Integral Agile Journal

Field notes on transforming organizations through Integral Agile.

Inverting Agile Resistance

Posted on: April 7, 2023

As an Agile Coach one of the biggest frustrations for me is when people either won't try something I'm suggesting, or they try it but don't seem to be able to get the point of it, or actively try to sabotage it. How many times have I heard, “Well, we tried that and it didn't work.” I have a whole WhatsApp channel full…

Read article →

Thoughts on the state of Agile

Posted on: March 22, 2023

Every year the State of Agile survey consistently includes the results from over 1000 to as many as 6000 respondents who report their experiences and perceptions of the Agile industry along with the role that Agile plays in their organizations. The survey is very useful for Agile leaders, coaches, thinkers, and…

Read article →

Leadership? Followership? What about Membership?

Posted on: March 8, 2023

Researching leadership for a book I recently interviewed a Scrum Master who had done their thesis on Integral Leadership. When I asked about their ideas on leadership their immediate reply was, “We don’t talk enough about followership.” They then proceeded to spend the next 40 minutes talking about leadership. In…

Read article →

The wisdom of Monty Python

Posted on: January 29, 2023

Monty Python gives so much we can use in our transformation strategy! Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not some farcical aquatic ceremony! – Servant Leaders You think you’ve had a hard time? I’ve…

Read article →

The Role of an Agile Coach

Posted on: January 3, 2023

“Our team is going Agile,” “where are you on your Agile journey,” and “what is the most important Agile metric,” might be some things you’ve heard or thought about lately. The answers to these and the many other questions or descriptions I’ve heard in my adventures across the enterprise have been at times confusing,…

Read article →

Why Agile?

Posted on: December 19, 2022

Why do we do anything at all? What motivates us to get up in the morning, and come to work? When you think about it, the morning rituals we go through to arrive at a set location at a particular time, with a bunch of other people who feel just like we do (in their own way) in order to do a series of activities most of…

Read article →

Capacity Planning is not hard!

Posted on: November 21, 2022

I had a Scrum Master I was mentoring a while back tell me she was off to a meeting about capacity planning with her Release Train Engineer (it was a SAFe environment) and she was nervous because there was disagreement about how they should handle it, and tensions had begun to rise. I was immediately confused why…

Read article →

Sometimes you have to break the rules

Posted on: October 31, 2022

As I mentioned in a previous post, Agile was started by a widespread group of individuals who saw the way things were and weren't working and began to creatively break the rules to get better results. Of course, Agile has grown in the decades since. It’s started to resemble a detailed set of rules for achieving…

Read article →

Overcoming Resistance the Integral Way – Team level

Posted on: October 17, 2022

If you are a scrum master or team coach, you’ve probably felt the frustration of laying out a sound set of Agile practices only to find team members lack your enthusiasm for diving in. With some people, it’s overt – questioning, challenging, complaining about the time spent planning vs coding; in others it’s more…

Read article →