Archives

Scaling with Agile: A Patterns Approach

I will be speaking to the Agile CoP of the PMI in Nashville.  Lots of interesting things are happening in Nashville.  A very nice place. Here is the title of the discussion: Scaling: A Patterns Approach. Here is the description: An introduction to some concepts for scaling in Agile/Scrum and how to use them effectively […]

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Courses and Workshops we offer

Here is a list of all the lean – agile – scrum courses and workshops we offer.  We do these both publicly and in-house. Course and Workshop Offerings Ver10 This is not a complete list, but gives a good overview. We will update this listing from time to time. Of course we are happy to […]

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The Truth: Scrum is Not Easy!

May I tell the truth? I am a trainer, and people come to my courses.  And often they want an easy answer.  A magic answer that is not disturbing, or bothersome, but is in every way good, easy, friendly and just better. In other words, they come to change, but they don’t want to change.  […]

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Impediments – Charlotte Course July 2014

In the Charlotte course, the following impediments were identified.  These came from different people and were expressed in different ways.  I copied what they said.  So, for example, sometimes a “…, lack of” is implied. No one knows what done looks like Missed stakeholders Poor or non-existent planning One release per year (mentality) Technology Undefined […]

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Impediment List: Toronto

We just completed a CSM course in Toronto. Here are the impediments they identified, although some are phrased in a positive way. Eg, for some you need to add “…, lack of.” This list, as with others here, supports the idea of a public impediment list.  The real issue is ‘fixing impediments regularly and aggressively.”  […]

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Velocity: What if a story is partially completed in one sprint?

Question: If you had a user story (Story X) with four Story Points at the start of the Sprint, which was not completed by the end of the Sprint but the majority of the work was done (e.g., just two small bugs remained), would you recalculate the Story Points when adding this into the next Sprint […]

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Is It Really important to estimate initial velocity?

Question: “Is it really important to have a SP estimate before the first Sprint starts?” I think he means an estimate of the initial team Velocity before the first Sprint Planning Meeting. Answer: The short answer to his immediate question: Yes, it is important. Why? It makes it a tighter meeting (SPM, Part 1), and […]

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Agile Velocity | Estimating Initial Agile Velocity

Agile Velocity by Lean Agile Training Here is a method for estimating initial Agile Velocity that may work for you. I expect you to use it in the context of Agile Release Planning. (Anything useful should be credited to Jeff Sutherland; any issues should be credited to me.) First we take some assumptions or identify […]

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Question: Advice to a beginning ScrumMaster

Question: “I am a beginning ScrumMaster in a tough situation. I have some ideas, but I am unsure what to do, and unsure what to do first. What can you suggest?” Answer: I think this is common. In reality, there is no end to the things a ScrumMaster can do to help the team. So, […]

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Agile Contracts: Another resource

Here is an additional resource from some smart people: http://agilecontracts.org/ More specifically: http://www.agilecontracts.org/agile_contracts_primer.pdf This is from Craig Larman and Bas Vodde’s book, Practices for Scaling Lean and Agile Development. Note: Be careful when studying ‘agile contracts.’  Often different authors or thinkers or speakers have very different goals or situations in mind.  One might think they […]

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