The ultimate Scrum Master on the processes behind making your business better.
#TwelveDaysofISDI: Career advice, interviewing tips, and Silicon Valley secrets to make your 2018 the best it can be.
Happy Monday, everyone. It is the last week of our 12-days series, but the strength of the leaders we’re bringing in are only getting better and better.
Today we welcome Jeremiah Gardner, Author, Speaker, and Mentor — especially to the MIB students at ISDI.
Jeremiah helps organizations create new value by reframing the way they approach innovation, growth, and value-creation. He travels around the world to help companies understand and implement Agile and SCRUM processes into everyday business.
When he’s not helping businesses, he is an international keynote speaker, the author of the bestselling book, The Lean Brand, and Principal at Moves The Needle where he has advised the innovation and growth practices companies like of GE, ING, eBay, Intuit, Nike, and Cisco.
What is Agile and SCRUM — and why are so many businesses talking about it now?
At its core, Agile means our ability to respond to the market. Agile is rooted in a set of principles for software development that builds software incrementally from the start of the project in short continuous cycles. Fundamentally, Agile argues for individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan.
SCRUM is a framework for applying agile teams use to complete complex projects. In other words, SCRUM is a structure for the way a team works together to accomplish their tasks.
The reason so many businesses are focused on trying to apply Agile principles and the SCRUM framework (among others) is because they’re finding that their customers are more agile than they are!
To meet the market — at the speed of the market — smart companies have to learn how to respond quickly. Agile and SCRUM are powerful tools helping companies move faster.
For someone who wants to implement these processes into their business, where can we start? Do you have any tips, tricks, resources you can recommend?
There truly is no “right” way to get started. Here’s a few steps to get you going:
- Define the top 3 current behaviors your team (or group, organization, etc) is exhibiting that is preventing you from moving quickly
- Brainstorm and define what the opposite of each of those behaviors would look like
- Discuss what the current blockers and obstacles to making those changes might be
- Commit, as a team, to what changes you’ll start making for the next two weeks
- After two weeks, review: What went well? What didn’t go well? What are we committed to doing differently for the next two weeks?
- Rinse and repeat.
If you’re able to complete steps 1–5, you’re on your way!
What are the top qualities you look for when building a team?
There are a few qualities making a team successful in applying agile principles:
- Cross-functional: Create cross-functional teams from across the business
- Diverse: Mix and match team members to create the best possible blend of personalities, points of view, and skills.
- Inclined: Include people with an interest and mindset for innovation and a desire to explore new ideas.
- Growth-oriented: Encourage team members to go beyond their functional jobs
You can have a five minute coffee, one hour dinner, and a crazy night out with any three people in history (living or dead) — who are they and why?
Five minute coffee — Phil Jackson. I’d want to get his five-minute advice of what makes a great coach.
Dinner — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens). I’d love to listen to Twain’s take on the dinner. His powers of observation were incredible and I’d love to see how he took in an hour long dinner.
Night Out — Ernest Hemingway. It would be incredible to be in tow with Hemingway as he made his way through Europe.
What is one rule to a successful group dynamic that people may not have thought about?
Commitment vs. Consensus. In the midst of challenges, most teams chase consensus. They default to trying to build general agreement for every move the team will make. We democratize, avoid conflict, and attempt to create harmony with our teammates trying to give everyone an “equal voice” on our team. Sounds nice, right?
Consensus means:
- Attempting to get everyone to agree to all aspects of the plan
- Making decisions through a process
- Over analyzing and delaying action to gain harmony
- Establishing a shared opinion
But consensus slows a team down, creates unsaid opinions, harbors ill-will, and ultimately breeds division. Moreover, we spend hours and hours inside our meeting rooms trying to build consensus, which inherently takes us away from the most important aspect of innovation work — being outside our building learning with our customers.
Great teams learn to prioritize commitment over consensus.
Commitment means:
- Getting buy-in about what you need to do next
- Making decisions quickly
- Moving forward without second-guessing
- Establishing clarity about priorities and goals
Learning how to “go small” and commit to what you need to learn next, how you’re going to go about learning it, and who will be responsible for what is critical to being an effective innovation team.
Free webinar tomorrow with Steve Cadigan, former VP of Talent at LinkedIn and Cofounder of ISDI Digital University, on the Future of Work.
RSVP Your Spot Here.
Day 1: Former VP of Talent at LinkedIn and a Partridge in a Pear Tree
Day 2: Director of Digital and Social of the 49ers and Two Turtle Doves
Day 3: Three-time Author @britopian and Three French Hens
Day 4: Research Director of Google Cloud and Four Calling Birds
Day 5: CEO of Charlotte Russe and Five Golden Rings
Day 6: Founder of Adobe Analytics Consulting Group and Six Geese A-Laying
Day 7: VP of Marketing at Box and Seven Swans A-Swimming
Day 8: SVP of Digital & Marketing at Zeno Group and Eight Maids A-Milking
To learn more about ISDI Digital University and the 9-month master’s degree in digital business program, visit us at www.isdidigital.university.
