Listen More!

I was holding an hour training session for my BA’s and PO’s about Stories.  And while talking about Storytelling and one of the key elements is Listening.  It made me laugh and think of my 5 year old’s 2017 resolution she made in Kindergarten.

(Your Name Here) My hope for 2017 is to listen.

Tom Cagley during his presentation on StoryTelling at AgilePhilly’s AgileTour 2016 (http://www.agilephilly.com/events/agiletour-2016) made me think about Listening and how important it is.  So many times I hear Product Owners, Scrum Masters, Business Analysts and other telling their audience how good the product is that they just developed during Demonstrations.  The problem is the Demo is not about us showing how good we are, but about listening to the client / customer and getting their feedback.

Make sure you give your clients time to give you feedback and LISTEN to them.  They also need to feel allowed to give feedback, as they are the users.  Hopefully we are all sharing options way before Demo, so the customers can give us feedback long before we cut code.

Here is a shameless plug for Tom and his blog where he wrote about Beginning Agile: Active, Passive and Inattentive Listening (https://tcagley.wordpress.com/2016/03/15/beginning-agile-active-passive-and-inattentive-listening/)

I have to start writing little blogs on listening as I see it being a weakness in Team Dynamics.

Happy Listening,

Greg Mester