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This posts describes the leader-follower model. The recommendation is to move away from the model towards leader-leader model in order to harness the that collective intelligence of the people in the organisation. This model is prevalent in organisation in in the context leader directs and followers follow. This means followers don't use their mental energy and creativity as much as they could. Followers have limited decision making authority and little incentive to give the utmost of their intellect, energy and passion. Leader-follower model leads to a lack of initiative. People follow the rule and do what they are told instead of actively engaging and using their own brain power and creativity. It's designed for getting most out of people when it comes to physical work. In the modern world, most important work we do is cognitive. Leader-follower model is not optimal for intellectual work. Leaders as individual heroes is a flawed concept. We've been led to believe that should be the true nature of a good leader. Trouble is organisations that depend on individual leaders find it hard to continue to work to a high standard after the leader's departure. These leaders are remembered and missed. This is exactly the opposite of what's good for an organisation. Leaders in this context focus on short term gains. They are concerned with here and now, and not necessarily thinking about the organisation after their departure. For example, CEO of a company isn't rewarded or penalised on a company's profitability after they leave, or competence of the leadership team 6 months after they leave the company.

Leader-Leader model is inspired by Turn the Ship Around: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders by David Marquet. In this model, leadership is fundamentally different from leader-follower model. At its core is the belief that we can all be leaders. It's a more resilient organisational model as it doesn't rely on the sole competence of "supreme" leader, instead leadership is provided at every level of the organisation. Control is the bridge supported by two pillars: competence and clarity Key components of the leadership model Control: Divesting control to others in the organisation while maintaining responsibility Competence: As control is divested, it's imperative to increase technical competence other it would lead to chaos. Clarity: It's imperative to provide organisational clarity i.e. clarity of purpose. Without clarity, it's dangerous to divest control. In leader-leader model, the head of the organisation is accountable for the success of the organisation, however, the decision making control is released to the department heads. This can be a very uncomfortable situation for the top level leader.

Story mapping is a simple yet effective technique to visualise the product backlog and product evolution though product development sprints. This is inspired by Jeff Patton's book User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right. A user story map arranges user stories into a useful model to help understand the functionality of the system, identify holes and omissions in the backlog, and effectively plan holistic releases that deliver value to users and business with each release. Step 1: Group the stories by application/theme/functionality and create the grid Step 2: Once the stories are organised, start the surgical operation: slicing the list! Step 3: Update after completion of the first sprint: First contact Step 4+: Update after each sprint to have an up-to-date picture of the status of the product. A write up on running a story mapping workshop with your team is available here.

The core idea is to maximise customer value while minimising waste. Simply, lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources. Waste is defined as anything which adds cost without adding any value. Lean Principles Value: Define what is of value to the customer Value Stream: Identify the value stream / eliminate waste Flow: Create a constant flow Pull: Produce based on demand Perfection: Continuous improvement A key initial premise is to recognise that only a small fraction of the total time and effort when producing a product or delivering a service actually adds value for the end customer. It is therefore critical to clearly define value for a specific product or service from the end customer’s perspective, so that all the non-value activities - or waste - can be targeted for removal step by step. Removing wasted time and effort represents the biggest opportunity for performance improvement and enabling a greater focus on creating value. Creating flow and pull starts with radically reorganising individual process steps, but the gains become truly significant as all the steps link together. As this happens, more and more layers of waste become visible and the process continues towards the theoretical end point of perfection, where every asset and every action adds value for the end customer. In this way, lean thinking represents a path of sustained performance improvement - and not a one off programme. A lean organisation understands customer value and focuses its key processes to continuously increase it. To accomplish this, lean thinking changes the focus of management from optimising separate technologies, assets, and vertical departments to optimising the flow of products and services through entire value streams that flow horizontally across technologies, assets, and departments to customers.

Focus on flow to maximise productivity. Here are 10 rules to assist with that: Work done is fruitless until value is delivered. Only the last part of the system delivers any value to us. The worst place to have a bottleneck is at the end of the system! The only acceptable place for a bottleneck is at the start of the system, not the end. Limit the work entering the system in order ensure a smooth flow through the system. There’s no point working on stuff that cannot finish. Focus on finished work – not doing work but finishing it because that’s when the value is delivered. Only work on things that have a clear path to completion – no point adding more to the bottleneck. Finish the things you already started before you start new things – clear the bottleneck before you try to flow work through the system. Pull isn’t quite good as the flow. So Flow if you can, Pull if you must!

This is a summary of the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. Independence Habit 1: Be Proactive Your life is a product of your decisions, take responsibility, you have the freedom to choose your own fate/path, opposite is reactive. Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind Mental image of where you want to end up, purpose, vision and mission Habit 3: Put First Things First Prioritise based on your vision, mission and purpose in habit 2. Opposite is to put second, third or fourth things first Interdependence Habit 4: Think Win-Win Think of mutual benefit. It come from the principle of abundance - there is plenty out there and spare, so don't be threatened by the strength of other people and share your knowledge freely. Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood Understand first before acting or judging. Habit 6: Synergise Creative cooperation. The key principle behind this is that 1+1 > 2. Also, valuing and celebrating differences. Continuous Improvements Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw Renews each of the other six habits. It covers all four areas - physical, spiritual, mental and social emotional.

Pair programming is an agile software development technique in which two programmers work together at one workstation. One, the driver, writes code while the other, the observer or navigator, reviews each line of code as it is typed in. The two programmers switch roles frequently. Programmers working in pairs usually produce shorter programs, with better designs and fewer bugs, than programmers working alone. Studies have found reduction in defect rates of 15% to 50%, varying depending on programmer experience and task complexity. Knowledge passes between pair programmers as they work. They share knowledge of the specifics of the system, and they pick up programming techniques from each other. Additional benefits reported include increased morale and greater confidence in the correctness of the code. Paired programmers are only 15% slower than two independent individual programmers, but produce 15% fewer bugs. Since testing and debugging are usually many times more costly than initial programming, this is an impressive result.

Active listening is a powerful technique and it requires a lot of practice and hard work. The benefit is that high quality of listening helps build strong relationships with others and it can ignite their thinking. Adopt the following techniques for active listening: Turn off your internal dialogue - quieten yourself down inside Minimise external distractions Ensure you are in a comfortable environment Make a real commitment to yourself to give all your attention to listening Listen without judging what is being said Once the speaker has stopped, get in the habit of counting to 5 before speaking. This will ensure they have actually finished Show you are interested by your posture, facial expression and signs of encouragement e.g. nods, “uh-huh” etc. Notice the speaker’s body language and how it changes with their words Summarise what you have heard at regular intervals. This demonstrates you are listening and fully understanding what is being said Match tone, volume and speed of speaker’s voice. Do this with subtlety. Keep your own mental state positive and interested Monitor your reactions to the speaker. If you are having an emotional response then reflect on the reasons for that

All too often we equate free time with capacity. If we do that, we are not building in any slack to deal with interruptions or unexpected work. As a result work piles up and we are constantly behind schedule. It's important to note that we don't "contain" work we process work. So for us "full" or in other words our maximum limit for delivery should be based on our ability to process work i.e. throughput. Capacity is an ineffective measure of throughput. And a horrible gauge of what we can do. For example, on a motorway we are concerned about getting the traffic flowing as quickly as possible. If we focus on maximising capacity then at full capacity we'd have a gridlock and nobody would move. Our work follow a similar pattern. We need to maximise for throughput when planning and allocating work to others rather than capacity.

Conflicts often arise in teams, between colleagues, and in fact within ourselves. How could we deal with them more effectively? One powerful technique in dealing with conflicts is to take different perspectives. Looking at a situation or an issue from multiple perspectives can bring increased awareness and allow for a happy compromise or even better a win-win solution where all parties mutually benefit from the outcome. First person perspective This is our own perspective. Although it sounds quite straightforward, it might be worth thinking about this deeply or perhaps writing down our thoughts to bring awareness about our viewpoint and associated feelings. Second person perspective This is other person's perspective where we try to experience the situation from their viewpoint. This can be immensely helpful but it's important to be aware that this can only go so far as we would naturally make certain assumptions about their arguments and their feelings. Having said that, it's certainly a good starting point. If possible, it might be worth asking them to share their own perspective in order to build a better understanding. Third person perspective This involves looking at the situation as a neutral observer. This can be quite powerful as this allows us to look at the problem without being a party to the conflict. This enables us to build empathy with all parties yet assess the situation without feeling the emotions when we are involved. Fourth person perspective This builds on the third person perspective and involves zooming out and looking at the situation from a holistic perspective. This allows us to see the conflict from a systemic viewpoint allowing us to understand it's importance in the wider context and any impact it might have elsewhere. In summary, taking different perspectives in a conflict helps build empathy with all involved, allows us to view the situation from different angles and enable us to understand it's importance and impact in the wider context.

International Coaching Federation (ICF) defines coaching as: Partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. The process of coaching often unlocks previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity and leadership. Coaching essentially is a partnership in which a coach helps the client to achieve their goals and maximise their personal and professional potential. We all have goals we want to reach, challenges we’re striving to overcome and times when we feel stuck. Coaching can help bring awareness to the situation, bring clarity in terms of goals, blocker and actions to make progress. What does a coach do? Creates a safe space that enables the client to think effectively Asks open, incisive and powerful questions Helps the client clarify their goals, understand their drivers, and come up with their own actions and accountability mechanisms The basic premise is that the mind with the problem also has the solution to that problem. The role of the coach role is to partner with client to help define that solution. Confidentiality is key in a coaching relationship. Everything that's discussed in a coaching session is confidential so clients can rest assured that details of their conversations won't be shared with anyone.

One of the key objectives in Agile product management and product development is to maximise business value. But what is business value? How do we define it? The definition of business value is dependent on context. We need to understand what value means to a particular organisation because it's not the same for every organisation. Business value is not always return on investment By the way, it's difficult to calculate overall ROI and even more difficult to calculate it per feature or user story. Customer value doesn't always equate to organisational value For example: a company's strategy might be to get rid of 20% of its lowest paying customers as they are too expensive to support. So in this case, to provide value to the organisation we need to destroy customer value. Bureaucracy delivers business value because it satisfies an underlying need The key point is that business value is dependent on organisational priorities and varies across organisations. In Agile, we understand that user requirements aren't sufficiently known up front and as we iteratively work through the problem that we really understand user requirements. In the same way, it's naïve to think that the business stakeholders know and fully understand what value means to the organisation at the outset. We need to figure this out iteratively and collaboratively. Our goal in Agile is to understand the underlying need, the business value that must be delivered, and satisfy that in the best way possible.