Archives

“Ozymandias” – Creativity can take some courage

It is hard sometimes to be creative, to create.  We wonder, will our creation ever survive.  I have spoken already of a book called The Courage to Create by Rollo May. Here is a short poem by Shelley, Ozymandias: I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of […]

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Release Planning: Effort (2)

[This is a continuation of a series on Release Planning that starts here.] Now we come to the point of describing Planning Poker. This has been done before; we will be brief.  It is described at greater length many other places. *** Some basic characteristics: * We find the 5 best experts (or 4-7 people) […]

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The importance of a real team

Scrum requires a real team. The word ‘team’ is often used, often in different ways.  So, let us define it. According to “The Discipline of Teams” by Katzenbach and Smith, this is what you should look for: 1. A meaningful common purpose that the Team has helped shape. 2. Specific performance goals that flow from […]

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Meet the Meeting Killers

Here is an entertaining article in the WSJ.  About the types of people who kill meetings. Scrum of course has some meetings. It is trying to minimize meetings, and make meetings better. But as soon as you have people and meetings, you can have some….umm…interesting times.  So, may your meetings not be interesting this way. […]

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What to do with managers?

First, unlike some in the agile community, I think managers can be and even are useful in lean-agile-scrum.  Even essential. The first problem is that we do not explain to them how things have changed, and how they can be effective in the new environment. Still, there is a lot of evidence, on many levels […]

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Killing Babies or Sizzling Steak?

I thought I would share this story, with one or two key metaphors.  Perhaps useful to you.  I use the story in classes quite a bit. *** OK, the PO is trying to optimize on the Pareto idea (80-20, the vital few). (More about the Pareto idea elsewhere.) It is Feb 1.  At the beginning […]

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Release Planning: Product Roadmap

I did a session today at the Atlanta Scrum Gathering about ‘Joe’s Approach to Release Planning.’  Jason Tanner asked “what about the product roadmap?”  And his question made me realize that I have not said enough about that. My quick thoughts. 1. You need a product roadmap. For almost all products, at least almost all […]

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John Kotter Explains the 8 Steps to Create Successful Change

Here is a slide show and voice over by John Kotter (our best expert on change) talking about how to get organizations to change.  Watch and listen here.  [This was a link, and it is broken now.]  About 7 minutes. [We can send you now to the 8 steps page at Kotter International.] Here is […]

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Taking Ideas on a Test Drive

I am a strong proponent of “show me the money.” In other words, there are lots and lots of ideas that sound good. And only a relative few that are really worthwhile. And we only know which are which by …taking an idea for a test drive. But even this basic scientific idea is not […]

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A list summarizing Scrum

The list below is not self-explanatory, but it covers the key ideas one has to know and execute on to do Scrum professionally.  Of course, becoming proficient at doing them at the highest level (at the rugby World Cup level) is a lifetime’s work.  Rugby is a simple game with simple rules, but to reach […]

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