Author: Alexis

  • Could your team be managing itself?

    Could your team be managing itself?

    “Self-organization” and “management” aren’t mutually exclusive. But we’ll need to rethink the role of the manager if we’re planning to build adaptable teams.

  • The top requirement for high-impact teams

    The top requirement for high-impact teams

    Performance depends on making sure everyone knows what needs to be done.

  • Product Management and Engineering Collaboration

    Product Management and Engineering Collaboration

    The Boston Product Management Association hosted a meetup at HubSpot yesterday about the collaboration between Product Management and Engineering. Chatting with a few people before the start of the event, it sounded like there was a need for a productive tension between the two roles. Here are a few notes from the discussion about that…

  • Collaboration Superpowers Podcast

    Collaboration Superpowers Podcast

    I enjoyed the interview with Lisette Sutherland for the Collaboration Superpowers Podcast. The focus of Lisette is on collaboration between people working remotely. She has a ton of ideas on how to make remote work successful. Lisette is the author of a great book: Work Together Anywhere: A Handbook on Working Remotely—Successfully—for Individuals, Teams, and…

  • The Matrix of Principles

    The Matrix of Principles

    The Matrix of Principles is a reflection tool to capture how stakeholders understand Deming’s 14 Management Principles. Reflecting on the management principles enables the team to share their beliefs on management, to share their views on where the organization is, and to identify areas for improvement. Follow the few steps below Take a blank sheet…

  • On The John Poelstra Show!

    On The John Poelstra Show!

    I was on The John Poelstra Show last week, and as John said: It was a great conversation. John is energetic and supportive, and I enjoyed the way he guided the conversation. One part, I really enjoyed, was the transition he made between his question about waterfall project management and the reference to the book…

  • Back to School

    For a lot of people, September means that we are back to school! Or maybe that we are not in school anymore, and so we need to take care of our learning path. I learned a lot from your feedback on Changing Your Team From The Inside. Keep that coming! It is very useful! I…

  • Project Aristotle – A Conversation Starter

    Project Aristotle – A Conversation Starter

    In Measure What Matters, John Doerr speaks about the quality prized by Andy Grove: collective accountability, fearless risktaking, measurable achievements. John explains that Google studied 180 teams using five questions. The internal project code name was Project Aristotle. The results? Standout performances correlated with affirmative answers to these questions: Structure and clarity: Are goals, roles…

  • What a Month!

    Last month on July 1st, and thanks to your support, I published Changing Your Team From The Inside. It has been a great month! (If a friend sent you this message, you could subscribe to the mailing-list following the link). I learned some of you organized several book discussion clubs. It is fantastic to see…

  • On Consultants

    The MIT Sloan School of Management recently published a talk that Steve Jobs delivered at MIT in 1992. During the speech, he discussed how consultants, are missing a big part of learning that you can only get when you own “something over an extended period of time.” As a consultant, you will drop by, make…

  • November in France!

    Thanks to Aurélien Morvant (Kokan) I will be back in France for two weeks at the end of November. I will present a session around the book Changing Your Team From The Inside during AgileTour Rennes (November 23-24, 2018). I already planned a few other visits to companies and organization to present the book, but…

  • The Story Behind The Book

    The Story Behind The Book

    Earlier this week, I announced the availability of the first edition of Changing Your Team From The Inside. I said in that post that I would tell you the story behind the book. Back in 2013, I started to think about writing a book about the connection between agile and open source values, principles, practices,…