Blog: Agile & Business

Hold the mirror

July 26, 2009

How do we get managers to change? You know, if it were not for them, everything would be just fine. [smile] We got this question in a class on Friday. (The question did not include the second snarky sentence, at least not explicitly.) My immediate answer, maybe an intuition, was to quote part of this: […]

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Defining Business Value // #2 Customer Smile

July 22, 2009

Imagine that you want to make a new camera. And in the first release you will make 1,000 cameras and basically “give them away” — to key influences, etc. So, all of that work makes the customer smile. Imagine that the picture to the right is not of Scarlett Johansson. It’s just a girl, and […]

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What is Scrum?

July 17, 2009

I am excited to be giving a Certified ScrumMaster course with Jeff Sutherland next week in Richmond, Virginia. So, I was thinking: What is the essence of Scrum if you would play the game well? (Remember that Scrum is named for the Scrum formation in Rugby. We often show a video of the famous All […]

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Value of Training (CSPO)

July 11, 2009

What’s Scrum training worth? I am about to lead a Certified Scrum Product Owner course. (2 days in NYC and a bit later in Saratoga Springs.) The question comes up: What is this course worth? I explain this in more detail in the course, but here’s the summary. In the course we talk about many […]

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Defining Business Value // #1 Risk

July 6, 2009

I hear many people complain that it is hard to define Business Value, so they won’t do it. Or, they won’t try any harder to do it. That it is hard and always changing is true. That fact does not, though, give us sufficient reason not to work hard to get better. I won’t reiterate […]

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Freedom

July 4, 2009

Man is born free, and everywhere is in chains. Rousseau, certainly a man of some well-known weaknesses, was brilliant to say this, just a few years ago now. Of course, it was then far from literally correct. And he said this as a citizen of Geneva, arguably one of the places on this planet with […]

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New, special Classes – I’m excited

July 3, 2009

I am particularly excited about the following courses or workshops. One: Jeff Sutherland in Richmond, VA. Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) course. Dr. Sutherland (he has a PhD) is a great guy and of course the co-creator of Scrum. I always learn more when I do these courses with him. This a great advanced course for many […]

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Metrics & Velocity

June 27, 2009

I have received a few comments, both recently and in the past, that tell me some people are uncomfortable measuring velocity. And they are uncomfortable measuring the team. They are usually not that clear why they are uncomfortable.  Some feel it does not help. Let me state my position, which I believe is also close […]

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Fun & Success – Learn Scrum

June 25, 2009

Fun & success? In the same sentence? “You are doing Scrum right if and only if you are having more fun. Serious fun.” “You are doing Scrum right if and only if you are having clear success.” How can these both be true? Pushing through to success is so stressful. Fun is light-hearted, like laughter. […]

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Completing a Release

June 24, 2009

OK, so we have a known velocity in story points. And, having that, it is an exercise for a 6-year-old to figure out how many more Sprints until the release. Example: We have a velocity of 20 and the remaining stories in the backlog for this release have a total of 100 story points. So […]

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