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Impediments: Orlando May 2015

During class in Orlando, the following impediments were identified.  Some duplications, I think, perhaps partly due to the way we/they did it. Bulky process Silos Customer rep with no mandate Blame game [Need] one more person on site with Front End [skills] Lack of motivation [Lack of] knowledge of new technology Delivery pressure, customer expectations […]

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Sprint Planning Meeting – The Basics

Note: I wrote a similar but different blog post on this same subject later.  This one says some useful things that one does not, and vice versa.  Might challenge your mind usefully to compare and contrast.  See here. At the beginning of each sprint is a Sprint Planning Meeting (SPM). Minor point: The SPM is […]

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Do we really believe in autonomy at work?

How autonomous should knowledge workers be?  A lot? If we believe this, where does this lead us?  That’s the theme of this post. Earlier the subject line of this post included ‘freedom.’  This word carries more emotional energy, and requires discussion of other issues.  Hence, the change. And do we, the workers and the managers […]

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Proposal: Learn about Open Agile Adoption

Imagine that we, the agile advocates, have agile going a little bit in our organization.  How do we get it more broadly adopted? One challenge is wanting everyone doing something that is consistent and reasonably professional.  (This could be any of several flavors of agile, but for now, imagine Scrum.)  We want this because of […]

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Why the Yogi Berra jokes? Why the music? Why all the questions and sarcasm in class?

I want to explain the techniques I use in the CSM class, or at least something about them. First, some people really like these techniques, and want to know more. Second, sadly, a few people find the techniques annoying, especially the first day.  In general this is a small percentage of people, but in some […]

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Proposal: Scaling Workshop

This is the first in a series on new ideas to make your practice of Agile more successful. Do a scaling workshop The idea is a 2 day workshop with the right people in your company, focused on the scaling topic. First, scaling can mean many different things, and in the workshop we like to […]

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Managers : Impediments

It should not be confusing how to manage in Scrum (agile). Let’s put a scope on this. We are talking about the management of innovation, using Teams. Not the management of BAU or regular production or whatever your firm calls that. I am less sure these principles (below) apply in those cases, but I do […]

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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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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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