Blog: Agile & Business

Balancing the work in the Sprint (coding vs testing)

June 6, 2015

Dean asks: Your Lean Agile Training website content has provided some great insight in helping me improve my agile principles and practices. There is one thing I haven’t been able to clear out of my mind.  Perhaps there is a principle I’m not applying or a light bulb hasn’t come on. I haven’t come across […]

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Impediments: Orlando May 2015

May 7, 2015

During class in Orlando, the following impediments were identified.  Some duplications, I think, perhaps partly due to the way we/they did it. Bulky process Silos Customer rep with no mandate Blame game [Need] one more person on site with Front End [skills] Lack of motivation [Lack of] knowledge of new technology Delivery pressure, customer expectations […]

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Sprint Planning Meeting – The Basics

April 21, 2015

Note: I wrote a similar but different blog post on this same subject later.  This one says some useful things that one does not, and vice versa.  Might challenge your mind usefully to compare and contrast.  See here. At the beginning of each sprint is a Sprint Planning Meeting (SPM). Minor point: The SPM is […]

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Do we really believe in autonomy at work?

April 12, 2015

How autonomous should knowledge workers be?  A lot? If we believe this, where does this lead us?  That’s the theme of this post. Earlier the subject line of this post included ‘freedom.’  This word carries more emotional energy, and requires discussion of other issues.  Hence, the change. And do we, the workers and the managers […]

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Proposal: Learn about Open Agile Adoption

April 9, 2015

Imagine that we, the agile advocates, have agile going a little bit in our organization.  How do we get it more broadly adopted? One challenge is wanting everyone doing something that is consistent and reasonably professional.  (This could be any of several flavors of agile, but for now, imagine Scrum.)  We want this because of […]

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Why the Yogi Berra jokes? Why the music? Why all the questions and sarcasm in class?

March 6, 2015

I want to explain the techniques I use in the CSM class, or at least something about them. First, some people really like these techniques, and want to know more. Second, sadly, a few people find the techniques annoying, especially the first day.  In general this is a small percentage of people, but in some […]

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Proposal: Scaling Workshop

February 25, 2015

This is the first in a series on new ideas to make your practice of Agile more successful. Do a scaling workshop The idea is a 2 day workshop with the right people in your company, focused on the scaling topic. First, scaling can mean many different things, and in the workshop we like to […]

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Teams are More Important than Scaling

February 25, 2015

This is another take-away from the Southern Fried Agile last fall. Teams are more important than scaling. I am hearing a lot of talk about scaling.  Definitely a useful and important topic for some. Also, I am deeply concerned that we are missing a key point. Many people are. In general, we have not learned […]

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Scrum Master Course Toronto + Certified Scrum Toronto + Workshop – Impediment List

December 10, 2014

Certified Scrum Toronto | Scrum Master Course Toronto + Workshop Impediment List Here is what the Toronto course identified as impediments.  Not in any order (although understood that it must be ordered). Overlooking risks Big scope Team competence Too many defects Team changes Processes not clear Product owner involvement Under estimated Requirements not clear Requirement […]

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Making Change Happen

December 5, 2014

Updated: May 30, 2024. How do we make change happen? First, this is an interesting and somewhat difficult question. No one knows the complete answer. Change does happen, and people ascribe causes to why the change happened (or did not happen). The facts are very messy so it is hard to be sure, and hard to […]

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