Agile

Storms, Gophers and Groundhog Day...Can You Develop a High-Performing Team?

Storms, Gophers and Groundhog Day...Can You Develop a High-Performing Team?

If your team has ever gone through a personnel change, you can probably relate to Bishop Pickering in Caddyshack as he plays golf in a storm. Jim Kockler’s post walks through the challenges teams face and provides guidance on how to weather any storm, no matter how tumultuous.

Baking Agility into the Way We Solve Problems

Baking Agility into the Way We Solve Problems

Like ”The Great British Baking Show,” as new members on the Hard Yards team, we too were “challenged” with our first task, which was to gauge the progress of an organization in their agile transformation effort. We tackled our challenge through focus, practice, and mindset.

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.

Agile at Scale

Agile at Scale

"Agile at Scale" is an excellent article co-authored by former Air Force fighter pilot Jeff Sutherland. In "Agile at Scale," Jeff and his co-authors advocate for organizational leaders to sequence Agile transformations by forming teams around customer pain points. Similar to the "definition of ready" for a team's product backlog, the authors create a "definition of ready" for launching new Agile teams.