Blog: Agile & Business

Leadership: Getting us there

October 23, 2007

We always need leadership to help us through the many hard patches, and on to ultimate success. It is hard to describe a good leader, but some important elements are.. passion for the vision perseverance courage helping others overcome their roadblocks assuring that most of the team is winning and that few things lead to […]

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Knowing where to go

October 16, 2007

To me, the essence of leadership boils down to two things. 1. Knowing what needs to be done. The ability to identify and articulate what needs to be done is enormously useful. In most business situations, it means understanding the customer. It means focus on a few relatively important things. It means explaining this to […]

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Delivering Solutions

September 27, 2007

As I was saying earlier, in all my clients there is this divide between business and technology. “I’m a business guy, not a technology guy.” “Oh, I work in IT; go ask the business folks that.” This is not a helpful distinction. The customer does not want business or technology or even a product. The […]

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Have Compassion

September 27, 2007

Today I was in a meeting with business and technology folks, and I started talking about customer collaboration over contract negotiation. (Many will recognize this line from the Agile Manifesto.) I talked about how there is distrust, tension and misunderstanding between the business side and the technology side. Well, at least on Day One, every […]

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Keeping with the Beat

September 19, 2007

Where would I go to find the latest information on Agile and Lean? What if you had a question and wanted expert advice? Try these “boards.” Sign up. They are free. ScrumDev Extreme Programming Agile Project Management Lean Software Development Industrial XP I am a particular fan of the last one. Its theme is applying […]

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Proposed Reading List

September 15, 2007

A teacher recently told me this: “To know and not to do is not to know.” We know from many teachers that we learn best by thinking a bit and then practicing some, and then thinking some more and practicing more. This is embedded, as one example, in the Deming Cycle. So, I have already […]

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Business Value: Some useful links…

May 14, 2007

Here are some related links you may find useful: I like these principles of Lean, especially the first one, about specifying value. And I like this HBR article by Womack and Jones on Lean consumption: See what they call the six principles of Lean consumption. I call ’em a pretty good summary of what people […]

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Business Value: What is it?

May 14, 2007

On Wednesday, I will lead a session on Business Value in Charlotte, N.C. The topic will be, “What is it?” This is Part 1 of the full session I will lead at Agile 2007. (Part 2 in Charlotte will happen on May 24, 2007.) My hypothesis is that we don’t know as much about Business […]

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Jeff Sutherland in Charlotte July 11-12

May 11, 2007

Jeff Sutherland will teach a Certified ScrumMaster course in Charlotte on July 11 to 12. See Jeff’s blog for some information. See here for specific information. Jeff includes a lot of ideas associated with XP and Lean in his practice of Scrum. (And equally, Kent Beck and the Poppendiecks have been influenced by Jeff Sutherland, […]

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Leaders, Managers, Bosses, and Administrators

May 4, 2007

This is another blog post inspired by the Poppendiecks, their books and their interest in Lean. In their book “Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash,” the Poppendiecks talk, as one of their topics, about leadership. They raise several excellent points. A team needs leadership. Which is to say, vision. Someone to inspire and […]

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