Please join Kerri Lake and Myself in Bringing Consciousness to Work in the East Bay /  by Dennis Britton

I'm excited to be co-leading a workshop with Kerri Lake on Bringing Consciousness to Work. We will be sharing exciting techniques to amplify and maintain our whole sense of being even when at work. We will be kindly hosted by the folks at Tri-Valley/ East Bay Agile Leadership Network in Dublin at Workday.

Join us!

-Dennis

7 Activities and 27 Actions for the Highly Effective Manager /  by Dennis Britton

1. Establish teams

  • Hire based on character first
  • Provide team space that encourages collaboration
  • Allow for natural team formation and growth such as Shu Ha Ri and Form/Storm/Norm
  • Provide basic process that facilitates the flow of value like Lean Kanban and Scrum
  • Groom teams and individuals using pairing and just in time training for full-stack, cross-functional, build-anything teams
  • Provide opportunities for teams to manage interdependencies
  • Prevent cherry-picking and poaching by the rest of the organization
  • Establishing working conditions that draw or generate the kind of talent and productivity needed

 

2. Establish Process and Culture

  • Aim for a balance of creating sustainable teams and delivering customer value
  • Consult with advisors and thought leaders to discover areas of improvement for the greatest impact
  • Support team-informed decisions on standardization of tools, technology and process
  • Host lunch and learns, conferences, workshops and trainings
  • Sponsor newsletters and articles
  • Remind leadership how the competition is using these processes to win in the marketplace

 

3. Advocate for the team

  • Listen and respond promptly to issues raised in team retrospectives
  • Defend the invaluable assets of sustainable teams and processes when budgets or deadlines threaten

 

4. Establish Customer Connection

  • Sponsor a Customer Advisory Board
  • Ensure feedback from customers gets the timely attention it deserves

 

5. Bridge Product Groups, Departments & Specialties

  • Create events and seed cross-functional teams to unify Design (UX), Business (Sales and Marketing) and Engineering (Dev, Quality, Tech Support , IT)
  • Prioritize features and products across programs

 

6. Align Values with Actions

  • Choose which customers to serve and products to build which best support the company mission

 

7. Model Servant Leadership

  • Invert the usual command and control methods, listen to the people doing the work about the needs of their work, then decide and act.
  • Provide a safe environment for learning and empirical experimentation
  • Removing impediments to flow of value (and information for that matter)
  • Provide a counter-force to local optimization, reveal the system to itself
  • Allow them semi-autonomy to exercise their own leadership

Catch the Lean Canvas Experience at Agile Camp in San Jose /  by Dennis Britton

i'll be teaching Lean Canvas at Agile Camp in San Jose this Saturday. The conference looks even better this spring with Keynoters: Luke Hohmann of Conteneo (Serious Games), Ryan Martens of Rally Software and David Anderson of LeanKanban Inc. If you want a chance to get your idea picked, come on time to my session in the fantastic Lean Innovation track, third session at 2pm. Ash Maurya has promised me a discount code for his upcoming 2 day Lean Canvas workshop for every attendee.