Chow #151 – How to overcome performance slump
Mark is a manager in a global software product development organization. He manages a 15-member team of software developers and testers. His team is a high-performance team and they deliver consistently meeting expectations of the management and the customer. Alex is a team lead in Mark’s team. Alex has been with the organization for over […]
Motivating teams
A frequent question or topic of discussion with Scrum Masters, in course of coaching, is on motivation. How does one motivate the team members? A difficult question, which does not have “a” right answer/ approach. As a leader, one needs to deliver what is expected of him or her, this delivery is done by the […]
A study in contrast – Parenting and Managing a team
I began life as a child, and still continue to behave like one. I started my working years as an individual contributor, and still continue to be one. In addition to this in my wonderful journey of life and work I have also become a parent and a team manager. What’s more interesting as I […]
Performance Appraisal : Bell Curve or Absolute Performance – What’s good?
Over the last three decades of my corporate life, I have always found that this topic has always evoked passion at all points of time. Everybody has a perspective and a logic to go along with it. My own views in the early part of my career used to be biased based on which approach […]
Initial coaching interventions for Sprint Planning
Teams new to Scrum have a product backlog. The backlog will be groomed to some degree, typically have clarity for up to one to two sprints. The priority will be clear, with fair amount of detail on the requirements. The estimates may be present, it could be story points or a masked form of an […]
Journey of a coach – theory & practice (Part I)
This article is part of the series on “Journey of a coach” covering my experiences as a performance coach. You may have the read an earlier article in the series on “Journey of a coach – the beginning”. The journey continues here… Yogi Berra, New York Yankees baseball player (arguably the best catcher of all […]
ProMentor – A framework for PM Competency Development
Yet another framework?! I start with a prayer – that you will not be put off by the word “framework” (the f-word!!) and not read further! The f-word has been sort of over-hyped – especially in the software world to the point that “you ain’t nothing if you don’t have your own framework to brag […]
Working long hours…
Years back, I was working on a project and putting long hours, my boss noticed this and asked me to meet him first thing the next morning. Next morning when I met him, he said “if the work requires long hours, see that you work late only alternate days say Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. If you […]
Coaching for Performance – Discovering Whitmore
Several years ago, when I was getting started on becoming a coach, a good friend recommended the book “Coaching for Performance” by Sir.John Whitmore (JW). Although I did not pause to ask the question then, I do now: “Can one learn swimming by reading a book?” So, what is the point of reading about coaching […]
