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Yearly Archives: 2014
Impediment List: Toronto
We just completed a CSM course in Toronto. Here are the impediments they identified, although some are phrased in a positive way. Eg, for some you need to add “…, lack of.” This list, as with others here, supports the idea of a public impediment list. The real issue is ‘fixing impediments regularly and aggressively.” […]
What is a Real Team?
I recommend you read “The Discipline of Teams” by Katzenbach and Smith. See HBR.com. This is an article; they also wrote a book with the same title. Their original book was The Wisdom of Teams. All recommended. In the article, they give a short definition of a real team. And they distinguish carefully between a […]
Metrics and Managers
Dan Greening gave an excellent talk about some aspects of metrics at the Scrum Gathering in New Orleans in early May 2014. Go here to download his presentation: http://www.scrumalliance.org/courses-events/events/global-gatherings/2014/new-orleans-2014/presentations (You must at least be a member of ScrumAlliance to have access to that page…sorry.) Dan inspired me to discuss metrics. First point: Managers like metrics. This […]
The Scaling Dilemma
Some very useful comments about scaling by Mary Poppendieck. http://www.leanessays.com/2014/02/the-scaling-dilemma.html
Blinding Flash of the Obvious
Tom Peters wrote a blog post, with an executive summary of his key points. He mentions that virtually all of them are “the blinding flash of the obvious.” That is — insights that are obvious (once you think of them), but that we don’t usually think of them. Here: http://tompeters.com/2014/04/excellence-excuses/ Suffice to say, I think […]
“It’s not too far, it just seems like it is.” (Yogi Berra)
I wanted to talk quickly about 4 classic mistakes or issues. We all must deal with these. Before starting, I wanted to mention this famous and important quote: “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.” (Yogi Berra) I forgot to mention this one in the last class, and […]
Impediment List – Inhouse Course May 15
I am a strong supporter of identifying small things that we can take action on, one at a time, to get better. In Scrum, we call this an impediment list. This week, the class identified these impediments. I think I have ‘translated’ them correctly …. Lack of governance 0% transparency Actively disengaged team members Competing […]
Velocity: What if a story is partially completed in one sprint?
Question: If you had a user story (Story X) with four Story Points at the start of the Sprint, which was not completed by the end of the Sprint but the majority of the work was done (e.g., just two small bugs remained), would you recalculate the Story Points when adding this into the next Sprint […]
Is It Really important to estimate initial velocity?
Question: “Is it really important to have a SP estimate before the first Sprint starts?” I think he means an estimate of the initial team Velocity before the first Sprint Planning Meeting. Answer: The short answer to his immediate question: Yes, it is important. Why? It makes it a tighter meeting (SPM, Part 1), and […]
What to tell the Executives – Part 2
Last week I discussed this issue with the Agile-Carolinas group. Wonderful conversation. Many great comments. One thing I was struck by was that there are many many different types of situations. And that we need to address, possibly, many different things, depending on the situation (including the people). In the session, I focused on the […]