Transform Your Conversations, Transform Your Culture
Jeffrey Fredrick
Praise for this book
This is an important book. I am glad Jeffrey and Squirrel have written it, and I look forward to having a stack to "lend" (read:give) out.
Alistair Cockburn, coauthor of the Agile Manifesto and creator of the Heart of Agile
I think of this highly practical and immediately applicable book as the lost instruction manual to the most powerful and effective Agile tool we don’t even realize we have: Conversations. If you want to be successful with Agile, RTFM: Read This Fabulous Manual.
Alberto Savoia, Google's First Director of Engineering and Author of The Right It
Agile Conversations provides much needed guidance on how to have the key discussions that form the foundation for strong and resilient working relationships, as well as a toolbox full of techniques for troubleshooting when conversations go awry. Full of practical, real-world examples, this book is a must read for anyone who has ever been frustrated or puzzled by interactions at work.
Elisabeth Hendrickson, Technology Executive and Author of Explore It!
The number of conversations at a party doesn’t make it a better party; the quality of the conversations does. Many books have been written about improving process and product in companies. I’m so glad this book finally addresses the people aspect: Learn to ask the hard questions, leave your bias at the door, and improve your own communication with this practical guide. If it’s hard, do it more often!
Patrick Debois, Founder of DevOpsDays and coauthor of The DevOps Handbook
This book provides an engineer’s approach to monitoring, troubleshooting and debugging conversations. Squirrel and Jeffrey always come across as incredibly mindful listeners and thoughtful discussion partners, and now I know why. Heuristics such as the Question Fraction are amazing—at the same time simple and memorable and incredibly insightful. Read this book to turn your communication skills into superpowers.
Gojko Adzic, Partner at Neuri Consulting and author of Impact Mapping
If you’re looking for a practical framework and techniques that will help fix broken team communication and dysfunctional culture, then you should read Agile Conversations. Going beyond simple diagnosis, this handbook walks you through the Five Conversations you need to embrace in order to transform a broken culture into one that’s healthy and high-performing.
Paul Joyce, Founder and CEO of Geckoboard
Today, software organizations are transforming the way work gets done through practices like Agile, Lean, and DevOps. But as commonly implemented as these methods are, many transformations still fail, largely because the organization misses a critical step: culture and how people communicate.
Agile Conversations brings an updated, practical, step-by-step guide to using the power of conversation to build effective, high-performing teams to achieve truly Agile results. To advance your organization’s transformation, learn how to have productive conversations that overcome cognitive bias and fear.
Consultants Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick show readers how to utilize the Five Conversations to help teams build trust, alleviate fear, answer the “whys,” define commitments, and hold everyone accountable. These five conversations give teams everything they need to reach peak performance, and they are exactly what’s missing from too many teams today.
Stop focusing just on processes and practices that leave your organization stuck with culture-less rituals. Instead, unleash the unique human power of conversation.
What's inside
Start Talking — Learn from this practical step-by-step guide to unleash the unique human power of conversation.
Peak Performance — Discover the five conversations that will elevate your team's interactions and ability to work effectively.
Culture Change — Explore how mastering simple communication techniques can create a culture of transparency and trust.
All Levels — Anyone looking to elevate their (and their team’s) communication skills to meet wanted outcomes can benefit from this book.
Jeffrey Fredrick is an internationally recognized expert in software development and has over twenty-five years’ experience covering both sides of the business/technology divide. An early adopter of XP and Agile practices, Jeffrey has been a conference speaker in the US, Europe, India and Japan. Through his work on the pioneering open-source project CruiseControl, and through his role as co-organiser of the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference (CITCON), he has had a global impact on software development. Jeffrey’s Silicon Valley experience includes roles as Vice President of Product Management, Vice President of Engineering, and Chief Evangelist. He has also worked as an independent consultant on topics including corporate strategy, product management, marketing, and interaction design. Jeffrey is the coauthor of Agile Conversations . He is currently Vice PResident of Engineering at ION Analytics. He also runs the London Organisational Learning Meetup and is a CTO mentor through CTO Craft.
