Have you ever walked into a room as a Facilitator/Coach with a rock-solid plan and been hit with a surprise that became inspiration that changed the plan and effectively levelled you up in the moment?
Luckily, it happened to me…
This week I walked into a large room and was stopped in my tracks. What greeted me? Walls filled with brown paper, markers, stickies, stickers, and colour coded cards.
The two Scrummies who were instrumental in setting this up were moving and shaking in preparation for the team as I stood taking it all in. This was the Bizmod first Big Room/Program Planning event in their Agile journey, and it was going down today!
Despite being new to Agile, when the company said let’s try make KANBAN come to life, they didn’t ‘try’ they ‘did’ it and they did it well.
Intentions were clear: IN-PERSON, COLLECTIVE VISIBILITY, FULL PARTICIPATION, PHYSICAL CARDS….limit the TECH.
The key measure of success: alignment across the portfolios, awareness of the work across the portfolios and most importantly the prioritisation of work.
As a coach I was inspired. Inspired by the effort, the energy, the passion that the client showed-up with, the care in the thought and preparation. This was their first Big Room Planning, and they owned it.
Its not about perfection, but rather the practice of doing and leaning into the unknown. That’s what made it powerful – they didn’t know what it “should” look like so they made it their own.
I was smiling ear-to-ear. This made me truly happy!!!
Having been part of many PIs in my Agile and coaching journey this was one of the few times I have had such a great experience. And this, by a team of people who had never done it before!
Sometimes your client is the teacher. I had my planned 40min Icebreaker & Team Alliance prepped, but like I said, once I walked into that space something happened and I got triggered with creative ideas on ‘how might we make it better’? So just like them, I took a chance using some ORSC tools and it was powerful.
We don’t always know the destination when we start the journey, but when we have thought about where we want to be, what we will need for the journey, that can be enough. It’s enough not to know the answer if you have given serious thought to the important questions. That is Agile as….!
Kaizania Agile of Course
Bizmod
marcha van Enter
Ellene Pienaar-Carstens
CRR Global
CRR Afrika