Author Archives: Liz

On Real Options and Speculative Investments

Posted on September 8, 2017 by Liz

If you’ve read the awesome graphic novel, “Commitment”, you’ll know the rules of Real Options already: Options have value Options expire Never commit early unless you know why. There’s an additional rule which is sometimes added to this: Options have … Continue reading →

Posted in cynefin, real options | 1 Comment

Reflecting Reality

Posted on August 31, 2017 by Liz

One of the things I often do as a coach is help people to set up their visual boards, whether physical or electronic. Sometimes that can be surprisingly hard for teams to do without a bit of guidance, so I … Continue reading →

Posted in kanban, lean | 2 Comments

A Helping Hand

Posted on July 18, 2017 by Liz

This week, Sallyann Freudenberg and Katherine Kirk have been running a small summit on inclusive collaboration and neurodiversity – not just focused on diversity in our experiences, but in the very make-up of our brain. Sallyann suggested there was a … Continue reading →

Posted in cynefin, learning, life | 1 Comment

When Ignorance is Bliss

Posted on June 23, 2017 by Liz

I’ve written before about epiphany; that sudden sense of enlightenment that you get when you realise that you’ve discovered a new pattern in the world. It’s ironic that my favourite moment of epiphany was when I finally understood its opposite … Continue reading →

Posted in cynefin | 3 Comments

Yes, and…

Posted on March 5, 2017 by Liz

Imagine two actors standing on stage. “I like your penguin,” the first says. The other turns round, looking at the empty space where one might imagine a penguin could be following. There are two things that can happen. Perhaps the … Continue reading →

Posted in complexity, cynefin, deliberate discovery, real options | 9 Comments

Breaking Boxes

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Liz

I love words. I really, really love words. I like poetry, and reading, and writing, and conversations, and songs with words in, and puns and wordplay and anagrams. I like learning words in different languages, and finding out where words … Continue reading →

Posted in complexity | 7 Comments

How do you terminate a project in your org?

Posted on July 18, 2016 by Liz

We all know that when we do something new, for the first time, we make discoveries; and all software projects (and in fact change efforts of any variety) target something new. (You can find out what that is by asking, … Continue reading →

Posted in business value, capability red, deliberate discovery, real options | 1 Comment

On Learning and Information

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Liz

This has been an interesting year for me. At the end of March I came out of one of the largest Agile transformations ever attempted (still going, surprisingly well), and learned way more than I ever thought possible about how … Continue reading →

Posted in learning models, scale, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Correlated in Retrospect

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Liz

A few  years back, I went to visit a company that had managed to achieve a high level of agility without high levels of coaching or training, shipping several times a day. I was curious as to how they had … Continue reading →

Posted in complexity, cynefin | 4 Comments

BDD: A Three-Headed Monster

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Liz

Back in Greek mythology, there was a dog called Cerberus. It guarded the gate to the underworld, and it had three heads. There was a great guy called Heracles (Hercules in Latin) who was a demi-god, which means he would … Continue reading →

Posted in bdd, deliberate discovery, stories, testing | 4 Comments