Karim Harbott

2 days till I get to speak with this LEGEND for the Agile O Group. ⭐️Dave Westgarth ⭐️ Unpicking all his thoughts on Delivery. Focus towards continuous learning His journey and destination Going to be a very interesting hour I'm sure! #agile #delivery #scrum #AgileOGroup

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Read our latest Cognitive Union blog post by our football-mad co-founder Colin Smith on how Gareth Southgate’s leadership style emphasises the importance of leading through connection, inspiration and creating the right environment where people can thrive. In a world where AI, automation and other tech are being touted as the answer to everything, it’s easy to forget that the most powerful leadership tool isn’t found in an app or an algorithm. Read Colin's full article to explore: - Why trust trumps tech in team building - How motivation outperforms metrics - The power of vision in a data-driven world https://lnkd.in/gJ5jMFtC How are you balancing tech and human connection in your leadership approach? #LeadershipDevelopment #HumanSkills #Connection #EuropeanChampionship2024 #GarethSouthgate

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Ever started something thinking it would be simple, only to uncover layers of complexity beneath the surface? For the past six months, I’ve been immersed in developing BUILD, my team coaching model and diagnostic tool. It’s now being tested with teams, and I’ve just finished the first feedback report which took so so much longer than expected. Who knew there were so many ways to present data? As a Gallup Maximizer, I’m always refining and iterating, striving for excellence - not perfection. While this drives continuous improvement, it can also be a challenge to know when something is 'good enough.' I’ve realised that improvement is a journey, not a destination - otherwise, I’d never finish anything! This process is challenging me to balance ambition with self-care. I’m curious: Have your strengths ever become a double-edged sword? How do you manage the challenges they bring? V Vera Woodhead #ExecutiveCoach #Leadership #BUILD #TeamDevelopment

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What a notification to wake up to this morning. Thank you Bob Galen 🇺🇦! In all fairness, the moniker of "coaching supervision" is confusing. When people go through training programs, they are often assigned a supervisor who does just what you describe in your article: watch video and help them to see what an assessor sees. Don't get me wrong--this is HUGELY helpful, especially when you're just starting out. But this is a narrow view of what supervision can be. Coaching supervision is a reflective practice, and no two sessions are ever the same. Some days we stand in the ICF coaching competencies, others are of a specific case a client might bring forward, and others again are using different models. Coaching supervision has helped me to become a better coach, a better practitioner, and expanded my own range. My training then another year to accrue the hours of supervising other team coaches. (Hat tip to Kerry Woodcock and Novalda, as well as our inaugural cohort of Betsy Block PCC-ACTC ACS MPP, Karine Guibert, PCC, MBA, Mike Kaufman, and Kemmy Raji - PCC, ORSCC as we walked together.) And because we knew that few understood what coaching supervision was, I did a lot of demos and meetup talks. For "Bob Galen's Badass Agile Coaching Day" back in 2023, I gave a talk on coaching supervision, even demoing it live in that session. Coaches need supervision. We need that deep, reflective space to examine our own work. We need communities of practice that do that work alongside us, with us, and help us to become the coaches that our systems need. And Bob, I couldn't agree more--you've been doing coaching supervision and mentor coaching all along. It's only recently that we've developed a name for what you do.

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In this week's episode of the Just About Managing Podcast, John Lloyd, Chris Dingle and myself discuss our thoughts and experience on whether an Organisation's Values really do make a difference to it's culture... would love to hear your thoughts on this topic too after you've had a listen. #Ceannas #culture #leadership #leadershipdevelopment

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Are you going to Agile Cambridge this year? Agile on the Bench is back again at Agile Cambridge, and we’re looking for speakers to do short talks. Agile on the Bench is a friendly, low-fi, lunchtime outdoor meetup hosted by Cara Bermingham and me. It happens outside, with no stage, no slides and no tech (props are allowed). We are looking for 10min fun talks with insights about people, teams, users or getting things done. Past topics include: How training my reactive dog has made me better at my job, constellating Agile Cambridge, what carpentry can teach you about pairing and what learning to knit reminded me about learning. If you already have a conference ticket, you're not already a speaker and would like to pitch a talk or chat about options; please get in touch with Cara Bermingham or tag her in your comment.

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This is the final part of a series of four long-form, transcribed conversations that I had with Sam Zawadi about his meta-framework Aqua. This one was a lot of fun 😀 (and possibly my favourite). The theme is around organisational change and Agile transformations. We discuss: the Three-Act structure and storytelling, the Compromiser’s Pyramid (Sam's layered approach to change), developmental stage models (teal organisations), John Kotter’s dual operating system, and the Kübler-Ross model as experienced by Homer Simpson. Link to article in comments #change #transformations #agile #agiletransformations #changemanagement #williambridges #kublerross #reinventingorganizations #homersimpson #aquametaframework

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Our free "Leading Others" programme closes today. This was an experiment for us to see: 1. What type of appetite there is to consume audio content in a more guided setting, combined with reflective activities and scenarios. 2. Whether the formula we had cooked up was impactful/useful to our target audience. 3. Whether time-limited free content could work as a way to introduce new people to Assemble You. In all three areas, it's been incredibly useful. We've learned: 1. Yes, a more guided setting is very helpful to certain groups. 2. The formula was good but actually needed a few tweaks (thanks to everyone who provided feedback!) 3. We've had over 200 people register, mostly from organic LinkedIn activity and a couple of email promotions. We're going to make more of these available to our existing clients and partners. We'll be in touch in the coming weeks with more details. If you want to try Leading Others, the last day to register for free is today. Here's the link: https://lnkd.in/eA4dkP77

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What should a facilitator think about for the live element of hybrid cohort based learning? A couple of days ago I spoke on a webinar for learning software provider Learndash with my good friend and e-learning guru Andy Jack We were talking about the impact of cohort based learning. We had more than 550 people signed up so it was clearly something that resonated with people. As part of the talk Andy asked me if I had any top tips and I summarised it into the 4 Fs (maybe I should copyright that!) So what are they? Flexibility Facilitation Focus Features 1. Flexibility - Whilst I plan for the live sessions and always have ideas in my back pocket. I don’t overplan as I want the discussions to be led by the delegates. 2. Facilitation - the art of facilitating the live sessions is something I’m always working on, the use of mentimeter as an interactive tool for example. 3. Focus - I find 45 minutes just about right, long enough to cover some good ground but any longer and people lose focus. 4. Features - don’t see it as an opportunity to throw everything at it from a features perspective. Often less is more There are lots more I’m sure - but that’s what I’d go with. Any other suggestions? #cohortlearning

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Anyone in Manchester looking for an Agile Coach or Delivery expert? I don't like to too my own horn, but I'm pretty good at it, you know? I know Agile Coaches can be a bit of a dicey investment, since we're often really rubbish at demonstrating real results. Well, I'm trying to actually solve that problem by teaching people how Dysfunction Mapping can be a tool to not only create better plans for change, but to actually prove whether they had the intended impact. Thousands of people have used this method, and I'd love to use it to help your business. Or maybe you'd just like me to teach you how, that's fine too. Let's chat about levelling up your agile delivery with a workshop.

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🚀 Only Two Weeks to Go! Join Our Implementing SAFe Class! 🚀 In just two weeks, from 24-27 September, Rick Barker and I will be leading a live online Implementing SAFe class straight from the UK! 🌍✨ 🔹 Learn how to master the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) to boost your organisation's performance 🔹 Gain insights from an expert with hands-on experience in agile transformations 🔹 Engage in practical exercises and real-world case studies 🔹 Develop skills that will help you deliver significant value and improvement to your organisation Don't miss this chance to advance your agile expertise and make a meaningful impact. 📈📚 👉 Register now! (Link in comments) #SAFe #Agile #TwoWeeksToGo #ProfessionalDevelopment #ScaledAgileFramework #OnlineLearning #AgileSuccess

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This is a teaser extract from my talk at Scrum User Group South Africa later this week: The fact is that Accountability is not a function of authority - people without authority can just as effectively lead accountability conversations and enforce it based on people's commitment because the nature of commitments gives authority to the relationship - not a singular person with positional authority. Intrigued? Come join me so we can explore more together! https://lnkd.in/ddKpDGpW

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One of the biggest challenges (well, the biggest) for product teams operating within a large enterprise/traditional organisation is how teams, projects/products and strategic outcomes are funded. If the funding model (which is a key element of any operating model) is based on the project model (Capex) with BAU teams being the same teams who undertake these projects (Opex with Capex allocation) then teams are going to be constrained, capacity is not going to be optimised for outcomes, the plan is more important than the team and discussions end up around the 30% allocation of a team member leading to context switching and cognitive load, which are the biggest killers of operational efficiency, productivity and team morale. Great piece here from Scott Millett (author of The Accidental CIO - https://lnkd.in/gAT3W3rP) on how to move from a project/BAU funding mode to a product/outcome-based operating model (including funding) and the pitfalls and benefits of both. So, if this sounds like a challenge for you, teams and your business (be honest: every large enterprise has this one) then give it a read (the article and the book). If Capx and Opex have become a regular language for your teams, then this is definitely for you. Share it with the c-suite/CFO and then discuss how you could unlock greater value from your people, processes, data, technologies and funds. "The conventional IT budgeting process is based around the concepts of transient teams, fixed plans, fixed costs, and fixed scope. For anything other than simple problems with obvious solutions this simply does not work. If we are to organise persistent teams around products and focus on outcomes, then the funding process must complement this structure rather than fight against it. Instead of funding for projects in complex contexts, we can fund the capacity of product teams based on strategic needs and the strength of a high-level road map. These teams can then be free to determine the best use of the funds to achieve desired outcomes." https://lnkd.in/gwMAUWQU #leadership #operatingmodel #organizationaltransformation #fundingmodels #productmanagement #CFO #CPO

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Another day in Jim's linked in feed. Today it is tons of posts telling people what a product owner is and how it is not what people and teams usually do. Lots and lots of posts. If agile were a product, they would be support staff telling people to click on the confusing buttons on the poorly defined UI to do a basic function. These posts are all failure demand. If you are answering the question or alerting the user over and over and over again, it's a design issue.

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What is the Team #Kanban Meeting? Are yours not hitting the mark and lacklustre? Check out my latest blog where I give you 5 new patterns to try. Enjoy! https://lnkd.in/edRkxpau

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If you, like me, want to be more impactful in your coaching, come and join me in September to learn the research-informed practice of ACT, with Rachael. More information here 👉... https://lnkd.in/eqpErerv See you there!

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Agile Manchester took my 'Task Switch Challenge' this week Takeaway: we are all mostly struggling with task switching, even in teams, yet we're effectively living with it despite running various continuous improvement initiatives and having coaching support. Have you optimised your management and structure to set your teams up to own and operate their products? Or are your management and teams wrestling with each other, and not achieving a coherent workflow and quality outcomes? #agilemanc #productwaysofworking #digitaltransformation

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Systems thinking is a holistic approach that focuses on understanding interconnections, patterns, and context rather than isolated parts. You can catch up with the replay here - https://lnkd.in/eBPmh7Kh

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