Blog: Agile & Business

Early Warning System

February 28, 2013

I was giving a course today, and we were discussing: should we do agile release planning at the beginning of the effort? (Reminder: release planning always also means release plan refactoring every sprint, to whatever degree it is needed.) My advice is: most teams I see need agile release planning for a day or two […]

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The ScrumButt Test

February 24, 2013

Bas Voode designed a test with 7 or 8 items.  Jeff Sutherland and others liked it.  Jeff modified it some.  Eventually it became known as the ScrumButt Test.  Bas developed the test originally to check whether a team was still really using Scrum or reverting back to waterfall.  Or, reverting to what I call Cowboy […]

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Kanban Ideas

February 23, 2013

We have been talking about Kanban a bit lately in other venues. Let’s talk about some key Kanban ideas in Scrum. 1. Do the most important thing first. In Scrum, we want the Product Owner to order the work (the PBIs or User Stories) mainly by Business Value.  (Yes, I talk about ‘ordered’, but this […]

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Waterfall meets Disciplined Agile

February 22, 2013

Friends and colleagues (Etienne Laverdiere and Richard McMullin) put together a presentation about their experiences with one project. They titled it: Waterfall meets Disciplined Agile. Note: It is the 3rd slide deck (presentation) on that page.  See the list to the right. It is very interesting. It would be even better if we could hear […]

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Leading Fearless Change

February 16, 2013

What is the hardest thing about Scrum?  (Maybe in life.) Probably, it is that we must lead change. Getting people to change is difficult. In Scrum, for example, we are trying to change people. The initial big change and then always continuous change. And removing impediments typically requires change. First, we change them to a fully […]

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Video Resources

February 16, 2013

Just added new videos to the Resources section of the website. Enjoy. Most are fun. Here.

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Are there Project Managers in Scrum? No (but…)

February 15, 2013

Scrum has only 3 roles: Product Owner, ScrumMaster and Implementer. Who is responsible for ‘the project’?  Well, that would be the whole Team. What do we do with George, who was a Project Manager (PM)?  Well, we have to talk to George.  Maybe he would make a great ScrumMaster or a great Product Owner.  Or […]

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Our Favorite Scrum Mistakes

February 14, 2013

Ah, Valentine’s Day! A day for a simpler love than “love your enemies.” Even the simple love is quite complex.  Well, as long as one is not besotted like Romeo below the balcony. Or Juliet above. When one is besotted, then love is truly simple. Other days, it is not. Or so I am told. […]

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Do we Estimate in Scrum? Yes!

February 13, 2013

A really smart and experienced colleague says we should not estimate.  Specifically: in Scrum we should not estimate. Now, to get into the deep inner-workings of Lean and Continuous Flow…well, I am not going to go there today. As a minor point, I will say the latest Scrum Guide to me, says we estimate in […]

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“If you wait for perfection, you might wait too long.”

February 13, 2013

I guess I will take credit for this quote (see title). “The relentless pursuit of perfection.”  I mostly like that idea. (That was the slogan of the Lexus brand.) But ‘waiting for perfection’ usually means analysis paralysis. Or maybe other things. To me, it reflects a  key idea behind lean-agile-scrum. It is an idea expressed in […]

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