Category Archives: Better Agile

Scrum Prototyping, Sprint Zero (NO) and

I was talking with some smart people at a client’s location. They said: “We do a Sprint -1 where we do rapid Scrum prototyping. We do a Sprint every day, produce a new version of the GUI, etc., and review it with the customer team daily. It lasts for two weeks, or did last time. […]

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Innovation’s most important question

Steve Denning (a very interesting guy) tweeted about this article. The question (in the article) is: Is there a better way? Please read it. Nice story behind it. (Steve is a big proponent of stories. Google his books.) It’s actually useful if you want your team to be innovative. (You do want your team to […]

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Impediment Management

I was talking today with Martin Drapeau at PlanBox.com, brainstorming the question, “What do managers need?” I have let the cat out of the bag: I am not one of those agile guys who thinks all managers are evil. (Yes, I have in my career seen more bad managers than I want to admit — […]

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Self-organization

Some smart people are discussing self-organization on the Lean Software Development Yahoo group. You might want to listen or talk there. Here is what I said today: __________________________________ First, recognize that self-organization happens willy-nilly all the time. I suppose one can still ask when does it start, and where or why does it stop. (Thanks […]

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How much should we sharpen the saw?

You probably know the classic story of the man sawing the tree. You walk up to him. You: “How’s it going?” Man: “Wow. It’s really hard. This is one big tree, and I have been working at it for hours now.” You: “Sounds tough. Why is it going so slowly?” Man: “Well, this is hard […]

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Release Planning

This is a short post to summarize my recommendations for Release Planning. First, release planning is what we do before we start Sprinting. It is where we plan the initial Product Roadmap and develop the initial ‘plan.’ It is pretty important. We do it just before we start doing Sprints. Some people believe one myth […]

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On Sustainable Pace

I was just at the Agile Tour at Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. It was a very good event. (Kudos to Catherine Louis and the other organizers!) Laurie Williams, who is a great person and a great Agile researcher, has done some work recently. I should use her words for it but don’t have […]

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We can’t go any faster Captain!

With many Scrum teams, they reach the point of attacking all the obvious impediments. And the impediments, at least in their minds, are all fixed. And they say, in effect, “we can’t make it go any faster Captain!” As that actor with the Scottish accent would say in the original Star Trek. What’s wrong with […]

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Respect

I just led a course in Charleston mostly for people working in/on government or military projects. I was asked many good questions, and I was not able, in the time allotted (two days) to answer them all as well as the questions deserved. I have other clients who also have very difficult situations to deal […]

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Little’s Second Law

Little’s Law is a nice idea that tells us we want small batches of work. Smaller, always smaller. See here for a start. This is from a John Little at Case Western Reserve, and it’s fairly old. Unrelated: One day the following phrase came to me: “People are remarkably good at doing what they want […]

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