The Myth of Self-Organizing Teams

“For the first time in thirty years, I love my work. I wish you had come to help us decades ago!” – Mining Projects Shift Manager at Suncor.

Mishkin Berteig has been improving the lives of managers and their staff since 1995. Mishkin co-founded BERTEIG in 2004. Mishkin is committed to helping individuals, teams and organizations to transform their way of working and achieve Real Agility™.

Mishkin has assisted organizations of all sizes to make the transformation from traditional methods (or no method at all) to Agile methods (Scrum, Lean, Kanban, OpenAgile). Mishkin has helped with culture change, change management, executive management coaching, Agile management, Agile product, project and operations management, Agile teamwork and Agile engineering practices. Mishkin is a  primary author of the Real Agility™Program, BERTEIG’s solution for organizations to achieve higher levels of organizational agility.

Mishkin has developed and delivered Agile training both in public and in-house seminars for over 15,000 people around the world. Courses have been as short as three hour intensive seminars and as long as five day immersive boot-camps, and audiences have ranged from junior team members to senior executives of Fortune 50 organizations. Mishkin has been a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) since 2005 and is the longest-standing CST in Canada.

Mishkin writes regularly for the BERTEIG blog with hundreds of articles about management, agility, teamwork, efficiency and creating beautiful work environemnts. Mishkin is also the author of several books including the in-progress “Win As A Manager – Delivering Massive Results, Creating Beautiful Work Environments and Ending Stress”.

Leadership Coaching/Training Highlights:

• 2001: Advised the CIO of Charles Schwab, Geoff Penny, on Extreme Programming and Agile in the IT department as to how it may improve their existing Rational Unified Process implementation.
• 2003: Workshop for CTO Rich Freyberg and direct reports of Schwab Capital Markets on Agile methods, focus on XP. The highlight of this experience was telling Rich to “shut up” because he was constantly interrupting the proceedings. (We had a long pre-existing relationship before that event – I didn’t get fired.)
• 2004-2005: Consultant, coach and trainer at Capital One in Richmond Virgina. Worked closely with another consultant on a major assessment/report for the CTO Gregor Bailar and then worked with numerous senior managers as a coach and consultant. Also worked closely with a number of well-known agilists including Mary Poppendieck, Michael Hamman, Michael Spayd, and others.
• 2005-2006: Certified Scrum Master class for the Director and Senior Managers at Siemens, Trango division, co-trained with Jeff Sutherland. Followed up with them for the next 18 months as their Agile coach and trainer, working directly with their senior managers.
• 2006: Coach at RWDI working with the team on a Scrum adoption. A team-level crisis escalated to working with one of the VPs on a financial model to show the value of focus and rapid delivery.
• 2007: Custom training for Dan Lesage, Software Development Director at Adobe and his senior managers. Focus on solving change management problems.
• 2008: Lots of work with leaders and managers at Research in Motion (RIM) – BERTEIG got fired, eventually. Leadership didn’t enjoy looking at cultural issues in the organization. No names here, but it was a great learning experience for us to see how deeply culture matters in attempting to do a transformation.
• 2009: Another bad experience: delivered a private training for OpenText to the CIO Nicholas Oddson and his senior leadership team. We totally bombed it and were not invited back. Lots of learning here too.
• 2009-2011: Strategic consulting, executive presentations, Agile Coach Training for RBC and the newly-formed Agile Centre of Excellence.
• 2010: Training, coaching and consulting at Suncor in Fort McMurray. First major engagement in a non-software Agile Transformation. Worked with Darin Zandee, Superintendent responsible for 200 people on the mine site, and his senior managers. Included one-on-one leadership coaching for Darin.
• 2010-2011: Group leadership coaching and workshops for Cam Crosbie, AVP then CIO of Equitable Life, and his business peers. Focus on helping Cam and his peers function effectively as a leadership team in the context of an Agile Transformation.
• 2011-2014: Training, coaching and consulting at Schlumberger Beijing Geosciences Centre working with Pearl Chu, Technology Centre Manager, in Beijing. Included leadership coaching for Pearl, Agile Coach Training for senior and mid-level managers reporting to Pearl.
• 2012-2013: Leadership coaching and consulting over 18 months for Frank Leong, VP Business Technology and his colleagues including Michael O’Sullivan, President. Included a systematic leadership development program of our own design which has evolved over time to become the “Real Agility Leadership Track” and the “Real Agility Management Track”.
• 2013: Executive presentation on Agile Transformation for FreshBooks leadership team.
• 2014-2015: Multiple leadership presentations and workshops with Simon Palmer, CIO and his senior leadership team at LoyaltyOne. Focus on leading with integrity during their Agile Transformation.
• 2016: MAJOR HIGHLIGHT: Attended and received Leadership Circle Profile Certification™. The Leadership Circle system has informed our work with leaders ever since.
• 2016-2017: Focus on internal organizational development at BERTEIG and personal leadership development. Did no significant work with leaders in client organizations this year in order to focus on cleaning up our own house, so to speak.
• 2018-2020: Design and deliver a custom leadership program for Scotiabank over 18 months covering mindset, Agile methods, leadership development, lean thinking, community development, technical excellence, and organizational change. Roughly equivalent to an MBA focused on leadership and organizational agility. Delivered to a cohort of 21 senior and mid-level managers.
• 2019: Work with my own coaches to develop their leadership coaching ability, primarily focused on our engagement with Trader working with Steve Maidment, Chief Delivery Officer.
• 2021-2022: One-on-One management agility coaching for the senior leadership team of a global luxury brand in the hospitality industry.

Select Client List:

• Banking: Scotiabank, RBC, BMO, TD Canada Trust, CIBC, HomeTrust, Capital One, Charles Schwab, Key Bank
• Energy/Resources: Schlumberger, Bruce Power, Suncor Energy, Geosoft
• Insurance: Great West Life, Liberty Mutual, Equitable Ins., Empire Life, Economical Ins. Grp.
• Telecom: Ericsson, Blackberry, Siemens, Telus, Rogers, Bell, Nortel
• Media: Globe and Mail, Shaw Media, ZU, Canoe.ca, CBC, Glacier Media, Post Media, TV Ontario, Comcast
• Loyalty: LoyaltyOne, AIMIA, Points.com, Empathica
• Technology: Adobe, Blueprint, Freshbooks, Intuit, Irdeto, Kijiji, MyPlanet Digital, OpenText
• Education: Xello/Career Cruising, Desire2Learn, Queens University, University of Guelph
• Government: Goverment of Canada, Government of Ontario, City of Fort McMurray,
• Other: App Annie, Modernizing Medicine, Trader.ca, D+H, Workopolis, 407ETR, British Counsel, PHH, Ganz, RWDI

Certifications and Accreditations:

Mishkin has been trained by the gurus in the Agile movement including Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland, Mary Poppendieck, Esther Derby, and Mike Cohn.

Additionally, Mishkin has co-trained with or co-consulted with Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland, Mary Poppendieck, Sanjiv Augustine and Michael Hamman,

• Certified Scrum Trainer^®, Path to CSP Educator^®, CSP-PO, CSP-SM, SAFe Program Consultant
• ICAgile Authorized Instructor, ICAgile Certified Professional (ICP)
• Leadership Circle Profile Certified, Master of OpenAgile, Team Kanban Practitioner
• BSc, Computational Science

Testimonials:

An engaging, thorough look at best practices behind true product ownership and working within Scrum. Expert instruction that was never boring and full of insightful learnings. It goes without saying that Mishkin knows his stuff, and is eager to teach Real Agility and Scrum to the world. – Matthew Parkinson, Director of Digital Product Management, Investors Group/ IGM Financial 2019

Mr. Berteig is a wonderful trainer and presenter of the materials covered. His experience in leading discussions around the various concepts and facilitating exercises used to feel the effect of Scrum were appropriate in relation to the audience’ prior experience and knowledge of the topic. – Simonne Cormier, Training Development and Coordinator, Veterans Affairs Canada, 2019

Experience Summary

• Over 23 years practising, managing and coaching Agile Process and Development
• Over 14 years experience teaching Scrum (and Agile) in a classroom
• Over 11 years experience applying Agile outside of technology environments

Published Books

Other Interesting Facts about Mishkin Berteig

Mishkin has four children. His oldest is nearly 24 and his youngest is 12. Mishkin is, of course, extremely proud of his children who are all artists of various types… following firmly in the family tradition. Mishkin’s parents, step-parents and siblings are also mostly artists.

Mishkin worked for Peters Surveys Ltd. as a junior surveyor’s assistant in the late 80’s and early 90’s on and off. One of the big projects Mishkin assisted with was the Husky Oil Upgrader project just outside of Lloydminster, SK. Mishkin did both field work and site map calculation work for the grading of the site prior to construction.

Mishkin travelled to Belize on a one-month service project with a number of other youth in early 1990. Mishkin’s flights were eventful including a last-minute aborted landing due to a storm around Cancun. Mishkin travelled throughout Belize including Corazal, San Ignacio and Dangriga.

Mishkin has a few hobbies and past-times that generally follow in a 10-year cycle: custom Lego building, robotics, coin collecting, mathematics, and music composition. Of these, Lego and mathematics are currently at the fore of his attention.

Mishkin grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and loves that city very much. He hasn’t lived there for many years, but when he returns he often is overwhelmed by emotion as he visits favourite spots such as the University of Saskatchewan campus, the bridges and river valley, and the Broadway strip.

Selected Presentations

“Leadership Agility – Luck, Love and Truthfulness” – 20181011 – Agile North Meetup

“Agile Architecture Master Class” – 20180515 – Private Client

“Scrum vs. Kanban vs. ADKAR vs. Kotter – Which Is Best For You?” – 20171031 – Global Scrum Gathering Dublin

“Real Agility for Everyone” – 20170921 – Private Client

“Doubling Productivity with Real Agility” – 20170613 – Project Management Institute SWO Chapter

“Launching Agile Teams – The Skills Matrix” – 20161114 – Toronto Agile Conference