Archives

Latest ‘Agile Release Planning’ ebooklet

I am pleased to announce that I have completed a full edit of the booklet. It covers: * Vision * Product Backlog * Business Value * Effort * Risks, Dependencies, Learning, MMFS, and other * Ordering the Work * Drawing the line * “Communications Plan” * The Fix-It Plan * Other things * Release Plan […]

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Leading Fearless Change Workshop – Apr 12th!

I recommend that all agile advocates and all ScrumMasters and Product Owners learn more about making change happen. Change both in the large ( the organization adopting Scrum or better) and in the small (changing to fix each impediment). Mary Lynn Manns will be leading a 1-day workshop on change. In Charlotte. April 12th. I […]

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Making Change Happen

Things need to be a lot better at work.  And they can be, in every way. Thus, we need for people or the organization to change.  And we hope we know the direction. And we hope we know the specific changes. In Scrum, we believe in fairly big changes. In Lean these are called kaikaku.  […]

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Selling the Benefits of Scrum

Two other CSTs (scrum trainers) made some comments in a Google Group, which got me thinking.  They reminded me of an exercise I normally do in my Scrum classes. Every class is different, but imagine a class that is mixed. Some people are new to Scrum, some have a few months experience, some have 9-24 […]

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Blue Pill and Red Pill

During a course in Romania, a participant asked me: “don’t you think you are setting false expectations? Scrum may help, but it will not help that much. This sets false expectations and disappoints people.” Good comments. Good concerns. I don’t agree that we are setting false expectations; although I think some issues must be addressed. […]

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Change: “You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”

The quote above is by Wayne Gretzky.  (Also ascribed to Michael Jordan.) I am flying to Canada now. And I like hockey. Today the quote reminds me of how hard change is. To make any change happen in an organization is hard.  It takes a lot of energy.  It takes a willingness to miss a […]

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We Band of Brothers

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”  Another great phrase that Shakespeare wrote, this time for the mouth of Henry V. Here it is explained. The leadership in the real field of battle, against great odds.  You may find this interesting as well. Here it is enacted with Kenneth Branagh. You may wish […]

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Radical Management

Steve Denning has written a great agile book for managers, called The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management. Here are the five principles: A shift in the goal of making money for shareholders to delighting customers through continuous innovation. A shift in the role of managers from controlling individuals to enabling self-organizing teams. A shift in […]

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6 Myths of Product Development

This is a very useful article in the HBR, by Stefan Thomke and Donald Reinertson.  Reinertson is well known in the lean-agile community.  It is excellent.  Go here to buy it for $6.  Well worth it. Here are the myths or fallacies they mention: 1. High utilization of resources will improve performance. By ‘resources’ they […]

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Do only high benefit/cost work!

Tom DeMarco wrote an article a while ago: “Software Engineering: An idea whose time has come and gone?” (2009)  I guess I am just catching up on my reading. One topic is: are metrics useful? I think the real issue is: how useful is it that we ‘control’ projects? His comparison is: 1. If we […]

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