Our founder explores the continued needed for International Women’s Day in elevating he hidden voices across the world that this day helps shine a light on.

An IWD article from the BBC says it plainly and without judgement: sexual violence used as a weapon of war, girls being denied secondary-school education and the continued use of women and their bodies as commodities. If there were ever an argument needed for continued efforts to highlight women’s issues, these are just a few.

We're diving into a series of Q&A sessions featuring our esteemed colleagues and friends from the region. Here Rebecca Hudson, Enterprise Agile Coach, kicks off our inaugural Q&A series. Join us as we ignite a spirit of knowledge sharing within our agile community in 2024!

The idea for this Q&A session came from a number of organic conversations with colleagues and friends around challenges we were facing in our day-to-day roles. At the heart of so many of these challenges seemed to be issues with agile adoption and maturity. Each challenge had its own flavour.

There are some key reasons why high EI is important for leaders. These may seem obvious however, I’ve seen too many times individuals promoted quickly up the ladder who have excellent professional acumen, but poor emotional agility and little self-awareness.

A highly capable leader who feels they are doing their job to the highest level of excellence can still fail themselves, their company and their team if they lack the essential skills of high emotional intelligence.

The main impediment to agile adoption is often the behaviour and mindset of executives and leaders in an organisation. There is a need to understand, embrace, and support agile principles to enable its successful adoption and reap its benefits. Here I’ve covered some of the impediments to a successful adoption of agile, which leaders should tackle when implementing agile ways of working.

As detailed in the excellent HBR article by Darrell Rigby, Jeff Sutherland, and Hirotaka Takeuchi ‘Embracing Agile’, innovation is what agile is all about.

In this article I summarise the six practices Rigby et al discerned through their study and analysis, that are crucial in capitalising on agile’s potential.

We’re at an exciting time of evolution in the Middle East economy. A time when businesses & governments must look to future-proof themselves and their people. Transforming a ‘workforce’ into a future-proofed talent-base fuelled by ongoing investment in upskilling and cross-skilling, can evolve businesses into learning organisations. This creates the right environment for innovation to future-proof companies.

I am part of the ‘Agile Industrial Complex’. However, I’ve always had the same frustration - knowing that what works will only be determined by listening to teams, and frequently seeing this not happen.

In this article I explore what is meant by ‘The Agile Industrial Complex’, and how we can shift the needle back towards the true principles of agile, and away from off-the-shelf models.

Why would teams buy-in to something that they haven’t helped shape? Especially when the benefits have not been made clear or worse, there are no clear benefits to them. In the context of agile adoption at a team level, or agile transformation at a department or company level, a culture shift is involved. This can be hard to define.

In this article I’ll look at some tools and approaches to support agile adoption through sensitive change management.

Agile is gaining increasing adoption throughout organisations. Agile methods have moved beyond just software development. However, there’s ongoing confusing as to what is meant by Agile Adoption vs. Agile Transformation and Digital Transformation vs. Agile Adoption or Transformation. In this post I’ll try highlight the differences and interrelationships between them, in simple terms.

There are a dizzying array of methodologies and frameworks which fall under the umbrella of Agile. Trying to dissect the frameworks and understand the subtle differences between each can be confusing. I’ve created some infographics to cut through the confusion and provide some context to the world of agile.

Rebecca explores the correlation between the commoditisation of people in business, to organisation’s failing to adopt agile. Catching up on ACN (#AgileCoachingNetwork) podcast episodes, I was inspired to write a piece after listening to their 20 May episode ‘What about the people!!!’.

Conflict in the workplace is inevitable, but it isn't always a bad thing! Being in SLT and heading up Agile Delivery teams, Rebecca has experienced conflict as a great way to work through important problems and issues. Equally, she’s seen it divide teams and negatively impact collaboration and morale. Discover the difference between constructive and destructive conflict.

The latest podcast episode from the Agile Coaching Network really resonates - 'HAS AGILE JUMPED THE SHARK?'. Explore how managing the amount of process vs. embedding agile mindsets / values should be a point of reflection for companies, to understand whether they’re getting it right.

Rebecca introduces her upcoming series on Emotional Agility and understanding the elements of emotional intelligence. I recently finished a 6 month contracting role with a technology consultancy. As part of my role as Agile Transformation Lead I undertook some internal Agile Coaching. Rather than focusing on simply agile as a practice, I wanted to explore softer skills coaching and leadership development.

Rebecca explores a tool to reframe risk and positively reshape the narrative for clients and stakeholders. As a Project Manager it is inevitable that you’ll be the bearer of bad news, either to clients, teams or management at some point in the agile delivery cycle. Whenever it happens it can be a thankless task. However, as an Agile Project Manager or Scrum Master, it’s likely that you love problem solving! This article explores a different way to frame risks and issues.

With teams likely to remain remote or distributed across regions, Rebecca looks at the benefits of using a team charter to focus and align group working. Working as part of a team is both difficult and rewarding. Every individual in a team brings with them particular skills, strengths and traits which can nurture collaboration or introduce conflict. This article explores the benefits of a team charter.

Rebecca explores the importance of an effective kick-off, with a focus on the human-centric, relationship-based factors which are essential to setting teams up for success.

Building trust & effective communication upfront, in any project or program kick-off is essential for setting the foundations for success. Whether its between a new team, stakeholders, clients or partner eco-system, understanding the nuances of trust and communication across cultures should be part of your kick-off activities.

Rebecca highlights the dangers of neglecting key kick-off activities. She explores the practical outputs of kick-off, alongside the human-centric, relationship-based elements which are essential to setting teams up for success.

Rebecca provides her tactics for shifting the needle. She recommends not to simply ‘do’ Agile but encode Agile into the DNA of your team. Companies in the UAE are hungry for transformation across their digital ecosystems. There is a significant point of failure which is about the perception that an organisation is Agile, when the reality is that they are ‘doing’ Agile but not truly being Agile.