Natalie Warnert

How to write an intro to Agile chapter? Here's my shot: Chapter 1 - What are Agile, Lean, and Lean Startups and How Do They Foster Innovation?

If you are an agile software development practitioner or have worked in the industry around these practices, you are free to skip ahead. This chapter is meant as an introduction to all things agile, lean, and product/service innovation for those who are unfamiliar with the terms, values, practices, and philosophy. It is a tough chapter to write as there are literally hundreds of books that…

Content Sharing and Attribution Isn't the Wild Wild West - be an ally and give credit to authors!

Where we find ourselves now, an internet full of content, it is second nature to share what we find with others. That’s the point of putting content online. We want it to be shared. We want to connect. We want to spread messages and generate conversation. Especially relevant now (era COVID-19) when we are stuck at home with only the internet to connect us. However, when we are sharing content in…

Name Your Trigger - Team Vulnerability Activity to establish a Minimum Viable Relationship and get your team through storming!

In order to build trust, we need to show vulnerability, we need to have trying experiences together, and maybe even get into trouble together (that is what my dad says about why my brother is still close to his high school friends). Vulnerability, however is hard to produce in a work environment without a real moment that causes it. We are taught that emotions are not supposed to be in the…

Why being replaceable is a GOOD thing

Being replaceable in work may not seem like a good thing. But I definitely think it can be. Those who disagree tend to think about replaceability in a negative sense. Who wants to think there is someone else out there that can do your job as well (or better) than you? A lot of this comes from a scarcity mindset: that there are only a set number of jobs and once they are taken that’s it. But new…

#askForPay instead of #payToSpeak

There’s been a movement around #payToSpeak conferences on Twitter and elsewhere, that is conferences where the speaker essentially ends up paying to speak there (travel expenses, time put into the talk, time not working when being at the conference etc.). I think that speakers should be paid, or they at least shouldn’t be going negative in budget to speak at a conference. Here’s my experience:

Wh…

How much money do you make?

I was taught asking someone how much money they made was a rude question. You just don’t do it along with talking about politics and religion and a myriad of other somewhat taboo things. But why? Equal pay day wasn’t that long ago and a contribution to the reason that women don’t get paid as much is because we don’t know that we aren’t…so let’s talk about it! I got the motivation from this great

Fighting fires doesn’t prevent the fire

I’ve written about this before in some form or another, I’m sure. But why is it that fire fighting is so attractive in relation to our work lives? Oh yeah, it’s that hero mentality…

Everyone likes to feel like they’re important and when we can fix a big problem that victorious feeling almost certainly releases some drug-like chemical in our brains that makes us feel good. Sure, we should feel…

Think about when you started in a new job or new department and the flood of acronyms that you heard. It was like people were speaking a different language and they pretty much were. I’m not saying acronyms are bad – they do have their places as mnemonic devices and to shorten things – but when they develop into a lingo that is unrecognizable to anyone outside the fold we have a problem.

I’m a…

I find it slightly humorous that I find myself in the agile field sometimes. Agile was and is about disruption to the norm; what we had gotten used to. When I think about my internal inclination, one of the pieces I’ve been trying to become more okay with is not having to always be in the “norm” or follow all the rules. As a teenager (like many I’m sure), I just wanted to fit in and only stand…

When Lack of Safety Kills Innovation and Drives Complacency and Distrust

In the wake of multiple tragedies in the world, where there seems to be no end in sight, I wanted to take a moment and address the lack of safety we’re likely all feeling. Personally, I feel like I cannot safely travel anywhere (which is an issue because I travel every week for work). There are dispassionate psychopaths around every corner, dictators fulfilling their own agendas through fear…

But it was the Perfect Storm! How to Unlearn your Learned Helplessness

“It was the perfect storm.” “That’s just the way things are here.” “That won’t work for us; we’re too different.” “It’s a catch-22.” “There’s too much history.” If you are hearing these phrases at your organization, chances are it may be suffering from learned helplessness. What is learned helplessness you ask? It’s basically when we have difficulty both identifying and unlearning bad habits. We…

Packing for a week+ in a carry on

My favorite activity is sleeping. Why, you ask? Because I’m lazy AF. People tell me I’m quick to get ready, and I am. I have figured out the most efficient ways to do so to maximize my sleeping time. But I’m not so great at packing and now that I’m on the road all the time, I need to get better at it. But guess what? Being a female is kind of a hard time packing-wise…so how do I make it all fit…

So what’s the big deal with carryover? Lemme tell you about WASTE

Talking to a team about carryover at a daily scrum meeting led me into a very uncomfortable confrontation with someone who already didn’t like me. Not sure why but I ascertained it had something to do with the unhealthy relationship between product and technology organizations and the fact that product was pushed by sales to make commitments on behalf of the teams that were essentially never met…

I want to talk to you about diversity…

So it’s been awhile since I’ve been active here and it was time to pick it up again. Let’s talk about diversity *everyone sighs uncomfortably and looks for the back button* – NO NO WAIT! Diversity isn’t what you may think it means. Let’s talk about what else it can mean and why it’s a big deal.

When we think of building diversity, we most often jump to needing people to look different. Oh,…