I’m a big fan of Manager Tools. I’ve been listening to the podcast and recommending it to anyone, manager or not, for the last five years. A recurring topic in the podcast is Manager Tools co-founder Mark Horstman’s laws:
- It’s all about people
- More communication is better.
And there are more, and I invite you to listen – amazing material.
Working on the latest Typemock webinar, “Agile Starter Kit”, I realized that these two laws are basically fundamental for agile practices. They appear in this part of the agile manifesto:
“Individuals and interactions over processes and tools”
Once you understand this, the next step in leading change toward agile is this:
Be Nice.
That’s right: Not just unit tests, continuous build or demos. If you want to get people onboard, you need to be nice to them. Be respectful. Listen to them and communicate accordingly.
Once you understand this and start acting this way, you can actually take on processes and technologies. And you’ll be much more successful.
Below you can find the webinar and slides.
Agile Starter Kit from Gil Zilberfeld on Vimeo.