Help My Organization



Team

If you're not satisfied with the way things are going, you're likely looking for ways to improve your organization. Faster time to market, more innovation, quicker reaction to changing markets, etc. Competitive product development takes continual learning at all levels of the organization. The palette of tools includes "Agile", "Scrum", "Lean", "Kanban", "Lean Startup", and more. These bring new vocabularies, new roles, new responsibilities, new practices, new ways of interacting, new cultures, engineering practices, and more. They sound easy at first. But companies often get started and stall, without help. It turns out the topics are surprisingly deep, subtle, and difficult do well, not unlike most skills. (e.g. sports, music, ...) The resistance and political turmoil arises in surprising ways, until success is pretty well assured.

To help your organization get there faster, we offer initial assessment(s), consulting re transformation options, training in new skills, meeting facilitation, metrics help, and more. We offer follow-on coaching & consulting to help your organization through the application of these new skills, extra training for more advanced topics, refinement and tuning.


Agile/Scrum Training  |   Agile/Scrum Coaching




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A personal note on Agile transformations and scaling.

Having witnessed numerous attempted quick transformations in command & control organizations wishing to quickly become Agile, I offer the following suggestions: 1) Focus on clear & compelling goals and product visions, validated via Lean Startup type techniques. 2) Hire & empower highly skilled & motivated people. 3) Do Agile well, then scale. Instead of worrying about scaling first, instead focus first on nurturing a small set of very high-performing teams, in representative areas of the company. This approach will surface many organizational issues to solve, and will ease later scaling. The high-performing teams will also serve as examples of what's possible. 4) Focus on principles & values, and nurturing a culture of innovation, risk, and excellence. Let practices & tools vary. (While many focus on prescriptive practices & tools, it's a often a symptom that the more important principles & values have been missed.) 5) Use overall business metrics reflecting results rather than compliance to process. 6) Don't assume a complicated solution is needed. Agile/Scrum scales in surprisingly simple ways. 7) Get help and advice you can trust. 8) Before you buy a complicated solution, let's discuss other options. I know many great advisors in the Agile/Scrum/Lean community. It's worth hearing from a number of perspectives before going big.

I'd be happy to discuss to your situation. -- Kelley Harris, 650-485-1203



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"Help My Startup Company"

One good way to get more progress with minimal process, is to focus on getting the values right. Thrilling customers. Delivering often. Openness. Collaboration. Fun. Innovation. Learning fast. You can pull inspiration & practices from the palette of Agile, Scrum, Lean, Lean Startup, Design Thinking, and more. It helps to start simple. Then gradually add, try, discard, etc. You can get faster progress, with less cost. 10X gains are possible.

To help your startup get there faster, we provide pragmatic advising, training, coaching. A little or a lot. Your choice.


Agile/Scrum Training  |   Agile/Scrum Coaching




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"Help My Portfolio of Companies"

You have limited time to monitor & help your portfolio companies. You want assurance that they are working on the right product, creating a valuable asset, and doing it efficiently. You can encourage your companies to pull inspiration & practices from the palette of "Agile", "Scrum", "Lean", "Lean Startup", and more.

To help maximize the value of your portfolio, we offer company/team assessments, customer & market validation using Lean Startup principles, Agile training & coaching, and more eclectic coaching & consulting for refinement & tuning.

Agile/Scrum Training  |   Agile/Scrum Coaching



I'd be happy to discuss to your situation. -- Kelley Harris, 650-485-1203