How It Works
Personal Agility
Most personal agility frameworks are rooted in traditional Agile and therefore share many of the same techniques and practices. The Cobiant Personal Agility Framework™ stands apart from others because it also includes elements acquired from Scaled Agile as well as various personal productivity and self-development resources. But possibly the most differentiating characteristic of our framework is it was designed specifically for those that aren’t fulfilled in their current career and want to make a shift to something that lights their fire.
Follow our four step process described below, and start making a positive change in your life today.
01/
Envision
Define Your Vision
The decisions you make reveal a lot about you as a person. They reveal the course you are on in life, or perhaps the lack of one. They reveal the things that are most important to you… or do they? Do the decisions YOU make and the actions YOU take align with the person you want to become or the things you want to accomplish in life?
A clearly defined vision is an important component of personal agility. If defined well it can serve as a valuable guide when making both short and long term decisions. What little time you may have right now to devote to making your dreams come true could be spent more efficiently. A personal vision can be an important tool to keep you focused on what matters most.
Four Ways to Define Your Vision
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Vision Statement
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Vision Board
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Postcard from the Future
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Personal Guiding Principles
Download our FREE eBook to learn more. We also welcome you to apply to join the Cobiant Investor Network™ to take advantage of FREE agility coaching. This offer is only for a limited time, so join today.
02/
Focus
Utilize Proven Tools
No more to-do lists! Why? A to-do list gives equal weight to every item, is task (not goal) oriented and usually isn’t prioritized. When you work from a to-do list, you typically don't execute everything based on an established, formal standard. Instead, the list is usually completed in the order that provides instant gratification or requires the least amount of effort. You can work relentlessly all day long on a to-do list and feel like you really accomplished something. But in truth, you probably didn't complete much of anything that was of real value; at least anything that would contribute to your long-term vision.
In contrast, a Kanban Board can be an amazing way for you to visualize your goals and workflow. Think of it as a more sophisticated, yet highly effective, alternative to a to-do list. It is a proven tool that has been in use around the world for decades; long before Agile.
While Agile was created to help TEAMS of people accomplish great things in a short period of time. Our personal agility framework was created to help YOU accomplish great things in a short period of time. The Cobiant Personal Agility Framework™ was purposefully built for the Cobiant audience, leverages the very best of both Agile and Kanban and was designed to help you maintain focus on your long-term vision.
Download our FREE eBook to learn more. We also welcome you to apply to join the Cobiant Investor Network™ to take advantage of FREE agility coaching. This offer is only for a limited time, so join today.
03/
Produce
Become an Agilist
As you implement the Cobiant Personal Agility Framework™ you will begin to:
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clearly define your goals and what is needed to meet them
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routinely refine, reprioritize and realign as needed to stay on track
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stop waisting time on things that don't move you closer to completing your objective
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become much more efficient with your time and energy
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continually produce results that support you on your path to meeting your long-term vision
Agile concepts are not overly complicated, but getting to the point where you can implement them well will probably take some time. As you gain experience you will eventually discover you have made a subtle shift from "doing" agile to "being" agile. Now, as a true agilist, you will begin to enjoy a significant boost in productivity.
Download our FREE eBook to learn more. We also welcome you to apply to join the Cobiant Investor Network™ to take advantage of FREE agility coaching. This offer is only for a limited time, so join today.
04/
Launch
Do What You Love
Congratulations! You've implemented Personal Agility and are making positive changes in your life! If you have a few passive investments in place too, then you are well positioned to step away from your old career and to go ALL IN on your new.
What others have to say about doing what you love...
"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."
- Steve Jobs
"If you have the courage to do what you love, you are bound to succeed."
- Vaishali Gong
"Let the beauty of what you love, be what you do."
- Rumi
Download our FREE eBook to learn more. We also welcome you to apply to join the Cobiant Investor Network™ to take advantage of FREE agility coaching. This offer is only for a limited time, so join today.
Personal Agility
Frequently Asked Questions
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What is the difference between a Story and a Task?Various agile frameworks, and agile software solutions, aren’t always consistent on the Story/Task/Subtask hierarchy. This can certainly lead to some confusion. Within the context of the Cobiant Personal Agility Framework™... A Story uses words to describe an objective that (if met) would be effective in reaching a goal. It is written in a format that succinctly captures the "who", "what" and "why" of a request. A Story focuses on the user as the subject of interest and are value centric. While Stories are about definition, tasks are about implementation. Tasks answer “how” the Story will be completed, should be outcome oriented and are typically sized so that they require no more than a day or so to complete. Our framework doesn’t use Subtasks.
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What is context switching and why should it be avoided?Context switching (a.k.a. multitasking), depending on the number of activities you juggle at once, can consume up to 80% of your productivity. While the immediate cost of context switching may seem small, the compounded impact can be enormous. This concept applies to any sized body of work.
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What is a WIP limit and why does it matter?While context switching kills productivity, there is power in sustained attention. Work in Progress (WIP) limits are used to define a maximum amount of work that can be executed at one time (i.e. in parallel). If followed, WIP limits are a great way to improve overall productivity.
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How does your personal agility framework define a body of work?As you would find with traditional and scaled agile solutions, the Cobiant Personal Agility Framework™ includes Epics, Stories and Tasks. But in an effort to simplify the framework and design it to work better at a personal level, our definitions and the way we use them are slightly different. An Epic describes a measurable goal. It represents a large body of work that can be broken down into a number of objectives called Stories. Epics should always align with your personal Vision. A Story describes an objective, requirement or small project written from your personal perspective that usually contributes to the completion of an Epic. Stories briefly describe what you want to do and why you want to do it. A Story should be written in a way that will help you estimate the work needed to complete the objective. A Task is the smallest decomposed step required to complete a Story. Tasks should be outcome oriented and since they describe an action they often begin with a verb.
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Does your Personal Agility Framework provide sizing guidelines?Agile is a framework not a methodology. Agile purest would suggest sizing should be completely up to the team, or in this case, the individual. With that being said, most of our audience is new to these concepts and as such probably would appreciate a starting point. Therefore, our recommendation for starting out is as follows: Several tasks could be required to complete a Story and should be sized small enough that you could complete one or more each day. A Story should be sized so that it takes no longer than a week or two to complete. Typically, you would never commit to more than a few Stories over the course of a single week. Epics should be sized much larger with the expectation that no more than two or three would be completed each quarter. As you gain more experience with the framework you should feel free to stretch and shrink these as needed for your particular situation.
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What is the 80/20 rule?The 80/20 rule (a.k.a. Pareto Analysis) is a technique used to narrow down the number of actions that produce the most significant overall effect. The 80/20 rule leverages the principle that 20 percent of time and effort spent usually produces 80 percent of the desired output. The message here is that you should focus your effort only on activities that produce the greatest value. For example, don’t waste time surfing the internet or messaging friends unless it truly helps you meet your goals.
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What does it mean to split Stories, and should I do it?"If you find that some of your Stories would produce a lot of value but are prioritized lower in your backlog because they are large, you may consider splitting them into two or more smaller Stories. After, try reprioritizing your backlog of Stories and you may find at least one of them ranks higher. This is a great exercise to help you to remain focused on the most important portion of your original Story first. Later, as you add more and more Stories to your backlog, the portion of the original, larger Story (now captured in a smaller Story) might not be important enough to complete after all. If you follow our prioritization rules you will naturally prioritize your smaller, higher value Stories at the top of your backlog. In turn, you will work/complete your higher value objectives first.
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