In high school you can walk into the cafeteria and notice cliques of students with nonverbal social agreements. They have agreements on how they dress, on who they will interact with, and how that interaction will happen. Some students are popular and some are just difficult to deal with. High school cliques and our Agile teams are very similar. (more…)

After reading Christopher’s blog post Leadership Skills: Why Clarity Is Your Source of Power, a light bulb went off in my head. Clarity has been a popular and frequent topic of discussion in my office over the past year, but I had never seen the connection between clarity being the source of power in a team. (more…)

Christopher Avery here. With pleasure I welcome Jessica Soroky as a guest blogger. Jessica impresses with commitment and wisdom beyond her years. Enjoy. It was late 2012 when the executive group I work with took a day to attend a workshop, “Leading and Coaching People to Take Responsibility and Demonstrate Ownership” with Christopher Avery. I didn’t think much of it...

Here's the winner of the badge design contest for the Leadership Gift Accreditation Program. This design was chosen from 63 entries (see contest post). Four levels of accreditation are available. Leadership Gift Program members can apply for the designation of Recognized Leadership Gift Practitioner upon demonstrating proficiency in the core modules of study and application. Higher level accreditation calls on demonstrated...

Ronica Roth (public profile), Agile Coach and CST who leads coaching strategy at Rally Software, answers the question, "What comes after scrum training?" Click the video below to see what Ronica says. [hana-flv-player video="http://ca-files.s3.amazonaws.com/ktl-RonicaRoth.flv" width="480" height="270" description="Ronica Roth, team, leadership, development, training, scrum" player="5" autoload="true" autoplay="false" loop="false" autorewind="false" splashimage="http://www.christopheravery.com/images/ktl-RonicaRoth.jpg" /] Want to know when and where you can attend Creating...

[caption id="attachment_2711" align="alignright" width="309" caption="Dan Mezick"][/caption] Last week Dan Mezick (agile coach, CEO of New Technology Solutions Inc., and AgileBoston volunteer extraordinaire) and I sat down "together" (on the phone) to talk about people and interactions at work. Dan wanted to pick my brain about the Creating Results-Based Teams workshop -- why technical professionals should attend and what they will take away. Listen...

In my post How to Build Effective, Successful Management Teams a few weeks ago I mentioned that project teams are the most straight-forward teams in which to develop high-performance dynamics because they fit the classic laboratory definition of a team. Today, I want to talk more about why motivation is more important than technical skills in predicting team effectiveness. My...

In Learn The Most Powerful Tool for Managing Peer Motivation, I told you about the best tool I know for managing peer motivation (if you find a better one let me know). Today, I'll share my keys for creating designer norms (as in forming, storming, norming...) in teams. Why do norms matter? Well, did you brush your teeth this morning?...

In one of my recent blog posts, Teamwork Basics: Creating Positive Interdependence in Groups, I offered three strategies you can use to get people feeling and acting like they are in the same boat together: Start shining the spotlight on the whole, not the pieces Solicit help shining the light Know the standard you are striving to achieve Building on...

I was honored to be asked to give the keynote speech at Agile Day 2010 NYC in Times Square last month. I called it: "Are We As Agile as We Think?" Shared Responsibility Early in my speech I asked how many in the room are in a position of "shared responsibility" in their workplace. I asked: "Are you in a...