to (more) clearly represent what we do. A second part is to have a better home for discussions, updates, and writing.

Writing has always been a challenge for me. While part of the challenge is in getting the words down in a concise way to make your point, another seemingly larger part is more about being bold enough to throw out your thoughts and ideas. This is not a problem when working with people – just when I go to write it all down. I have a number of new posts and some new ideas coming. A few are certainly on the edge – so I expect to get some dings – but of course, if you are not getting comments, you may not be saying anything interesting! While I hope to see some discussion (my high dream), I also considered how to handle trolls aiming to start a flame war. [If this last sentence makes sense to you without reading more – I’d love to hear what you recall!] Continue reading →

Always Learning & Improving

by Jake Calabrese

We know there is always more out there. More to learn, more to share, more to improve! We started this page as a place to keep track of many of the ideas we would like to add to the site. While we know we can’t include everything on our website, based on questions we get a lot, we are always adding and improving. If any of these topics interest you, please add a comment… or add additional ideas as comments.

Leadership Development & Organizational Change

“I’d love to hear more about organizational systems and Relationship Systems Intelligence (RSI™).”
“Is there a difference between product managers, product owners, and business owners?”
“Can you explain more about The Leadership Circle, how can an assessment help?” Continue reading →

Overcoming Team Toxins – Agile Mile High 2013

by Jake Calabrese

Thanks to everyone who attended Overcoming Team Toxins at Agile Mile High 2013 in Denver, Colorado yesterday! Co-presenting with Erin Beierwaltes from Skipstone Consulting was a blast!

For those of you who could not attend, our team toxin presentation is based on work by John Gottman Phd. He refers to the toxins as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because of their ability to wreak havoc on relationships (teams, groups, pairs)! The Center for Right Relationships built on these ideas with a focus on a team based exercise to physically and visually interact with the toxins.

The four team toxins are:

Blaming
Defensiveness
Stonewalling
Contempt

Here is a workshop overview: Continue reading →

Embrace Your Agile Superpowers

by Jake Calabrese

Looking forward to presenting Stop Gambling, Embrace Your Agile Superpowers!

You can find a lot more about Agile Superpowers in this detailed article: Agile Superpowers – Being Agile.

The presentation was co-developed with myself and Stephen Starkey. We will be presenting at the Scrum Gathering in Las Vegas in May. For anyone not heading to the Scrum Gathering in Vegas, I’ll be presenting at the Agile Denver Coaching SIG on 2/21. Stephen may also be presenting in the Chicago area.

Here is the overview of the workshop: Continue reading →

Mile High Agile Conference 2012 – April 3rd!

by Jake Calabrese

Agile Denver is hosting the 2nd Mile High Agile conference, in Downtown Denver, Colorado on April 3rd, 2012! Last year, the first, there were nearly 500 people!!

I am sure many people are already registered, but if you have not, The Early Bird pricing is $125!!! Through February 16th.

The Agile Cooperative will have a table again – Stop by and say hello! If you are going to be in from out of town – let me know!

On a related note: Michael Spayd and Lyssa Adkins will be teaching Coaching Agile Teams in Boulder, Colorado on April 4th and 5th. An excellent class on agile coaching and coaching in general. You can view a description of the course on their website, agilecoachinginstitute.com… or just register!