Effectiveness & Cookies

If you have worked with me, you likely have had these cookies. As I bake them for my team on a snowy Sunday, it’s striking how the origin of these remind me of work we’ve done to mature our Agile development practices and to develop our staff. Much as Agile Scrum is centered on ‘inspect and adjust’ -- these cookies came from years of trying adaptations out. They are the same recipe on the back of the Nestle package with 3 small tweaks that make them stay soft and terrific for days.

We just completed an Agile refresher, and as we did deep dives with teams who have been delivering in Scrum for a long time – we found small, unique tweaks that each is going to try in the next months – I am certain we will increase our Scrum velocity as a result.

My favorite recipe for talent development is similar – quarterly objectives instead of annual goals. The opportunity for transparency around an individual’s strengths and potential is huge when we set measurable targets that are only 30 – 90 days out. As critically, it gives us the chance to change direction if the business needs something different or new since we last set priorities.

More to come as we inspect and adapt. Wishing all a productive week ahead.