Two ingredients are the salt and sugar for high-performance organizations. — Every company wants to be a high-performance organization these days. Well, at least most organizations. That makes sense. A high-performance organization seems to be the answer to the uncertainty, volatility and complexity we face today. It promises outstanding business outcomes and sustainable success despite these odds. …

Psychological safety in organizations is crucial. Amy Edmondson makes the case for it. — A few years ago, the term “Psychological safety” gained popularity. Google had announced their results of Project Aristotle. In Project Aristotle, Google set out to discover what makes teams effective. Their most striking finding: Psychological safety is essential for high-performing teams. But Google was not the first to make that…

Going the extra mile to make core concepts of Scrum more clear. A commented overview of the changes in the new Scrum Guide. — Big words were used to announce the new version of the Scrum Guide. Now it is finally released. In this story, I want to give an overview of the things that I took note of. A lot has changed in this version. Well, many changes aim to make it easier…

Feedback on your products is valuable, but not always easy to get. Be bold but smart at the same time. — The world is a mess. In a perfect world, our customers would tell us what they want. More important: they would describe what they need. In the real world, however, customers do not always know what they want. Let alone that they would know what they need. And coming up…

The journey to asynchronous communication starts with improving your meeting culture. — „Its madness“, Peter thinks as he is rushing up the stairs. He is a bit late, but that’s not what is occupying his mind. His mind is circling around his daily schedule. The upcoming meeting is only one in a bunch. Like breadcrumbs, they are scattered throughout the day. Leaving…

Would you build something no one needs if you know upfront? — „What did I spend so much effort for?“, he pondered in despair. Last months he spent most of his days working on this one thing. The work defined these months. A vision is what got him started. He had an idea that could make the life of many people easier…

What is a Minimum Viable Product? An improvised beach bar on Mallorca can teach you a thing or two about this. — We held next to the main road. Our goal was to reach a small beach which was lesser known to tourists and promised to be less crowded. A friend had recommended it to us, saying that it was a bit hard to reach but worth it. Now we found ourselves…

The practice of adapting Scrum is not as bad as you think — but you need to make sure your modified approach works. — “We are doing Scrum, but …” Some people snort if they overhear a sentence starting like this. They think to themselves: “Oh no! Yet another person who hasn’t understood Scrum and is cherry-picking“. By many, it’s considered an anti-pattern to adopt only some tenets of Scrum. In contrast, people are…

He tried to say „yes“ to everyone and failed but learnt an important lesson: every „no“ can make a „yes“ much stronger. — „I don‘t have any time.“ He spoke the sentence and breezed out a deep sigh. Like anyone else he had this sentence running through his mind many times in the past. He knew that there were a few reasons to use this sentence. In a meritocratic and fast-moving world it…