Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@dnevozhai
Welcome to another edition of the KBP Update. This week I’m getting some things wrapped up before I head to Bangaluru next week to speak at AgileIndia 2017.
I’m presenting three sessions there:
Agile Leadership: Accelerating Business Agility
I’m honored to co present this full day workshop with Niel Nickolaisen and Todd Little. We’re covering many of the tools that we wrote about in Stand Back and Deliver, including Purpose Based Alignment, Business Value Models, and the Context Leadership Model.
’Tis Better to Be Effective than Efficient
Why it’s better to focus on being effective than efficient, and three tools to help you do that.
Examining the Product Owner Role
A presentation to supplement the recent series of blog posts exploring different product ownership models.
In honor of the Agile Leadership workshop, I thought I’d share some resources about different ways to consider context, a key agile principle that wasn’t mentioned in the Agile Manifesto or Principles, put pervades just about everything we do.
Kent J. McDonald
KPB.Media
Todd Little on the Context Leadership Model
I first learned about the impact of context – specifically complexity and uncertainty – on how you approach projects and products from Todd Little. He has compiled several different resources about the Context Leadership Model on his website, including the original experience report and IEEE Paper. We described how the context leadership model can guide your approach to leadership in Stand Back and Deliver, and I extended the idea to help you determine your approach to analysis in Beyond Requirements and Analysis Techniques for Product Owners.
A Leaders Framework for Decision Making
Dave Snowden created the Cynefin Framework to help leaders and decision makers deal with complexity when trying to make decisions. One of the earlier descriptions of the framework is an HBR article that he co-wrote with Mary Boone in 2007. Although the article is ten years old, it’s still a very good initial introduction to the Cynefin model and how it can be used to understand your context and act accordingly.
How to Know where to Focus Your Efforts
Chris Matts uses the Cynefin framework quite a bit to guide his work in coaching teams working at scale. He also does a nice job using it to help explain when you need to do business analysis, and when you need to do product management. He made an appearance on the Mastering Business Analysis podcast a while back where he explained Cynefin and how to use it in a business analysis setting.
The Stacey Diagram
And if two models weren’t enough for you, there’s also the Stacey Diagram that some people refer to in order to help understand their context.
How To Consider Context When Learning from Others
With all of the models out of the way, let’s look at some more practical advice. Given that experience is the best teacher, you’d be foolish not to take advantage of what others have learned through sometimes painful experience to solve a problem you face. But how do you go about learning from others while factoring in the differences that context brings about? Here are five steps I’ve found help me consider context when trying to learn from others.