Navigating Politics in Agile or Lean Initiatives
summary
Claim: Agile and Lean practices alone often amplify politics when psychopathic behavior (about 3% baseline and higher among those with “management potential”) meets introvert avoidance, rapid change and legacy hierarchy. Uses concrete tools—Kanban visualisations, BDD/TDD, retrospectives—plus borrowed practices from Mojave Vipassana: cultivate equanimity for accurate observation, gain insight into context, choose interventions, and apply compassion plus sustained grit as experiments. Reports these combined approaches applied in workshops and projects reduce destructive politicking and increase buy-in.
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chapters (49)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:05About Katherine
- 2:13Navigating politics
- 4:00The power of politics
- 4:45Portfolio board transfer
- 5:10Programmer reduction
- 5:36Trust
- 5:47Tech Debt
- 6:10Politics
- 7:52My Tribe
- 9:35Rotational Hierarchy
- 10:02Specialists
- 10:54Traditional static structure
- 11:19Political science
- 11:59Corporate hierarchy
- 13:00psychopathic behavior
- 13:43the corporation
- 14:14hierarchy
- 15:04psychopathic leadership
- 16:07psychopathic behaviour
- 17:33waterfall
- 18:14introverts
- 20:19introvert sphere
- 20:50psychopathic selfinterest
- 21:28how have I dealt with it
- 21:48the whole works
- 23:04Mojave
- 24:02Cool Down Politics
- 24:12People are really different
- 24:39Help people gain equanimity
- 25:16Why equanimity
- 25:53equanimity
- 26:16inside
- 26:50understanding
- 27:51equanimity doesnt instigate action
- 28:10add something to instigate action
- 28:23compassion
- 30:05empathy vs compassion
- 30:50junk food
- 31:16empathy
- 31:39solution success
- 32:07grit
- 32:30fun
- 33:02Joy
- 33:34Lance
- 33:49Summary
- 34:25Its Not Your Fault
- 34:47Maybe Its Not Your Fault
- 35:09Stance vs Resilience
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