Category Archives: Teams

Steve Kerr’s advice on developing a great team

Here is an article about an interview with Steve Kerr on developing a great team. Scrum helps.  But Scrum is only part of the story.  There are many skill sets to develop a professional team.  And more skill sets to developing a winning team in any season. Leadership Lessons from Steve Kerr, Head Coach of […]

Five Characteristics of Successful Teams

OpenView Partners is a venture capital firm. They have some wonderful stuff on their blog, and Jeff Sutherland often posts there. Here is another great post based on research at MIT about successful teams. Five Characteristics of Every Successful Team & How to Build Cohesion Let me list the five characteristics. Everyone on the team […]

The Management Scrum Team

This is an important idea that more and more people are talking about. One aspect: Managers can learn best what Scrum is and what agile is by being on a ‘real’ Scrum team. A more important aspect: Managers can be more effective on a multi-functional Scrum team. (Often.) *** STOP!  Why am I writing this […]

Teams are More Important than Scaling

This is another take-away from the Southern Fried Agile last fall. Teams are more important than scaling. I am hearing a lot of talk about scaling.  Definitely a useful and important topic for some. Also, I am deeply concerned that we are missing a key point. Many people are. In general, we have not learned […]

What is a Real Team?

I recommend you read “The Discipline of Teams” by Katzenbach and Smith. See HBR.com.  This is an article; they also wrote a book with the same title. Their original book was The Wisdom of Teams.  All recommended. In the article, they give a short definition of a real team. And they distinguish carefully between a […]

Getting the right people in the Team – Richard Branson

For useful innovation, truly good and fast innovation, I think a Team is essential.  They must do knowledge creation in a Team. As Takeuchi and Nonaka have explained pretty darn well. A real team, not a group of individuals. As a friend just reminded me, probably the most important thing in getting a Team started […]

Scrum 201: Team

We want all Scrum teams to become hyper-productive. Why? Well, so they can enjoy life and be satisfied.  And feel like they accomplished something.  In part, this requires they reach hyper productivity without working any extra hours. Second, I assume hyper-productivity means greater business value delivered.  This of course will not always be the case. […]

We want a Stable Team

I think our work generally is about knowledge creation.  And specifically, your business is about knowledge creation. (Knowledge creation is key for almost all people who attend my courses and workshops.) It is about innovation, creativity, and inventiveness. It is about cool solutions to hard business-technology problems.  It is about some sort of intersection between […]

Who is Scrum for?

A few months ago someone I know and respect in the Agile community said that they do agile to make the world safe for programmers. This phrase has stuck with me. I don’t know how seriously the person meant it. I suspect it was partially a joke and partially a stronger statement than one might […]

The PO – The Team – The Daily Scrum

I have some different views on this topic, and wanted to share them. Your comments are of course welcome. I am NOT asking what is or should be in the Scrum Guide. Or whichever ‘scrum bible’ you use. (In general, I prefer the Scrum Guide.) I am sharing my thoughts and experiences, together, taught me.  […]