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The Key to Avoiding Procrastination If you have a task you've been putting off, dividing it into small chunks is a good idea. But the real key to overcoming procrastination is just getting started. Once you begin, you’ve built momentum and are likely to keep going, doing a little more until you’ve made good progress—and maybe even completed the job. |
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The 5 Levels of Listening: Which Does Your Team Practice? The ways we listen—and not listen—are detailed in the Five Levels of Listening model, which goes from most distracted to most focused. Ideally, we’d all practice the fifth level: empathic listening, where we try to understand what matters to the person who is speaking, delaying our problem-solving and responsiveness. |
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The Spectrum of Negotiation: Using the Right Skills for the Context Negotiation occurs on a spectrum, and different tactics apply in different situations. For instance, you’d treat a one-time transaction differently from an ongoing client relationship you want to nurture. Have you developed effective negotiating skills? Are you applying negotiating skills appropriate for the context? |
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Recognizing and Reversing a Culture of Blame A culture of blame is one in which people are reluctant to accept responsibility for things that go wrong. Finger-pointing becomes an automatic response. It's nearly impossible for one person to reverse a culture of blame alone, but it is possible to demonstrate on a small scale what appropriate behavior looks like. |
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The Dangers of Underplanning in Your Agile Projects Agile coaches often stress the importance of not overplanning because work is later changed or never done at all. But consequently, many teams then fall victim to underplanning and aren't equipped for a successful project. Here are some planning activities that are critical to do before your sprints start. |
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Self-Organization: What Your Scrum Team Can Learn from Kindergarteners Some kindergartens are experimenting with new approaches to teaching, including letting students form groups to accomplish tasks that interest them, which also allows them to support and engage with each other. This is self-organization, the heart of Scrum. If five-year-olds can do it, your agile team likely can, too! |
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The Benefits of Thinking on Your Feet—Literally Most articles and research about avoiding prolonged sitting and doing more work while standing have focused on the physical health benefits of periodic standing, particularly if you have a desk job. But there are also mental benefits. Standing and walking improve attention, memory, and other cognitive skills, too. |
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Scrum Isn’t the Only Path to Agility Scrum can really help a team to become more agile. But that doesn’t mean it is the only way for a team to become agile. Agile is all about self-organizing teams collaborating to find what works for them, so if a nontraditional approach helps your team get started, then you’re just forging a new path to agility. |
