Chris Boys Specialist

Radical Transparency isn’t about exposing people — it’s about elevating teamwork. In Agile, DevOps, and DevEx, performance isn’t a solo act — it’s only ever about the team. At Umano, we’ve learned with our customers that Radical Transparency isn’t about monitoring or micromanaging. Projecting this intention or energy will…

In high-performing teams, it's easy to get swept up in the momentum of shipping, scaling, and solving. But when work consistently spills into nights and weekends, even the most passionate teams can start to burn out. At Umano, we believe sustainable performance starts with awareness. That’s why we’re excited to introduce…

Metrics are powerful—but only with a ‘growth mindset’ intention – that is to elevate, optimise, unlock and empower. When the intention comes from fear, they can be weaponised, undermining trust, demotivating teams, and distort decision-making. Here are 10 anti-patterns, or misuses to watch out for and call out when you see…

Enough said. Thank you @SethGodin. Here's the trick: instead of scanning the list and seeing which most relate to team mates NOT doing, how about a reframe, and ask yourself which aspects you may need to level up on for yourself. Feeling really brave? Ask your team which aspects they collectively think they're lagging on…

January is here, and with it comes the promise of a fresh start—a chance to reflect, reset, and reimagine what’s possible. As individuals, many of us embrace this opportunity through New Year’s resolutions, setting intentions to improve aspects of our lives. But how often do those intentions stick? And how often do they…

“God he loves the sound of his own voice; just doesn’t shut-up!” “Why bother saying it? They won’t listen anyway.” “They won’t do anything about it. I’ll just shut up, get it done and get on with what I’d rather be doing.” How well are we fostering communication, online and offline? Are one or two people dominating? Does…

An advisor commented to me about why we’re still so afraid culturally of metrics. “Data weaponization” I was told. There’s clearly a lot of wariness in society about data. Its security, ownership and intended application. The shadows of discrimination and bias, manipulation of context to contextualise results, surveillance…

Continuous Improvement (😔 Sigh). Well, yes, it’s continuous, i.e. it doesn’t stop. Sometimes the act of ‘improvement’ can feel relentless 😩 rather than freeing 😆. Learning loops ➰ are hard, because they require facing up to facts and taking action in response. The best thing about them though, and this we know and see for…

How do you team? Are you intentional by design? Or have you stumbled into it and allowing status quo and circumstance to define your success? What’s your team’s shadow side🌗? ‘How Teaming Supercharges Collaboration’ from Insead offers a pithy nudge. ☠️ In short, blockers to success include prioritising self over peers,…

I saw a definition of Throughput yesterday: "maximising the amount of product or service that our organisation delivers within a specific period." 🎯 A measure of Progress At Umano.tech, we think of Progress as an agility outcome, an attribute of high performance. We group Throughput with other metrics such as Completion…

Has anyone else noticed that closing out of this year is so different to the comparative years prior to COVID? Today is the last ‘office-working’ day before most offices close for Christmas. It feels very different. I remember this day traditionally being a concentrated day of excitement, celebration and completion. Don’t…

Has anyone else noticed that closing out of this year is so different to the comparative years prior to COVID? Today is the last ‘office-working’ day before most offices close for Christmas. It feels very different. I remember this day traditionally being a concentrated day of excitement, celebration and completion. Don’t…

Hi all, super excited to be welcoming a familiar face to many of you back to the community! @Peter Van de Voorde will be joining @Umano.tech as Chief Community Coach. He’ll be building and fostering a worldwide Umanist community focussed on transforming and evolving team performance at work. Peter Van de Voorde to build…

Hi all! As you might have heard, the PM72 Summit with 72 hours full of project management talks about topics around the Atlassian ecosystem will happen in mid June. This event is free to attend, with all funds raised by the sponsors and merch sales being donated to Malala Fund - an organization which has the vision of a…