Suitability filters are models that offer simplified views of a decision-making process. They help people identify and discuss the variables at play and make a recommendation. The British statistician George Box said it best “All models are wrong, but some models are useful.” A good model provides insights, usually a basic view of how something works or the interactions between variables. From this perspective, models are interesting and can speed up our comprehension of something. However, the greatest benefit of models is as a group alignment tool.   Visual Models Create Group Consensu ..read more

I am excited to be attending Agile Open Canada in Banff this May. If you are free May 29 and 30, please come and join us! It is a great Open Space unconference that brings people together to share their latest ideas, challenges, lessons learned, and experiments around agile approaches. Hosted at the Banff Park Lodge and only $130 CDN for two days of events with food, drinks and optional activities. Why not stay a day or two longer? Late May / early June is a great time to visit Banff National Park. I hope to see you there. Full details here.   ..read more

Communicating project issues is challenging. Exactly when should we escalate? Who to, and how much of a chance to correct things should be given first? This is why some projects create control limits around critical parameters and develop escalation plans to communicate exceptions and agree on the next steps. However, on most small to medium size projects, these escalation plans are often missing or left to the project manager's discretion. This creates further problems if the response is too late, not far-reaching enough, or not aligned with sponsor expectations. Also, what are the expectatio ..read more

Please join me with Peak Business Management for a Free PDU webinar on April 12th at 7:00 pm Eastern Time. Along with Barb Waters, I will be demonstrating the PMP® Exam curriculum from a visual learner’s perspective and giving a tour of PMillustrated.com. We will explore the videos, mindmaps, animations, and games that make learning fun and more effective. We will also be available to answer questions about the PMP® Exam, eligibility criteria, and what to expect in the exam. Reserve your place now and automatically receive 1 PDU for attending the event. I hope you can join us. Register Here ..read more

I'm excited to announce that the new PM Illustrated Audio/Video Book is now available! It's an excellent resource for visual learners studying for the PMP exam who would rather watch and listen to content rather than read it. It was a pleasure to partner with Barb Waters on this initiative. Her narration is excellent, and she brings the PM Illustrated book content to life. If you are a visual learner preparing for your PMP exam or know someone who might benefit from this different learning mode, please head to PMillustrated.com to check it out. There is also a free sample with three videos ..read more

On Friday, September 30, I will be presenting a session on Beyond Agile at the HTEC Project Management Virtual Conference. The session is free to attend and is part of a program that also features Scott Ambler, Sanjive Augustine, Nader Rad and Frank Turley. You can register here. “Yes, And, And” A colleague recently described Beyond Agile as a “Yes, And, And” toolkit, and I thought it was a great way to summarize the two elements of combining hybrid agile with the Theory of Constraints, and value stream view. “Yes, And” “Yes, And” is a term from improv comedy that refers to the idea of not u ..read more

  This article talks about adding tools to the servant leader toolkit.  However, let’s start by examining what servant leadership already contains.    Servant leadership was popularized by Robert Greenleaf and described as a mindset and set of practices.  It flips the power pyramid, so instead of the team working to serve the leader, the leader supports the team. Servant leadership is a mindset and value system which recognizes that the team members deliver the project benefits.  So, the best thing a scrum master or project manager can do is serve the team and h ..read more

This is part one in a series on leading agile teams from the Beyond Agile book. We will examine what leadership entails and how it applies to agile teams. Then discuss the transition from servant leadership to shared leadership.   EQ as a Foundation for Leadership As we saw in the previous articles about Emotional Intelligence (EQ), leadership is built on top of EQ. We need good EQ to be able to recognize and manage our own emotions. This is a prerequisite for others to consider us credible and worth listening to. So, a firm grasp of EQ, either gained intuitively or improved through stud ..read more

Looking for some PDUs to renew your PMP credential? Curious about the agile content added to the PMP exam since you took yours? Like to try a gamified, visual-learning experience? In partnership with Peak Business, this 35-module micro-learning suite provides comprehensive coverage of the new PMP® Exam Content Outline (ECO) and an excellent overview of today’s current project management topics for those looking for a refresher.   Self-Directed Learning Chart your own adventure through topics and let the platform track your progress via self-assessment quizzes and achievement badges. St ..read more

Thanks to Improving for inviting me to speak at the recent Improving Edge Summit. It was a great conference dedicated to leadership this year. A topic near and dear to my heart and the focus of my Leading Answers blog. My talk was on the Evolution of Leadership and featured ideas from my Beyond Agile book about how organizations are moving from Agile’s empowered-teams/Green/values-driven leadership model to Organic/plural/Teal/shared and host-leadership models. The session was recorded and I will make it available here at www.LeadingAnswers.com when it is available. We had some great attende ..read more