The Agile Daily Standup - AgileDad

Teen Gets Adopted After Almost 15 Years In Foster Care

An Arkansas teen’s life was changed forever when he was adopted after almost 15 years in foster care.

Cozy, 19, had been in foster care for 5,429 days and was the longest-waiting person in the Arkansas foster care system, per local news outlet KARK.com. Tim and Anna Dietrich adopted Cozy on Monday, Aug. 25.

Anna works for the nonprofit Project Zero, which helps connect foster chil...

Happy Patriot Day - Just Serve

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) members participate annually in the National 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance, also known as Patriot Day, by organizing and joining various community service projects through initiatives like JustServe.org. These activities, which can take place on September 11th or during the broader month of September, include tasks like cleaning parks, assembl...

OKR's At Google and Amazon

You’d think a company with tens of thousands of employees, layers of hierarchy, and complex workflows would slow down innovation to a crawl.

Yet somehow, giants like Google, Amazon, and Intel manage to launch cutting-edge products, drive bold initiatives, and keep their teams aligned and motivated.

Welcome to the world of OKRs — Objectives and Key Results.

What’s their secret weapon?

How to connect with Ag...

5 Habits of High Performing Teams

What makes some teams do exceptionally well, and others perform poorly? Do they have more talented team members, better resources, or are they simply being lucky?

Teams that stand out are not more talented, better skilled, or have greater opportunities. What sets them apart are their habits and practices.

Empowering work culture, support from leaders in the organization, and clarity of vision and goal...

Making Invisible Work Visible

Lately I noticed, sprint velocity looked fine and Jira showed progress. But none of the key tests, critical analysis and silent validations are tracked.

After my observations I questioned: How much of our real work is visible?

In Agile teams, productivity is often measured by delivered outputs: written code, released features, completed user stories, increasing metrics in dashboards, sprint completion rat...

Leading With Vision That is Rooted in Presence

A leader cannot see clearly if they are clouded by ego, attachment, or fear. Desires, frustrations, unhealed stories — all of these act as filters. They color what we think is “the future” with the palette of our past.

To truly see a vision for others, the leader must first become still.

Presence is not passivity. It’s clarity. It’s the willingness to meet the moment without adding anythi...

Consider The Downstream Effects - Mike Cohn

Have you ever looked at the pipes under a bathroom or kitchen sink?
If you do, you’ll notice that the pipe doesn’t run straight from the sink to the wall. Instead the pipe from the drain goes down farther than necessary, curves right back up and then heads into the wall.
This little extra bit of pipe that goes down farther than necessary and u-turns back up is called a P-trap. That’s...

The Birth of the Agile Delivery Manager = No More ScrumMasters

In 2025, we formally changed the title of Scrum Master to Agile Delivery Manager (ADM) in our technology division. This renaming wasn’t a rebrand for the sake of optics. It reflected a deeper evolution already happening, rooted in the expanding scope of delivery leadership, the adoption of Flow Metrics and Value Stream Management, and our real-world shift from strict Scr...

Scrum often gets blamed for a lot of things it was never meant to do. Misused? Absolutely. Misunderstood? All the time. But the framework itself? Not the villain here.

It is tiresome to see so many people complaining without truly understanding the purpose and intention of the frameworks.

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9 Daily ChatGPT Uses That Will Literally Change Your Life

1. Instant Book Summaries (Absorb Knowledge Fast) 📚

2. Personalized Workout & Nutrition Plans 🏋️‍♀️🍎

3. Perfect Email & Message Crafting ✉️

4. Everyday Tech Troubleshooting 💻📱

5. Out-of-the-Box Idea Generation & Problem Solving 💡

6. Language Learning & Practice Partner 🗣️🌍

7. Mock Interview Powerhouse 👨‍💼

8. Real-Time Translation & Negotiation Assistant...

What If Scrum Masters Only Want To Act On A Team Level?

I recently had an interesting conversation with a manager at a large organization. We discussed the evolving role of Scrum Masters, the growing questions about their value, and whether organizations are seeing actual returns on these investments. 💰

We agreed that the most significant impact for Scrum Masters is not within the team, but in the environment and the broader organiz...

Are You Chasing ScrummerFalls?

You can be pure Agile, you can be pure Waterfall, but have you ever been Waterfalling Agile? I have seen Waterfalling Agile, and it’s not a good scene. Essentially, when you are doing the worst of both worlds, thinking you are on top by taking the best of both, but you are wrong.

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Why Is Your Team Skipping Daily Standups?

Standups have become a way of life — not only for software teams but everyone else — they are the checkpoint on the day as to how we are doing, what’s working and what we need to do.

If ever there was a meeting to attend, to get the pulse of what is happening in your team, it would be this meeting, and yet people skip them when other meetings conflict, or they have appointments during that t...

The 1-Minute Introduction That Makes People Remember You Forever

How to Craft Yours: A 15-Minute Exercise

Step 1: Start With Why (5 mins)

Answer: What problem do I help solve that I deeply care about?

• What makes you frustrated about your industry?
• What change do you wish you saw more of?

Step 2: Find Your Origin Moment (5 mins)

Answer: What personal moment explains how I got here?

• It could be a client you helped.
• A mist...

Why “Holding Space” Is the Most Underrated Leadership Skill

Leadership is usually associated with action — setting direction, making decisions, solving problems. We’re taught that the best leaders are the ones who speak with confidence, execute quickly, and always have a plan. But what if one of the most powerful things a leader could do… was nothing?

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Agile Is Not Dead, Whether You Like It Or Not

Recently, there has been a flood of articles and videos claiming that agile is dead. The Agile Manifesto was created during my university years, so I witnessed firsthand how this topic gained traction in software development. As a result, I have a pretty strong opinion on the matter that I’d like to put out there.

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