This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams. Kathryn Petersen, Decision Tech's CEO, faces the ultimate leadership crisis: Uniting a team in such disarray that it threatens to bring down the entire company. Will she succeed? Will she be fired? Will the company fail? Lencioni's utterly gripping tale serves as a timeless reminder that leadership requires as much courage as it does insight. Throughout the story, Lencioni reveals the five dysfunctions which go to the very heart of why teams even the best ones-often struggle. He outlines a powerful model and actionable steps that can be used to overcome these common hurdles and build a cohesive, effective team. Just as with his other books, Lencioni has written a compelling fable with a powerful yet deceptively simple message for all those who strive to be exceptional team leaders.

    To ensure teams are well crafted, motivated, and successful, managers and HR professionals must step outside their comfort zone and adapt to younger, newer ways of thinking—they must become Agile. In Agile People, management consultant Pia-Maria Thoren outlines how managers, human resources professionals, company decision-makers, and employees can adopt the flexible, fluid, customer-focused mindset of modern tech companies to inspire their workers and strengthen their organizations. This essential handbook explains both the theories and practical applications behind the Agile framework, showing how companies can do the following: • Create a structure and culture for an organization to meet future challenges 
 • Give management and HR the changed mindset and the tools to facilitate employee drive and performance • Empower employees to become motivated stakeholders 
 • Adopt hiring practices that value attitude, behavior, and competence • Create a passionate, loyal, and accomplished workforce No matter the size of a company, it can benefit from an Agile mindset and launch into a future filled with successful leadership and motivated employees.

    Through four years of groundbreaking research, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance—and what drives it—using rigorous statistical methods. This book presents both the findings and the science behind that research. Readers will discover how to measure the performance of their teams, and what capabilities they should invest in to drive higher performance.

    Now, they build on their message with a bold, iconoclastic strategy for creating the ideal company culture—what they call "the calm company." Their approach directly attack the chaos, anxiety, and stress that plagues millions of workplaces and hampers billions of workers every day.Long hours, an excessive workload, and a lack of sleep have become a badge of honor for modern professionals. But it should be a mark of stupidity, the authors argue. Sadly, this isn’t just a problem for large organizations—individuals, contractors, and solopreneurs are burning themselves out the same way. The answer to better productivity isn’t more hours—it’s less waste and fewer things that induce distraction and persistent stress.It’s time to stop celebrating Crazy, and start celebrating Calm, Fried and Hansson assert.Fried and Hansson have the proof to back up their argument. "Calm" has been the cornerstone of their company’s culture since Basecamp began twenty years ago. Destined to become the management guide for the next generation, It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work is a practical and inspiring distillation of their insights and experiences. It isn’t a book telling you what to do. It’s a book showing you what they’ve done—and how any manager or executive no matter the industry or size of the company, can do it too.

    Today, software organizations are transforming the way work gets done through practices like Agile, Lean, and DevOps. But as commonly implemented as these methods are, many transformations still fail, largely because the organization misses a critical step: transforming their culture and the way people communicate. Agile Conversations brings a practical, step-by-step guide to using the human power of conversation to build effective, high-performing teams to achieve truly Agile results. Consultants Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick show readers how to utilize the Five Conversations to help teams build trust, alleviate fear, answer the "whys," define commitments, and hold everyone accountable.These five conversations give teams everything they need to reach peak performance, and they are exactly what's missing from too many teams today. Stop focusing on processes and practices that leave your organization stuck with culture-less rituals. Instead, unleash the unique human power of conversation.

    Kerth guides readers through productive, empowering retrospectives of project performance.Whether your shop calls them postmortems or postpartums or something else, project retrospectives offer organizations a formal method for preserving the valuable lessons learned from the successes and failures of every project. These lessons and the changes identified by the community will foster stronger teams and savings on subsequent efforts.For a retrospective to be effective and successful, though, it needs to be safe. Kerth shows facilitators and participants how to defeat the fear of retribution and establish an air of mutual trust. One tool is Kerth's Prime Directive:Regardless of what we discover, we must understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job he or she could, given what was known at the time, his or her skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.Applying years of experience as a project retrospective facilitator for software organizations, Kerth reveals his secrets for managing the sensitive, often emotionally charged issues that arise as teams relive and learn from each project.Don't move on to your next project without consulting and using this readable, practical handbook. Each member of your team will be better prepared for the next deadline.

    As the first act of flight, a rocket launch requires an entire set of systems to lift the vehicle into orbit-not just the vehicle itself, but all the systems needed for smoothly moving off the ground into space. Likewise, your project needs its entire set of supporting systems in place to begin a successful journey to delivery. Whatever you call it (project kickoff, bootcamp, inception, or jump start), liftoff gives your team its trajectory, and launches your project. This critical practice informs, inspires, and aligns everyone to a singular purpose: the successful delivery of software. This success is in your hands! Agile veterans Diana Larsen and Ainsley Nies teach you how to organize and conduct liftoffs, hold team activities to discover what's most important, and offer a working framework for effective and lightweight agile chartering.

    It will allow you to avoid some likely pitfalls and it will guide you to asking, yourself and your clients, the right questions. Though many people focus on the visualization techniques in Kanban the true value only emerges when you, as a kanban system manager, are apt at noticing the anti-patterns that occur on the kanban board and are able to take appropriate actions. David generously shares his vast experience in this field, with plenty real case scenarios, to the benefit of the reader. After reading this book I toyed with the idea: Would I've changed my approach to coaching my previous clients, in their adoption of agile values and practices, had I read this at the time? Well, I certainly would have, for all of them, and I'm sure it would have meant a smoother change process for the agilely challenged organizations. David provides a comprehensive guide to implementing Kanban in a software development/maintenance environment. Covering the mechanics, dynamics, principles and rationale behind why Kanban is a so promising framework for managing the work of a variety of teams and groups and being an evolutionary-based change management driver. Kanban is the practical approach to implement Lean Software Development, and this book is the practical guide for how to start using Kanban, and how to adapt the system for advanced needs. The book is clear and flowing, even though it covers some quite technical material. I would recommend it to Development managers, Project/Program managers, Agile Coaches/Consultants. It addresses concerns/needs of Novice as well as those already familiar with Kanban and looking for advanced answers. Even if you don't intend to implement a kanban system, there are a lot of techniques and ideas that are easily applicable to any product development/maintenance environment, agile or not. Bottom line, highly recommended.

    This complexity and the emergence of networks is changing the practice of strategic management. Today's leaders need to understand how to design and guide complex collaborations to accelerate innovation and change--collaborations that cross boundaries both inside and outside organizations.Strategic Doing introduces you to the new disciplines of agile strategy and collaborative leadership. You'll learn how to design and guide complex collaborations by following a discipline of simple rules that you won't find anywhere else.- Unleash the power of true collaboration- Learn and master the 10 skills of agile leadership- Apply individual skills to targeted situations- Introduces a new discipline of leadership strategyFilled with compelling case studies, Strategic Doing outlines a new discipline of leadership strategy specifically designed for open, loosely-connected networks.

    That principle is the value of slack, the degree of freedom in a company that allows it to change. Implementing slack could be as simple as adding an assistant to a department and letting high-priced talent spend less time at the photocopier and more time making key decisions, or it could mean designing workloads that allow people room to think, innovate, and reinvent themselves. It means embracing risk, eliminating fear, and knowing when to go slow. Slack allows for change, fosters creativity, promotes quality, and, above all, produces growth. With an approach that works for new- and old-economy companies alike, this revolutionary handbook debunks commonly held assumptions about real-world management, and gives you and your company a brand-new model for achieving and maintaining true effectiveness.

    What if your software-intensive projects delivered on time - or early - without sacrificing quality? 2. What if your IT department's job was to deliver profits, through software, rather than just software? 3. What if your software developers worked in a way they loved - that didn't feel as if they spent their days ROLLING ROCKS UPHILL? ROLLING ROCKS DOWNHILL is a business novel in the tradition of Eli Goldratt's "The Goal". It introduces Throughput-Driven Development - the combination of Lean, Agile and Goldratt's Theory of Constraints (TOC) thinking to corporate software development.

    The Mindful Coach clearly articulates the essentials of how to do this. As someone who believes deeply in the potential of all people, I found Silsbee's approach both practical and profound. This is a must-read for everyone concerned with people and learning."—Arthur M. Blank, philanthropist; cofounder, The Home Depot; and owner and CEO, Atlanta Falcons "The Mindful Coach is not just another coaching model. It is a frame of reference for anyone involved in developing people. This highly readable book should serve as a reference for anyone genuinely concerned about helping others. It has had a significant impact on the way I approach coaching and developing others."—James N. Bassett, M.E?d., employee development, Institute of Nuclear Power Operations "The Mindful Coach digs deeply, offering a lens and structure for understanding the intimate and necessary connection between relationships and human development. No other skill set, knowledge, or awareness is more important to educators, leaders, and managers than what is presented in this precious volume."—Robert C. Pianta, Ph.D., dean, Curry School of Education, University of ?Virginia "This revised edition provides the structure for presence, through which new solutions become available. This book itself is a practice in the art of 'becoming,' while providing a clear action framework for powerfully engaging others with their own development. Silsbee has provided a gift to leaders, teachers, and coaches!"—Connie Maltbie-Shulas, manager, V-22 Training Systems, Boeing "This book has broad appeal not only for coaches, but also for managers, executives, and consultants. Leaders of all kinds can benefit from Silsbee's clear and caring process for bringing out the best in people. This is a must-read book for anyone who wants to jump-start themselves and others on their journey to their potential."—Diana Whitney, Ph.D., author, The Power of Appreciative Inquiry "This is the guide for leaders committed to helping others learn. The seven roles will help any leader facilitate more meaningful development conversations. This new edition engaged me instantly, with immediate applications in key relationships."—Darelyn "DJ" Mitsch, MCC, president, The Pyramid Resource Group; former president, The International Coach Federation

    Self-selecting teams give people that choice. Build well-designed and efficient teams to get the most out of your organization, with step-by-step instructions on how to set up teams quickly and efficiently. You'll create a process that works for you, whether you need to form teams from scratch, improve the design of existing teams, or are on the verge of a big team re-shuffle. Discover how New Zealand's biggest e-commerce company completely restructured their business through Self-Selection. In the process, find out how to create high-performing groups by letting people self-organize into small, cross-functional teams. Step-by-step guides, easy-to-follow diagrams, practical examples, checklists, and tools will enable you to run a Self-Selection process within your organization.If you're a manager who wants to structure your organization into small teams, you'll discover why Self-Selection is the fastest and safest way to do so. You'll prepare for and organize a Self-Selection event and make sure your Self-Selection participants and fellow managers are on board and ready. If you're a team member, you'll discover what it feels like to be part of a Self-Selection process and what the consequences are for your daily work. You'll learn how to influence your colleagues and bosses to be open to the idea of Self-Selection. You'll provide your manager with a plan for how to facilitate a Self-Selection event, and with evidence that the system works.If you're feeling the pain and chaos of adding new people to your organization, or just want to ensure that your teams have the right people with the right skills, Self-Selection will help you create the effective teams you need.

    Beginning with a Foreword by Robert Kaplan, cofounder of the Balanced Scorecard, this book reveals how your organization can maximize a performance climate with teams committed to a common purpose, shared rewards, and sustained value creation. This innovative book lucidly presents how every organization can release the ambition and energy of its people who were previously slaves to the budgeting process.

    But all too often when we interact with people—especially those who report to us—we simply tell them what we think they need to know. This shuts them down. To generate bold new ideas, to avoid disastrous mistakes, to develop agility and flexibility, we need to practice Humble Inquiry.Ed Schein defines Humble Inquiry as “the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.” In this seminal work, Schein contrasts Humble Inquiry with other kinds of inquiry, shows the benefits Humble Inquiry provides in many different settings, and offers advice on overcoming the cultural, organizational, and psychological barriers that keep us from practicing it.