Blog: Agile & Business

Why Do Scrum?

March 25, 2012

If we hear about Scrum and want to convince some managers to do it, how should we present the benefits of this approach? The 2011 Agile Survey by Version One gives some ideas.  See it here: http://agileconsortium.pbworks.com/w/page/51511217/2011%20State%20of%20Agile%20Survey Typically the biggest idea is: faster time to market.  And this is a very powerful idea. But it is […]

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Dr. Royce and Waterfall

March 24, 2012

In 1970, Dr. Winston Royce wrote the paper that defined Waterfall.  It was probably beig done by others at the time, but the paper is considered definitive. Here is the paper: http://agileconsortium.pbworks.com/w/page/52184647/Royce%20Defining%20Waterfall He identified 5 things that must be added to reduce most of the risks of doing waterfall.  And I will comment on how Scrum […]

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Scrum vs Waterfall : How do they Compare?

March 24, 2012

Scrum vs Waterfall I have recently been asked for advice on how to compare Waterfall (WF) and Scrum VS Waterfall.  This is a hard question in some ways: the best way to compare will depend on the person you are talking to.  Another problem is that few people do ‘pure’ waterfall in actual practice. And […]

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Agile Transformation – 1

March 18, 2012

I was leading an Intermediate CSPO course last week in Winston-Salem. There were some good questions. One theme was about the agile transformation. The idea is simple, and has many names.  One way to say it: Only by transforming the culture and many of the current ‘ways of doing things’ can a firm realize the […]

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2011 State of Agile Survey

March 2, 2012

Below is the 2011 Survey by Version One.  The state of agile.  One might like yet better participants in the survey, but still I think it is generally indicative of the main trends, because many participated. http://agileconsortium.pbworks.com/w/page/51511217/2011%20State%20of%20Agile%20Survey  Some key points to me: * We have a long way to go * Too many people “rolling […]

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Who should fix Impediments?

February 20, 2012

In the Certified ScrumMasters LinkedIn group, Michael asked: Who should fix impediments, the SM or the Team? His answer was: Both. And then he discussed.  This topic has drawn a fair number of comments.  Here is one of mine. *** 1. Michael is right. Who should fix the impediments and how much the Team should […]

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More on: The Product Owner and the Team

February 16, 2012

There has been some interesting discussion on this topic recently.  Two things I wanted to add to my prior post. 1. The business side cannot force the Doers to “do all that I say” in the Sprint. This is of course a well-known rule of Scrum. But this rule does not eject the PO from […]

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We must have working software at the end of the Sprint!

February 14, 2012

This is a common failing (we don’t have working product or working software at the end of the sprint).  Jeff Sutherland has said this is the biggest problem in the Scrum community — too many teams don’t have working software at the end of every Sprint. If we include cases where 1 or more PBIs […]

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Business Value Engineering framework

January 30, 2012

I am about to do another BV Engineering workshop. In Orlando, Feb 23-24.  Preceded (appropriately) by an Intermediate CSPO (Product Owner) course. Feb 21-22. In this post I wanted to explain the workshop from a different angle that I have done before. First, what is the BVE framework? Scrum is a framework.  Not a full […]

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Why an Intermediate CSPO (Product Owner) course?

January 30, 2012

I am about to do an Intermediate Certified Scrum Product Owner course in Orlando.  Feb 21-22.  Followed by a Business Value Engineering workshop. Feb 23-24. In this post I want to talk about why the Intermediate CSPO is important and how it is different. First, our finding is that the Team is important. Any focus […]

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