Culture, Ethnography, Grounded Theory and the Effectiveness of Stand-ups

Late last year (the end of 2016), Andy Parker and I were talking about a frustrating problem common to many senior people in teams: how to improve or positively affect the people we work with so that we were all happier and more effective? These discussions have lead me through one of the more intensive … Continue reading Culture, Ethnography, Grounded Theory and the Effectiveness of Stand-ups →

Culture-Driven Team Building

Since March 2017, Andy Parker and I have been studying the Culture Driven Team Building specialisation from the University of Pennsylvania (delivered through Coursera). The specialisation is composed of 5 different month-long courses. I have published blogs containing detailed study notes for all these courses. This post collects links to all those blog posts in … Continue reading Culture-Driven Team Building →

Fostering Innovation in Groups and Teams

I’m studying the course Creating a Team Culture of Continuous Learning on Coursera. These are my revision notes for week 4: Fostering Innovation in Groups and Teams. Introduction & Learning in Ambiguous and Uncertain Environments How do we balance what we don't know with what we do know? Organisations need to enable a learning environment: … Continue reading Fostering Innovation in Groups and Teams →

Developing Groups and Teams for Positive Organisational Impact

I’m studying the course Creating a Team Culture of Continuous Learning on Coursera. These are my revision notes for week 3: Developing Groups and Teams for Positive Organisational Impact. What disables organisational learning? We need productive spaces and accountability, but we need discovery spaces too: Doing space and discovery space Exploit vs explore Operations vs emergence … Continue reading Developing Groups and Teams for Positive Organisational Impact →

Diagnosing Strengths & Barriers to Learning on Teams

I’m studying the course Creating a Team Culture of Continuous Learning on Coursera. These are my revision notes for week 2. Diagnosing Problems in Groups and Teams We tend to think we bring together a group of people, and they will be high performing It doesn't always work! How can we identify the problems? Example: … Continue reading Diagnosing Strengths & Barriers to Learning on Teams →

Introduction to Framing and Systems Thinking

I’m studying the course Creating a Team Culture of Continuous Learning on Coursera. These are my revision notes for week 1. Framing, Reframing & Systems Thinking Framing and Reframing Metaphor: different camera lenses If you put on a telephoto lens, you're going to see something quite different to what you would see through a wide-angle … Continue reading Introduction to Framing and Systems Thinking →