PinnedYou are NOT paid to work!!That’s one of the first catchy statements I use to accelerate the much needed “click” when trying to develop more business agility in my clients. So, repeat with me: I am not paid to work. I am not paid to work. I am not paid to work. I am…Agile4 min read
PinnedTooManyInitiativesExceptionHow many times have you seen that exception in your org? How many times have you seen the anxiety of a crisis to spark so many “initiatives” that you end up paralysing your teams and your company? Let me borrow that analogy from software development to present behaviours I’ve seen…Agile3 min read
6 days agoTry it. Test it. Do it.I’ve publicly reflected upon this same topic in previous posts , but I’d like to give it another spin in this one. A good friend of mine with whom I’ve spent endless nights and even longer days running (crawling in my case…) and I usually discuss a lot about this. …Business Agility2 min read
Jun 16You are NOT paid to deliver productsAs a follow up from my previous “You are not paid to work” (https://carlos-piqueres.medium.com/you-are-not-paid-to-work-41b6e114bd34) , I want to insist on this other misunderstanding I’ve observed. And (hopefully) it’s one of those other “click” points we desperately need. There has been a lot of press around “product-led”, moving from projects to…Agile2 min read
Oct 10, 2021Dealing with “Agile partners”As you may know if you follow me, I’ve started my own journey as an independent professional. My focus is helping organisations in their journey towards providing their business better agility. And that, by definition, involves adapting the way their Product / People / Processes are shaped (more on this…Agile3 min read
Oct 3, 2021Scrum? SAFe? Less? Kanban? Spotify?It’s not about the hammer! I’ve said it several times, and I’ll repeat the same idea using different analogies, and different symptoms of the same issue. There are plenty of discussions, polls, and even verbal fights to defend this or that as “the best” agile way. There are plenty of “you must do this”, “you…Agile2 min read
Sep 25, 2021Using Prune-The-Product-Tree gameI’ve been using (and probably abusing…) one of the great innovation games Luke Hohmann designed and shared time ago in his Innovation Games book. Let me use this opportunity to mention the fact Luke is now focused on https://firstroot.co/ . …Agile4 min read
Sep 25, 2021Product Backlog vs Sprint BacklogWorking with my clients I’ve observed there’s a common misunderstanding on what the Product Backlog (capital letters) should contain. I think several big statements have contributed to that confusion starting with that “the Product Backlog should contain everything that could possibly get done”. What I’ve observed is that statement has…Agile4 min read
May 23, 2021Value, Outputs, and OutcomesFocusing on outputs fosters a culture of following the process (which is not necessarily bad), but eventually may create blindness towards the outcomes (which is what we really, really want to get at). We all talk about delivering value, value added, value chain… great terms, that are not always defined…Agile3 min read
May 16, 2021Managing debt: Organisational debtWe are all familiar with the term Technical Debt, although it is violated and / or confused several times. Oversimplifying, the Technical Debt is the conscious decision to trade dates for technical excellence. And, as any money decision, it should be made by the money owners: Product Management. So, if…Agile3 min read
