A blog for people in organisations.
With useful tips from experts.
6 components for building remote teams
Which components do you use to enable people to work together in a new remote team in an appreciative and value-creating way? A field report.
DevGreenOps – Climate Change meets DevOps
Reducing CO₂ waste is also becoming increasingly important for IT companies. The time is right for DevGreenOps.
Introverts in brainstorming sessions
Introverts often prefer to generate ideas quietly. How can this work in a brainstorming session?
Higher, faster, disruption!
Companies are increasingly talking about disruption. What is a disruption anyway and what relevance does it have internally and externally?
LXP – Combining learning with pleasure
How do people learn best, what do (LMS) learning management systems offer and why is the time right for LXP (learning experience platforms)?
Career changer in the UX industry
Career changers are no longer a rarity in today’s professional world. How does a lateral entry into the UX industry work? A field report.
Strategic alignment with OKR
What is the importance of alignment when working with Objectives and Key Results and what is addressed by it?
The demand for authenticity
The call for authentic communication is getting louder and louder. Why should authenticity nevertheless not become a leitmotif of your organisation?
Learning leadership through facilitation
Moderation and leadership have some things in common. How can leadership be trained through facilitation and what are the resulting tips?
Inner Work – The confrontation with oneself
Many people shy away from dealing with themselves. What steps help with Inner Work and why is it worth the effort?
Product recall – and now what?
Product recalls are anything but rare. What should companies keep in mind, what is the process and why is communication so important?
Art meets Easter Bunny
Many artists have approached the motif of the Easter Bunny in their paintings. A surreal excursion into an art history and a homage to Easter.
Who relies on trust has already lost?
Those who discuss trust in an organisation also promote communication about mistrust. How can this paradox be solved?
The idea of #NoEstimates
What is the idea behind #NoEstimates? Why can effort estimates be an antipattern and what is the key to more predictability?
Rating: Wonderful!
Es ist Zeit für neue wunderbare Buchempfehlungen. Und es ist Zeit für drei spezifische Fragen an wunderbare Buchautor:innen.
Agility? We tried it! Does not work! – Part 7
There are many reasons why agility does not work in companies. The final part of the series is about utilisation, scaling and feedback.
Social Selling Horror
Social selling is considered the new magic wand of successful selling. With the right people in focus, this may even be true.
The nine principles of requirements engineering
The activities in requirements engineering are based on nine principles. What are they and how does the interaction work?
Unconscious biases – the world in our heads
There are over 180 different unconscious biases. What are the advantages and disadvantages, and what can be done against one’s own unconscious bias?
Mindfulness – the new superpower?
What is mindfulness, what expectations are associated with it, who is the antagonist and can it be abused? An assessment.
Quo vadis, agile coaching?
Agile coaching has to decide: does it want to contribute to feel-good management for employees or to binding product development?
The voice in business
A conversation about rhetoric, the writing of reflections and the importance of the voice in the wake of numerous digital formats.
Authentic leadership is nonsense!
Authenticity and authentic leadership are considered popular and desirable. Why is this nonsense and what does science have to say on the subject?
What error distinguishes you?
Many organisations try to create a culture of error in which mistakes are seen as learning opportunities. Time for reflection.
Clarifying roles in a team
Even in agile teams there is a need to define roles. How does this happen, when can roles be useful and when do they rather harm?
The search for X
In mathematics lessons, we often look for an X. It is a placeholder, much like agility is a placeholder in companies.
Learning leadership from aviation
What does leadership mean in a complex and dynamic world? And what can and should companies learn from aviation in this respect?
A good farewell: Offboarding deserves more acknowledgement
The potential of offboarding is not realised in many organisations. How can everyone involved make the most of a parting?
Why changes of perspective are important
When conversations in organisations are superficial, changes of perspective can help to improve the culture of conversation. How does it work?
Spontaneous role clarification
In an ideal world, we conduct role clarification workshops in every project. What techniques help in the real world?
Values in organisations
What is the significance of values for work in and with organisations? And how does cooperation succeed when values are not congruent?
Rating: Especially worth reading!
“Those who can read have a clear advantage” – says a popular wisdom. And which books are particularly worth reading? These recommended works are.
Transformation of IT into the agile world
The transformation of IT organisations is not easy. How can it succeed and what helps when the transformation falters? A field report.
Of haptics and media competence
What influence do haptics have on our perception? How is media literacy developing in society? And how can the two be combined?
Women want to lead – but under different auspices
There is much discussion about women in leadership positions. How can the Storylistening method help in this context within companies?
Decision-making techniques for self-organised project teams – Part 4
How does FOR-DEC work as a decision-making technique for self-organised project teams? What is the process, what tips exist and what are advantages?
Is Design Thinking still alive?
Design thinking seems to be losing some of its importance. Is this impression deceptive and what is important when applying it in practice?
Microfrontends – Concept and Implementation
Microfrontends are considered the logical continuation of distributed systems in the frontend. What is the basic idea and how can an implementation succeed?
A for Agile Maturity Model
Many system vendors want to be and work in an agile way and are developing adapted approaches. What might an agile maturity model look like?
Improving team communication with LEGO Serious Play
How can team communication be improved with LEGO Serious Play? What is the process of a workshop and what is important in practice?
Christmas, time of expectation
Christmas is associated with many expectations that often do not (or cannot) come true. How could it work better?
Heroes have failed
Heroes are respected in companies and in our society. But for lasting change, something else is needed: normal people! A wake-up call!
Leadership and individual resilience
The ability to behave resiliently is becoming increasingly important in a dynamic working world. How can individual resilience be promoted?
The ideal annual appraisal
The image of annual appraisals is negative. This is due to many mistakes that organisations make when conducting them. What tips help?
A Christmas Story
A Christmas story to make you smile and think. A tale about beliefs and opportunities, about the present and the future.
Resource-oriented personnel marketing
Anyone who deals with personnel marketing should have clarity. Clarity about target groups and recruiting goals, about potentials and programmes, about …
Rating: Very worth reading!
“Do you read, do you know”. But which books are well worth reading? A new list with 12 book recommendations answers this question.
Patterns and methods in organisations
How do patterns emerge in organisations, what functions do they have and what are the consequences for the selection of methods?
What agility is really about
Many companies use frameworks and tools for their agile development, but negate the basis for agility. This cannot work.
The battle over the budget – a counter-proposal
At the end of the year, the budget battles often begin in companies. What could an alternative approach look like and what is needed for it?
Ready, Set, Sprint
The Sprint is the heart of Scrum. How long does it last, how is it planned and which topics help with the planning? An introduction.
Change resistance in a team
What to do when a team wants to stay as it is and resists change? A practical report with impulses and group dynamic phenomena.
Water lilies in change processes
The shape of an organisational culture can be vividly described with the water lily model. But how does an organisation succeed in change?
Eliminating dependencies in Scrum
Dependencies in Scrum are a challenge. What causes them, how can they be identified and what tips help to eliminate them?
Do you want to argue?
Those who want to agree find ways, those who want to argue find topics! What is the challenge of arguing and how can conflicts be resolved?
Where did the KO criteria go?
The search for compromises based on solutions of different interest groups is not effective. There is a need for KO criteria.
Good leadership is so easy
Good leadership can be observed in many places. What makes it good and what effect does it have on employees? What can be learned from it individually?
The PARIS model in service
In a service society, services become products. How does that work? With the PARIS Model and its 5 building blocks.
Proxy Product Owner – a Scrum Antipattern?
What does a proxy product owner do? In which scenarios is he used and what are the challenges?
Rating: Worth reading!
Voltaire said that “reading strengthens the soul”. But which books, among others, are worth reading? A list of book recommendations answers this question.
Micro frontends in practice
Micro frontends make it possible to have parts of the frontend of a web application developed by independent teams. How does this work in practice?
Customer retention – an outdated model?
Customer retention is important. Yet there are often situations where companies almost sabotage their customer relationships. A field report.
Requirements specifications in an agile environment
What is a requirements specification and what is it not? What contents belong in it and how can it be created in a pragmatic, agile way?
Beginner tips for programmers
What does the everyday life of a programmer look like? What principles help with programming, how important is testing and what tips exist?
Cultural Hacking. A contribution to culture change?
Culture determines how work is done in companies. How can cultural hacking change a corporate culture in real terms? What works and what doesn’t?
Agility? We tried it! Does not work! – Part 6
There are many reasons why agility does not work in companies. Part 6 of the series is about new roles, status reports and old structures.
Please keep going!
Please keep going! There is nothing to see here! Except goldfish and tips for communicating benefits and call to actions.
6 principles for good online workshops and meetings
Online workshops and meetings pose challenges for everyone involved. Which principles are particularly helpful in conducting them?
Team culture in the home office with Lego Serious Play
What can you do to actively work on team culture in the home office? This is where the digitally adapted Lego Serious Play method comes in.
The right tone in UX writing
What is UX writing, what is Voice & Tone design and why are both points so important for companies and communication with users?
Keeping performance under control
What aspects besides the response behaviour are to be considered in the performance of a system and how can these be tested? A report from the field.
Lean Thinking in Sales and Marketing
How can lean thinking be established in sales and marketing? What is the value of customer benefit and how can it be determined?
Performance analysis beyond code
Software developers often try to solve problems in the code. Why does a performance analysis beyond code make sense and what tips are there for it?
Systemic questionnaire technique
The Systemic Questionnaire Technique is a method for qualitatively recording expectations of an initiative. How does it work?
Columbo’s rules
How can Inspector Columbo’s questioning techniques improve communication and cooperation in organisations and solve problems?
Why so many agile transformations still fail
Many agile transformations fail. How important are procedure, communication, trust, mistakes and security for the success of a transformation?
“Let’s do Flight Levels” they said….
The Flight Levels Model is a communication tool for organisations. How can it be successfully introduced and applied? A field report.
Productivity and humanity – contrast or win-win?
Productivity is considered a natural goal of successful companies. What does this mean for cooperation and what are the consequences?
My OKR is broken!
Often, OKR do not deliver what organisations expect from them. Why is this and what can organisations do better?
Agile task critique in the public sector
A task critique examines which tasks will be carried out in the future and in what way. How does a remote, agile task critique work?
Remote Sprint Review in Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS)
What is the purpose of the Sprint Review in Scrum and how could a Sprint Review in Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) with multiple remote teams be facilitated?