Jessica Barnett on Sticking to Your Principles to Overcome Overwhelm

In Action with Wendy

Jessica Barnett is a Product Manager at a startup called Medivo. At Medivo, they’ve adopted Trello to organize just about everything, including their retrospectives. After seeing the positive impact of retros, there was company-wide adoption, starting with the c-suite. Not only has the company embraced some agile practices, the team has been able to influence business to reduce overwhelm, staying aligned with their top priorities.

Trello Retrospectives

See Jess’ post detailing their process

Its the one time the whole team is focused on improving our lives

Influencing Business

Retros pulled across company, starting with c-suite

Creating visibility on overwhelm

Many different ways to tell the same story

How can we ensure if this is the most important thing it is what we are focused on?

What worked

Demonstrated velocity improvements with focused efforts

Pushed back on requests

Gained clarity on top priorities

If you want us to do great work, this is the way we’re going to do it

Needed support to say “no”

VP of Technology saying “you present the facts, you drive home principles and I’ll make sure it goes okay” (and following through by defending the team)

Contract between business and technology agreeing to use Agile to manage development

Performance connected to celebration and investment in your people

If you believe in your principles, find ways, experiment with ways that you can communicate those principles and make it happen.