March 29th -LeSS Talks: Agility at Scale: Component vs. Feature Teams in LeSS

Thanks to everyone who joined the event and participated. Some great and challenging questions!  Some Kodak moments are below.  Apologies for having most of images facing the wall, next time we shall have more facing our great audience :).   https://www.meetup.com/Large-Scale-Scrum-LeSS-in-NYC/events/229733065/   https://www.meetup.com/New-York-Adventures-with-Agile/events/229733284/  

March 15 – LeSS Talks: LeSS Overview and Q&A

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A barrage of great questions made tonight’s session a long non-stop engaging dialogue.  As annual performance appraisal “specialists” say (I am being very sarcastic now 😉  ), the intensity of today’s discussion “EXCEEDED my expectations”, so maybe someone will give me a bonus  ;).  The collaboration system Nureva that I used in place of a slide deck was really helpful.  My personal retrospective: If I had just fewer slides on the wall, I could’ve made my presentation even more interactive.  So, for me, another lesson learned: LeSS is more.  And I promise to do it next time.  The next LeSS discussion will be a deep dive into one of LeSS topics.   Please, post questions or initiate discussions below.

And keep in mind:

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Below is the screenshot of Nureva virtual board with the set of questions that were captured.  They will become an input for our next meet-up(s):

after-LeSS questions

Note: Many thanks to Adventures with Agile – UK-based Community of Practice for scaling agile and organisational change,, for organizing this great event.

The Nureva™ Span™ ideation system

  The Nureva™ Span™ ideation system: revolutionary collaboration tool The Span™ Ideation System by Nureva™ helps you streamline the fuzzy front-end of innovation by bringing the innovation process into the digital age. The system provides an upgrade to the familiar tools you already use – sticky notes, sketches, images and flip charts – and combines … Read more

Artificial Ring-Fencing And Separating Walls Crumble, Eventually

When it comes to defining organizational structures that support product development, it is important to remember the idea, introduced by  computer programmer Melvin Conway in 1967, later referred to as Coway’s Law: “…organizations which design systems … are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations….“. Effectively, this law means that … Read more

Coach’s Experience Report: Putting LeSS Teachings to Work

  The following Coach’s Experience Report describes various teachings of Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) framework in the context of their practical use by Agile Coach. What is below does not represent a single case with a single organization or company. Rather, experiences with multiple organizations, under different conditions are being described. By the same reasoning, … Read more

Quotes from “Get Rid of the Performance Review!: How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing–and Focus on What Really Matters” by Culbert, Samuel A. & Laurence Rout

Samuel A. Culbert is an award winning author, researcher and full-time, tenured professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. His laboratory is the world of work where he puts conventional managerial assumptions under a microscope to uncover and replace dysfunctional practices. He holds a B.S. in Systems Engineering and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Culbert has developed … Read more

Quotes from: ““Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes” by Alfie Kohn

Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. He is the author of twelve books and hundreds of articles. Kohn has been described by Time Magazine as “perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of education’s fixation on grades and test scores.” He has appeared twice on “Oprah,” as well as on … Read more