EDITORIAL
* * * BEING EDITED * * *
* * * TO BE PUBLISHED IN NOVEMBER * * *
Six weeks ago, a Spanish broadcasting station contacted us to schedule an interview.
We found it interesting that the media station was not in/from the Agile space and had nothing to do with technology. Instead, they are in the political and business arena –a think-tank type organization.
(However,) What did catch our attention was the closing argument they used when they first contacted us: “Hemos seguido agile-thoughts por algunos meses. Casi todos y cada uno de los artículos tiene el potencial para cambiar el curso de organizaciones y de las personas que trabajan en ellas. La publicación es una herramienta grandiosa para cualquier tipo de empresa, de cualquier tamaño. Es difícil creer que sea gratis y que su contenido sea absolutamente honesto, puro y sin patrocinios, por ende, sin sesgo.”
[…”We have followed agile-thoughts for a few months. Almost every single article has the potential to alter the course of organizations as well as the people working there. The publication is an impressive tool for any type of organization, of any size. It is difficult to believe that it is free and that its content is completely honest, pure and not sponsored, therefore, without any bias.”…]As usual, some questions were received in advance while others were answered on the fly.
- How do you think Agile initiatives differ across continents?
- How religious and social structures affect the implementation of Agile practices?
- How geographical location influence openness towards running experiments and tolerance towards failure?
- To what degree the meaning of words such as ‘transformation’ and ‘value’ change between Asia and North America, Africa and Europe?
One set of questions that became particularly challenging had to do with “favorites.” “What is your favorite article so far?” “What’s the best topic featured since the inception of agile-thoughts?” “What piece made you smile when you received it?”
After revisiting each magazine’s issue, holding conversations, debating a number of times and even setting two voting systems, we realized we were unable to build a favorite list:
- Most of the articles had at least one amazing insight that placed them in the list.
- Every writing offered a bold, powerful perspective worth it to be recognized/prized.
So, instead of building the list by ourselves, we decided to send a survey to 2,000 of agile-thoughts’ friends and readers asking about their favorite articles so far. Here are the results…
83 percent (1,662 people to be exact) answered the survey. 96% of the articles published until September 2021 were mentioned in the answers. In no particular order, the nine most voted articles were:
- Why Just Collaborate, Deliver, Reflect, Improve? | Dr. Alistair Cockburn | USA
- Unplanned Work During a Sprint | Allan Kelly | UK
- Heretics, Revels and Change Agents | Carmen Medina | Puerto Rico
- Five Myths to Break | Karen Eber | USA
- Waves, Surfing and Agile | Mattia Rapisarda | Italy
- How Agile We Are | Fernando Cuenca | Canada
- The Journey to Self-Organization | Paweł Słowikowski | Poland
- Dismantling Hierarchy: Easier Said than Done | Sriram Narayan | India
- The Myth of Resistance to Change | Julie Bright | USA
Since everything and anything around Agile implies the process of learning, unlearning and learning again, a question about ‘how we learn’ came into play.
“Cuál es la principal característica común que ha visto a lo largo de los cinco continentes en relación con la manera como aprendemos, no solo como individuos sino como organizaciones?”
[…“What is the main commonality you have seen across continents related to the way we learn, not only as individuals but also as organizations?”…]
Regardless all the possible differences we might have as human beings –whether cultural, social, political, religious or geographical– two aspects stood out at the top of the “commonality list”:
- The power of stories => listening to other’s real, practical experiences.
- The act of doing => whether it is repetition, experimenting, taking notes, sharing or teaching/mentoring.
Interestingly enough, those two aspects were part of the original intention behind agile-thoughts:
- Unpolluted stories: so far, we have striven to share “stories from the trenches” –insights, epiphanies and advice from passionate practitioners to passionate practitioners.
- Idea exchange: this month, we are launching a feature that allows us to exchange insights, enrich conversations and learn from each other.
In fact, this new feature aligns with agile-thoughts’ readers petition raised last month: “It would be interesting and useful to have the ability to post comments, ask questions to the authors and raise issues to the community.”
At that time, we mentioned that our challenge was about managing uncontrollable spam and undesirable advertising while keeping the platform as open as possible. The chosen solution, supported by the vast majority of agile-thought’s community, was to include a “one-time signup”: as simple as possible, just enough to avoid spam and advertising effectively.
Starting with this November’s edition, we have included two buttons at the end of each article:
- One takes you to the “comments section” –to read and publish posts related to the article.
- One takes you to the “general forum section” –to access the list of articles with active comments.
Take advantage of it: use it to raise your hand, bring issues, propose topics, make comments, agree or disagree with author’s perspectives, and challenge yours and other’s assumptions.
Can we count with your support? Three simple ways:
- Thank the authors for their thoughts,
- Share your thoughts on the topic, or
- Post your favorite sentence or insight from the writing.
Enjoy it!
Useful? Interesting? Inspiring?
Share it!
The best gifts become bigger when we have the opportunity to share them. If an article, a paragraph or just a sentence resonates with you, use it for your personal and professional growth…and multiply it. Spread the word.
Tell your colleagues, former students, clients, teams and friends about agile-thoughts.
Use the opportunity to:
- Reconnect with old friends.
- Include a note in your newsletter.
- Start conversations in social media.
- Provide good news to the people around you.
LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook Slack, email and a picture through a text message are nice ways to say,
“Hello, I saw agile-thoughts and thought about you!”
If you believe what we believe, pass this gift along … and enjoy it!
2021 © Virginia, USA | Bogota, Colombia | Madrid, Spain
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means.
Individual pieces –including charts, graphs and diagrams– are protected by copyright as collective works or compilation under the copyright laws of the United States of America and other countries, they are strictly for personal use, and cannot be used for commercial purposes without the individual author’s written authorization.