Category Archives: Better Agile

The CSM Test

As you may know, Scrum Alliance is implementing a CSM Test on Oct. 1. Here are a few basic statements. First, the real purpose for you should not be certification and all that alphabet soup. It might be helpful, but it is not the main purpose. The real purpose is improving people’s lives. The customers, […]

Metrics & Velocity

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 […]

Recommended Reading – June 2009

We have a list of recommended books, here. In addition, we can recommend the following: by John Kotter by Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising by Taiichi Ohno by Frederick Brooks One of his famous quotes: “How does a project get one year late? One day at a time.” by Mugridge and Cunningham by Duvall, […]

Breaking the world record

My younger daughter has her last swim meet of the season tonight. I am excited (and still a bit affected by Father’s Day yesterday). When I talk about Agile & Scrum & Lean, I often refer to the Michael Phelps’ attitude. Not his attitude in South Carolina, whatever you may think of that. (Not that […]

What is Business Value Engineering?

I made a post about Business Value Engineering in AgileBusiness (Yahoo group) that I thought I would edit and then repeat here: QUOTE I have been asked to start a conversation about Business Value Engineering. So, here’s a start: What is it? It is a framework for continuously improving the delivery of Business Value to […]

How do we know we have a good idea?

How do we know? I was reading the new book by Bas Vodde and Craig Larman recently. Recommended. It’s called “Scaling Lean and Agile Development.” In the beginning of the book, they give lots of ideas about “how to think.” At first, I found this curious, although the suggestions were very good. Only today did […]

Introverts and Individualists and Collocation

[Note: This blog post was published 4/29/2019.  The work-from-home ideas were not so strong then.  Read this and think.]   I am seeing a general trend. People are saying we should bend over backwards because implementers are introverts. (Yes, way over-simplifying a complex issue, but bear with me.) That position seems a bit too much, […]

Business Value Engineering – 3 questions

I want to slightly change my definition of Business Value Engineering (see earlier post). It is the values, principles and practices that we use help us continuously improve the Business Value we deliver. Some questions and answers: Q. “Business Value.” OK, always good. Why add the word “engineering”? A. Scrum says you must always improve […]

How honest should you be in Scrum?

First answer: Completely. If only the answer were that simple. Sorry, but Scrum and Agile provide no cookbook answer to this question. Some people use “honesty” to mean they get a right to be brutal to others (and also to ignore their own imperfections). More often, the de-facto thinking is, “Honesty means I won’t say […]

Is Agile useful now?

You may have noticed a few not-entirely-happy things happening out there in the economy. It might even have affected you and perhaps even your place of work. So, in what ways is Agile relevant now? First, Agile is even more relevant now than before. (OK, just my assertion so far; see below.) Second, for reasonable […]