Happy new year Reader!!!

I hope you had a well-deserved downtime.

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We’re kicking off this agile circle taking stock of your skills.

💡 Why is this important?

Because most Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters go by as busy as their teams, jumping from problem to problem and do not look at their careers with proactive eyes.

In the domain of agile leadership, you are the sum of your actions. Neglecting personal growth means missing out on a tremendous opportunity, as you are your safest canvas to experiment and evolve.

As I mentioned in the latest blog post (LINK ) the skills required for success in 2024 and beyond as someone leading agile teams became a lot more elevated. And that’s good news!

To expand on that for you, I'll share three simple steps for you to take actionable stock of your skills. All you need is some pen and paper and set aside 30 to 40 minutes.

[Note 🔥 Intensify is how you can take the exercise up a notch depending on your time and energy commitment for this exercise.]

Lets dive in!

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STEP 1 - DEFINE AND MEASURE YOUR SKILLS:

First, define the domains to stake stock in.

In the blog I've outlined a comprehensive list in areas such as Agile, Coaching, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Change Management, and Business and Domain expertise. But feel free to use any three to five domains that resonate with you in your career. Keep it focused; more domains mean more complexity. So, keep it at 5 skills or less.

Then, score each skill on a scale of 1 to 5 stars⭐, or 1 to 10 (or 1 to 100).

🔥 Intensify:

If you're up for a deeper dive, list no more than ten sub-skills within each domain that you believe define excellence for you. Grade your level of knowledge and comfort with each sub-skill. For example, you could subdivide coaching in Listening, Asking powerful questions, Presence, Sponsor management, etc.

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STEP 2 - PLOT YOUR SKILL LEVEL AND ANALYZE IT:

You hear that making evidence-based decisions are all that rage in agile nowadays. Maybe you even helped a few teams and leaders do it. So… leverage this approach for your own growth now.

Create a visual representation—be it a circle resembling the Leadership Circle™ , a spider chart, a colorful graph, or a heatmap.

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Choose what resonates with you; the visuals, even if just the numbers, will offer valuable insights. Are you consistently a 3/5 across all skills, or is there a skill where you find yourself at 2/10 or soaring at 8/10?

🔥 Intensify:

For a deeper dive, ask yourself some probing questions:

• Am I Balanced or Unbalanced?
• Does the skill I scored lowest/highest surprise me?
• Is this realistic, and what data supports my assessment? Would those who know me well agree?
• How will acquiring or improving this skill impact my current and future personal or professional development?

This last question is pivotal. Suppose you identify a skill where you feel weaker. In that case, understanding its importance and envisioning its contribution to your ongoing and future development becomes a critical part of this analytical process.

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STEP 3 - CHART YOUR GROWTH ROADMAP:

Now, we move to Step 3, where you take the reins of your growth journey with ownership and accountability. It's easy to halt at Step 2, feeling like you have insights into your current state and where you want to go.

But just as a team won't deliver based on mere "insight," leaving your career to chance isn't a strategic move. It's time to create a roadmap with a clear vision: NOW | MAYBE | WON’T. That’s right. You will be selective to the max. So you will also make sure to filter out things from your growth roadmap.

Utilize your preferred prioritization and planning mode—time to get a bit meta and leverage all that agile knowledge you possess.

Remember, the NOW in the roadmap shouldn't extend beyond 3 months or 12 weeks or 90 days. Why? Because peering too far into the future becomes a blur. You can’t possibly see that far well enough to devise steps you can confidently commit to take.

You can decide you will read a book, a blog post even, or discover a few techniques and APPLY everything you learn in the upcoming short term NOW. To not leave you hanging, I will obviously give you suggestions!

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• Agile: stay tuned to the upcoming blog posts as this is the year of Simple Agile. But if you are impatient you could start with simple things like are you used to see waste or how do you know how to help your team get faster?
• Coaching: know ONE coaching model inside and out. GROW is perfect for individual and team performance and problem solving. Or maybe you wan to grow your gravitas and fight the urge to try and be nice or save face (yep, it's a skill).
• EQ: I’ve come across a book that some of my coachees have really enjoyed to grow their EQ. But it could be as simple as start filtering your communications using the SCARF model.
• Change management: one of the most underrated books I’ve ever read was Esther Derby’s 7 Rules for Positive Change; I cannot recommend it enough as it's about making the complex simple.
• Business and domain: if your domain is Tech, one example could be DevOps. This concept is so old, so required, and yet so many coaches lack proper understanding on how to help teams organize in that way. Or you could go simple: commit to consume one publication online or in print, free, or otherwise in your domain. Stay on top of what the trends and insights are for 2024 in your industry and you're already ahead of the curve!

To refine the tactics in your roadmap, experiment answering these questions:

• Do I have a plan for consistent practice or application of this skill in real-life situations?
• Who can I seek guidance or feedback from as I work on growing this skill?
• What strategies or techniques have I found effective in the past for acquiring new skills, and how can I apply them to this specific skill?
• How will I celebrate or acknowledge milestones achieved in my journey to grow this skill?

This will get you to craft a roadmap that aligns with your vision and sets the course for your intentional and dynamic growth.

🔥 Intensify:

Define your leading AND lagging indicators.

A lagging indicator shows where you are as far as results. My body measurements. A leading indicator shows where you are as fast as execution. How many calories I eat in a day or how many times I exercise in a week.

Both are important, but most people forget to measure execution, the leading indicators. Suppose you are not getting the expected results? You won’t know if it’s because of poor choice of activities (and you’ll need to change the tactics you put in your roadmap) or if you are simply not executing accordingly, maybe skipping almost all necessary activities you set out to do!

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IN CONCLUSION

Now that you've taken the insightful journey of skill assessment and analysis, what's the next step if you find yourself balanced or have multiple skills to grow? In true agile fashion, the answer lies in prioritization. Opt for the power of focus by selecting ONE skill at a time.

Whether you decide to work on each skill per quarter or per month, define the duration that aligns with your pace. This way, in a year, you'll witness remarkable growth. Trying to tackle all skills simultaneously might leave you bewildered by year-end, questioning the true status of your progress.

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And voilà! That’s how you take control of your agile career growth in this year or simplicity and clarity that I trust 2024 will be for you.

I hope you found the exercise valuable!

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Feel free to drop me a word sharing the areas you'd like to grow more—I'm genuinely interested! Also, let me know if there's a specific aspect you'd like me to delve deeper into either here on the mailing list or through upcoming blog posts. Your input fuels our collective growth, and I'm eager to tailor future content to your evolving needs. Until then, here's to your continuous growth and success! 🥂🎉

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I hope you are having a wonderful day!

Cheers,

P

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