I remember the first time that I was laid off. I was absolutely devastated. I was part of a small startup and we had launched an innovative new product that ...

I recently read Stanley McChrystal's Team of Teams. As business books go it is a very thorough analysis of the evolution of highly networked teams from their...

With the advent of the global pandemic, our society has had to adapt to massive change. The shelter in place orders have forced many of us to figure out how ...

I'm a big fan of value streams. I like the idea of being able to map out the process from concept to cash. Intuitively it appeals to my sense of order. I can...

I've had a lot of time to reflect lately on what happens to small businesses like mine when the economy takes a dive. The first thing that happens is that cu...

I've been doing research on companies for a while and what I've found is rather discouraging. Lots of unhappy employees who don't feel respected, appreciated...

Just for fun, I’m going to keep some of my post-it notes in a box to show to my grand-kids, “Back in my day, we used to use these things to

Recently, at conferences, in social media, and even informal gatherings, I’ve heard statements along the lines of “[X] scaling approach is absolutely not agi...

Maybe it’s all the sticky notes and the heady odor of sharpies… The People – We attract an incredibly diverse audience. I’m not really sure why, but I love i...

I just got done introducing another group to the the idea of agile mix-ins. The conversation was a lot of fun. There were a few takeaways for me that I think...

What if you were asked to put risk into some sort of framework in a scaled agile system? How would that work? Well, in many cases, you might start with an ex...

I’ve got a question: Where do you keep your risks? If you’re doing a project of any significance you have risks, right? That just comes with the territory. A...

Recently I put on a public Leading SAFe training. This wasn’t your typical training, however. In collaboration with Ron Quartel, we tacked on an extra day to...

“Some say that I should settle down, go slower and not push so hard, so quickly for such transformational change. To them, I say that you misunderstand the s...

One of my favorite cars that I ever owned was a 1967 Ford Falcon. I bought it for $600 when I was in college. It really wasn’t much of a car. It was a 2 door...

Have you heard of an Andon Cord? On the assembly line it’s that cord you yank on to stop the entire line when a problem is found. The idea is to stop everyth...

One of the wonderful things about being a parent is all of the children’s books you get to read. I never fail to be amazed at the simplicity, grace, and shee...

Overview One of the interesting things about SAFe is how it has evolved over the years. The story there is very interesting. More so than any other framework...

Overview One of the biggest challenges that I often encounter on SAFe transformations is dispersed teams. A dispersed team is a team that is spread across mu...

Overview For some organizations that prefer to have things really well explicitly defined or proscribed, especially if they are in a SAFe transformation, the...