Agile transformations can be very laborious and expensive in terms of time and money. What if I told you that you can short-circuit the process and perform your transformation in the blink of an eye? Did I get your attention? Keep reading. Agile transformations are simple, so I can think of only three reasons for
Continue readingEvil Coach
Enter The Target Sergeant
Hi there, it’s been a while since you last heard from me, I know. I have to admit it, I’ve been feeling lost for some time now. Since our company adopted Agile, I haven’t felt at home. People around me started thinking, took initiatives, started to talk about building a “culture”. I felt lost as
Continue readingUsing the 7 deadly sins to motivate your workforce
So your organisation is going ”agile” and talking about ”collaborations” between teams? You, as the big boss, are starting to feel powerless and not in control of the efficiency of YOUR teams? Let me give some tips on how to turn that around so all progress can be traced back to you. I mean, as their mighty leader, you do deserve all the credit for their work.
You are SAFe with me
In my quest to expand my growing Evil Empire (oh you call it a company? you can’t handle the truth…) I finally found the right tool for the job. How long haven’t I been searching for a tool to finally bash in the heads of our obnoxious Agile people? The same ignorant hamsters who never seem to understand their own good (me!). Well, I finally found it. It’s SAFe. The guy who invented that name is a genious!Continue reading
Competivation – Motivation through competition
I assume you are familiar with the old truth that competition spurs motivation and fear; two tremendously powerful mental states. Let me introduce my new concept that leverages both: Competivation.
It comes in two flavors, external competivation and internal competivation. They complement each other and will boost efficiency, and keep everyone on their toes at all times.
NEINification – training your organization to achieve nothing
Reign by terror has been long known. But dictators are too short lived I’m afraid. What a true master knows, is how to tame an organization so bad it fails to achieve.. anything, without officially saying no. Look at Berlusconi – a master in action!
Here’s the Evil Coach top ten of how to make sure every initiative fail – without ever having to say no!
Look busy
Not happy with your last pay raise? Time to pay attention! Bosses don’t pay attention to what you do, they pay attention to how much you do. Nothing beats a bosses bragging rights of saying “my evil coach works 24/7. All I see from you is empty desks and Nintendo”. If you want a raise,
Continue readingEvil Coach LIVE! “Maximize the Teams Performance”
During the conference Agila Sverige 2013, I – the Evil Coach – made my first public appearance. I gave a lightning talk on how to maximize the team’s performance. The room was filled to the brim. The talk ended with standing ovations which were immediately followed by an early termination of the conference since no one could possibly
Continue readingDivide & Conquer
Agilist these days don’t recognize the true value of proper design. It takes a master to understand the subtle details that make your IT department’s self confidence melt away faster than ice in Schwarzenegger’s pants. It’s all about design. Interior design.
Cut staff, cut salaries, gain power
The number one factor of power is the fear factor. Fear is essential to keep the resources kissing your feet.
There are of course many ways to invoke fear and I will give you my pro tip here: fire the worst 10% every year. “Worst” here refers to obedience, not performance, hell no. Firing a well paid performer cuts salary costs more, so that is just a bonus.
Power Estimation
Why do you think projects always are late? That’s because they are designed to be late. But I’ll let you in on a secret: late projects are run by wimps. Unstoppable projects are run by masters. Welcome to the philosophy of power estimation.
You see, estimation isn’t about guessing how long a project will take, it is about getting power. More budget = more power. The best way to get more budget is to leverage the fear of failure by insisting on perfect estimation.
The beauty with estimation is the more people you ask, the bigger the estimation gets. So ask lots of people. Use historical data to cross reference how much off a project can get and grow your estimation by π. Feel the power now?
Retrospective protocol for finding the whining
Those agile geeks think it is important to have so called retrospective meetings so that they can improve. But they should improve when we tell them to, right?
However, a tip to use if they persist in having those meetings during office hours, is to have some of your allies present and write a protocol and report to you. Video cam is even better.
The Fake Burndown Ruler ™
Order the Evil Coach’s Fake Burndown Ruler ™ TODAY! With this brand new innovative plastic ruler you can now help your team create awesome Sprint Burndowns. Every day! Every sprint!
It’s fast, it’s cheap and as a bonus you get rid of some “waste”. The Evil Coach’s Fake Burndown Ruler ™ makes the daily estimation of remaining work unnecessary.
The Scrum Master no longer needs to do the painstaking exercise of manually adding up the hours on all the post-its. Simply hold up the ruler on your chart and draw you burndown! It’s that simple! If you are lucky, the Daily Scrum is over in less than 90 seconds.
Why You Need a Tool for Collecting Bugs
It is important to collect all bugs, or TR for Trouble Report as some call it. You will learn that some of those creepy agilists have a tendancy to fix bugs immediatley instead of collecting them.
Pleased to meet you
Hi there, scouting the enemy, are we? This agile thing is spreading like the flu and the resources are starting to notice. Soon they’ll be out of control. We can’t have that, can we? Fret no more, this blog is here to rescue managers like you, who appreciate command and control. If you can’t win a war with a strategy, then it is not worth considering.
I will provide you with some handy tips to counter the agile movement before it gets out of hand. We don’t want to be fired, we want to be feared!