design thinking

Impediments: Square Pegs, Round Holes, and The Art of the Possible

Impediments: Square Pegs, Round Holes, and The Art of the Possible

There’s a great scene in the movie Apollo 13 where a group of stranded astronauts must manufacture a “square peg” to fit into a round hole using only spare parts available to them on their spaceship. In fact, their life depends on it. We teach a Hard Yards Accelerator module on dealing with impediments. In it, we have three different designations for things that slow teams down. Doug Rosenberg’s post helps clarify the differences.

The Four Stances for Scrum Masters

The Four Stances for Scrum Masters

As a servant leader, the Scrum Master “focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and…helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.” In order to maximize team and organizational performance, the Scrum Master will often choose different stances depending on the situation and desired outcomes.

The Destination is The Journey Map

The Destination is The Journey Map

There are lots of different approaches to creating customer journey maps. At Hard Yards, we tend to see journey maps in one of two ways. They can either be used as a discovery tool or a planning tool. In discovery mode, we use journey maps to describe the current state of a given journey in order to empathize with the user, identify pain points, and expose potential solution ideas or areas for further research and testing. In the planning mode, journey maps can be used to map out a new experience from the ground up. This is often useful when launching a new product or service.

"Split" personalities: teaching, coaching, facilitating, and mentoring

"Split" personalities:  teaching, coaching, facilitating, and mentoring

In order to maximize team and organizational performance, a leader will often choose different stances depending on the situation and desired outcomes. Let’s investigate how leaders can analyze the environment to serve as coaches, mentors, teachers, and facilitators.