Async agile 1.0, is distributed agile 2.0!

This blog expands on the ideas from “The Async-First Playbook”. You can either browse through the posts using the grid below, or start at the very beginning. Alternatively, use the search bar below to find content across the site.

Culture, Leadership, Communication Sumeet Moghe Culture, Leadership, Communication Sumeet Moghe

How company cultures go rotten

When we leave cultural characteristics open to interpretation, we run the risk of creating toxic cultures. The loudest voices usually undermine diversity. It makes more sense for distributed organisations to do the boring work of defining culture. It isn’t as sexy as a secret sauce, but writing things up fosters a consistent and healthy culture.

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Leadership, Antipatterns, Management Sumeet Moghe Leadership, Antipatterns, Management Sumeet Moghe

A tale of externalised costs

Many decisions execs take for their employees, ignore externalised costs. Mike Hopkins of Amazon claims their RTO policy has “no data” to back it. Lyft CEO, David Risher can only advocate for snacks in the office, while batting for RTO. Meanwhile, employees and other stakeholders pay for such decisions through costs to their health, productivity and happiness.

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Leadership, Strategy, Facilitating change, Obstacles Sumeet Moghe Leadership, Strategy, Facilitating change, Obstacles Sumeet Moghe

The risk of async islands of excellence

In large organisations, it’s tough for a small team to cling to its own subculture for too long. It’s not impossible to have an ‘async island of excellence’! It’s just hard. I want to use this post to reflect on the challenges your async-first team could face. In the process, I want to explain why it makes sense for the entire company to eventually go async-first.

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Communication, Leadership, Strategy Sumeet Moghe Communication, Leadership, Strategy Sumeet Moghe

An executive's guide to asynchronous company communication

Communication is a big part of an exec’s role. In fact, many people would argue that if an exec isn’t communicating, what are they doing? In today’s post I want to demystify asynchronous company communication for the executive. If you’re leading a department, or your own company, think of this as your guide to effective internal communication.

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Obstacles, Leadership, Facilitating change, Ideation Sumeet Moghe Obstacles, Leadership, Facilitating change, Ideation Sumeet Moghe

5 superstitions we can't hang on to any more

Senior leaders are often victims to blind spots and corporate superstition. And just like in real life, superstition hurts at work as well. So, let’s examine some common superstitions we all face at work, with a critical lens. By the end of this post, we’ll know which of them hold up to logical scrutiny.

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Culture, Management, Leadership, Relationships Sumeet Moghe Culture, Management, Leadership, Relationships Sumeet Moghe

Don't let your virtual workplace become toxic

Every work model has its pitfalls. It’s not as if a remote workplace can’t go south. In today’s post I want to explore some anti-patterns I’ve seen in remote-first and “hybrid” organisations that can make your workplace toxic. When you know of these possibilities ahead of time, you’ll be able to pre-empt them and put the right guardrails in place for your team.

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Leadership, Management, People Sumeet Moghe Leadership, Management, People Sumeet Moghe

Manage your people with care

In an async-first culture, the role of a manager is crucial. If the company is the mother-ship, the manager’s the employee’s bridge to it. They should be the individuals that know the most about their people, their skills, abilities and strengths, their personalities and their aspirations. You need managers who lead with care. In this post, I want to address how you can show that care as a leader and a manager.

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Leadership, Strategy, Budgeting, Relationships, Cohesion Sumeet Moghe Leadership, Strategy, Budgeting, Relationships, Cohesion Sumeet Moghe

Smart money - spends that are worth their weight in gold

Depending on the level you operate at as a leader, you probably have some discretionary budgets available to you. When you spend that money, your company wants you to get the most bang for their buck. In this post, I want to explore four areas of expenditure that’ll make a big impact on your remote teams.

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Leadership, Strategy, Motivation, Culture, Cohesion Sumeet Moghe Leadership, Strategy, Motivation, Culture, Cohesion Sumeet Moghe

Foster a motivating environment for async agile

One sign of a healthy culture is that people feel motivated by the work they do. Yes, there’ll be good days and bad, but on the whole you want your people to enjoy the work they do. In today’s post, I want to examine autonomy, mastery and purpose as factors that help you create a motivating environment for the people you work with.

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Leadership, Management, Culture, Strategy, Cohesion Sumeet Moghe Leadership, Management, Culture, Strategy, Cohesion Sumeet Moghe

Create a culture for asynchronous work to thrive

As a leader, you’re responsible for much more than the mechanics of work. Depending on the size of your company you’re a custodian of culture, or the one who defines it, or someone in between. In today’s post, I want to share with you how you can foster a culture that supports async agile.

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Leadership, Knowledge sharing, Strategy Sumeet Moghe Leadership, Knowledge sharing, Strategy Sumeet Moghe

Here’s what you need, to “organise” serendipity and knowledge sharing

With the right systems and the right people in community management and curation roles, you can brew the perfect storm of “organised serendipity”. I daresay, that this can often work better than the proverbial water cooler meeting.

In this post, we’ll discuss how you can enhance your knowledge ecosystem by building on your existing collaboration stack. I’ll also go over how to create the right team of people to govern, curate and nurture that platform.

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