Put the 'Changes Welcome' mat out

Do you put the welcome mat out during change or are you running off down a path with the gate locked behind you?

Welcome changes from customers, clients, end users, no matter what stage of the process of design, development, delivery or sale of your thing, product, change, transformation or service.

Welcoming changes is a philosophy of the software development field of agile. They welcome changes because they are on a path of iterating and editing and reviewing and releasing changed and improved versions of the software, website, app or technology. Even if it's later in the process, changes, comments, and responses are welcome. That means what they’re creating will be more useful, more suitable.

This is about acceptance, flexibility, adaptability. It's this input that keeps people engaged in what you're doing and makes what you're doing more tailored to the people who are using it.

When changes come to you today, tomorrow, next week, take a note of how you respond - if you're welcoming or you're locking yourself away from them.

Fixed or Agile - Which one are you?

You were born with an agile mindset – a way of thinking that says ‘I can grow and learn and be challenged. I can improve.’ Think crawling, walking, talking, reading, riding a bike. So much to be challenged by. 

But somewhere along the way, you might get derailed and think that you either ‘have it’ in this life or you don’t. (But that my friend is a ‘fixed mindset’.)

Linda Rising presented at the Agile Singapore conference recently and (my visual notes of her keynote above) remind me how her messages about the Agile Mindset were inspiring, relevant and … a tap or slap on the shoulder. There are some vital characteristics that are required to make work work in today's competitive environment. 

She asks: 'who told you what you can and can’t do'… and warns us to ‘watch out what you’re thinking’.

An agile mindset is one that is looking for opportunities to grow, learn, experiment and improve. Failure simply gives us some information.

Our mindset need not be fixed; this agility is ideal for the volatile world we live in today. 

Our teams, customers, clients and organisations need us to be agile, flexible, adaptive, responsive. It’s through challenge that you grow.

Look at where you might be fixed in your thinking. How might an agile mindset see it differently? What could you experiment with, test out or be challenged by?

Go…. flex, bend, shift and grow. Keep challenging your own view of things. 

How to have the best job ever

I saw a speaker at a conference a week or two ago; she walked on stage with some Bollywood dancing music pumping out loud … and she danced and danced! She used this as a metaphor for loving the work you do.

It was Diana Larsen, speaking at Agile 2014 in Orlando, Florida. Diana presented on how to have the Best Job Ever. Here are my visual notes to her wonderful and energetic keynote. I hope this gets you thinking about what you're doing and whether it's what you really want to be doing!


Diana's advice is to:
1. Do work you love to do (and you might need to think back to when you were doing work you loved)
2. Work with purpose - work that inspires, focuses and motivates
3. Care for your tribe - this is about collaborating. Working on working better together is the best team building!
 

I'm just back from presenting at and attending some brilliant events in Berlin, the Florida and Sydney and will share some of the great learnings, insights and thinking from these events with you over the next few weeks. 

For now, get thinking about how much of what you're doing is contributing to you having the best job ever. 

Don't fight stupid - make more awesome

Ask any of the talented improvisers at Impro Melbourne and they'll tell you that 'yes' is an almost magic word. When they're on stage, making things up, for the entertainment of an audience, they live for hearing a 'yes' from their fellow performers.

'Yes...' allows them to build on, add to and develop a story line, an idea, a thought.

Whereas a 'no' hits them like a bat over the head! Thud! Momentum stopped.

It's harder to be creative, innovative or do your best work if you keep bumping into 'no'.

At the Agile India conference I attended and presented at this past week, keynote speaker Martin Fowler mentioned in his presentation on 'Software Design in the 21st Century' the sweet phrase of 'don't fight stupid; make more awesome'.

Looking into the phrase more, I found that Jesse Robbins, from the same sort of technology field said this and uses it as somewhat of a philosophy. 

Jesse said:
“If you keep bumping into ‘no,’ and the organization makes it hard to get to ‘yes,’ you are going to have a long, slow, painful death. Get out of there!

“Every time I tried to win over stupid, I regretted it. On the other hand, every time I’ve gotten people to swing around and build a movement, I remember all those moments and felt good every day, no matter how hard I worked.”

If you're battling against some no's where you are at the moment:

• Yield.
• Shift.
• Pivot.

Head off over there, in that direction and make awesome things happen, using your expertise, your capabilities and your knowing that you are on to something brilliant. 

Yes. Go for it. Make more awesome. We're waiting for it. 

If you scare people you won't get started

Last week I presented at the Agile Australia conference and also attended some brilliant sessions with people like Mary Poppendick, Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge, and Bjarte Bogsnes author of 'Implementing Beyond Budgeting'.

Bjarte's session, thinking and message was around helping organisations perform to their highest potential. My visualisation of his presentation is here as well as below.

Bjarte delivered some clear messages:

• measurement alone changes nothing
• businesses cut costs because they're not addressing culture and
• if you scare people, you won't get started!

I enjoyed his metaphors of traffic lights vs roundabouts. He asked 'Which is most efficient?,  'Who is in control?' and 'Where are values most important?'

He doesn't want you to get rid of budgets; rather we need to change our mindsets around cost, KPIs and processes. Traditional leadership and management isn't working and the environments we work in are too complex. 

There's a similiar style of presentation from Bjarte here from 2012 if you'd like to see more.