Agile Candor

I love the Kung Fu Panda movies, hope you enjoy them too. Apart from the funny awesomeness of Po the panda, I love the subtle and not so subtle messages and quotes these movies contain. Here are few gems from Kung Fu Panda 3. I only saw it this week, so am sharing these now. [caption id="attachment_283" align="aligncenter" width="595"]  Rock like Po the panda![/caption] Image courtesy: https://www.flickr.com/photos/27474697@N08/2556889334/ 1. When will you realize the more you take, the less you have? - Master Oogway to Kai (the beast) When Kai tells Master Oogway that he has taken the chi of every master there is, Master Oogway pleads to Kai to realize this. There is a virtue in giving; always give when you can! So how is this connected to agile? There are examples. It could be giving help to a struggling team member, or giving credit to someone else who deserves it, or giving someone encouragement for their effort, or giving someone any other type of su...

The Onboarding Canvas is a tool that can be used for onboarding a new team member . We derived this tool from Spotify's adaptation of the Toyota Kata . I like this tool because no one can tell you precisely how your onboarding should be like in order for you to be effective at your new job. This is a tool for continuous reflection and adaptation. It puts the newcomer in the driver’s seat, makes the onboarding process agile through continuous collaboration with your team. Four quadrants The onboarding canvas has four quadrants: Now: It defines where the team is now, what is going on and how is the new team member adapting to the change? Definition of awesome: With the addition of the new team member, how would the team like itself to be? What would be awesome for the new team member? Next target: In order to move towards "Definition of awesome" what outcomes should be achieved in the next x weeks? Next steps: What are the immediate next steps for the team...

Alongboarding, an agile onboarding approach Alongboarding: We’re in it together! Organizations hire new people every day. A great first impression can make a tremendous difference in retaining employees. No one gets a second chance to make a great first impression, not even the best companies. An onboarding experience is an essential part of making that first impression on a new employee. Agile has been around for many years and has gained vast acceptance throughout the community. Yet, I find it disappointing that its tenets are not used well in most companies and most onboarding approaches follow a waterfall approach.  Alongboarding is an agile onboarding approach that applies agile tenets to onboarding new employees and makes the experience richer and more fulfilling. When I joined AppFolio as an agile coach, I experienced this approach during my onboarding. It felt like the team owned my success as much as I owned the team's success. It was a welcome change from some of m...