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Toward a general theory of business value

I presented yesterday at Agile 2008. Here is the link to the slide deck. I said more than is on the slide deck. Still, here it is. Two key ideas today. Business Value is about learning, as a team. BV is always changing (on many dimensions) and we learn, in part, to keep up with […]

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The Nokia Test (5): A prioritized Product Backlog is essential

We started a series on The Nokia Test some time ago. This is the fifth explanatory post about the test. To find the others, search above (left), and here is the original post. The second item in the second section of The Nokia Test is this: There is a Product Backlog prioritized by Business Value […]

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What’s a team?

Let’s review what is a team in Agile or Scrum. A small group — seven plus or minus two — motivated by the vision of one person that will realize good Business Value; dedicated (usually 100%… certainly a lot), with almost all the skills needed to realize the vision; that works together daily. A team […]

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Kaikaku or kaizen? (2)

I recently did a mail/internet survey, asking people what kind of training would be of  interest? (If you would like to respond to this, please tell me.) Someone responded, “How about adopting a continuous improvement approach?” Now, I don’t know what the writer had in mind exactly (although maybe I will learn more). I assumed […]

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Agile Leadership – 2

This series on leadership arises from a talk by Mary Poppendieck on Agile Leadership. See our earlier post. Now let’s consider leadership in Scrum — in theory and then later, in practice. We are reminded of Yogi Berra’s quote: “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.” (A nod […]

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Agile Leadership – 1 (Poppendieck talk)

I was pleased to help arrange a talk by Mary Poppendieck at Google in NYC last week. The topic was: “A History of Leadership.” The talk on video is here.  The slide deck is here. This is an important topic, and, if I may say so, Mary Poppendieck makes a number of great points. I […]

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Kaikaku or kaizen?

As you know, kaizen means continuous improvement. This means a bunch of small improvement over some period of time. Small continuing improvements have many virtues to recommend them. But what if we need a big change? What if we can make a big change? What if a big change is the only thing that makes […]

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Services We Provide

Excuse this short commercial advertising. (Some of you may want and need this information.) We provide Lean-Agile coaching. See here, or contact us (contact info is at that site). From one day to 400 days. This is what we do; we’re good at it. We do many varieties of coaching. We also provide Lean-Agile training. […]

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Up the creek without a paddle

My friend Mike Vizdos has a blog with cartoons called ImplementingScrum.com. His latest cartoon is titled “Up the creek. Without a paddle.” See here. The idea is that if you want a specific change to happen or even to stay, you have to keep paddling. Very simple idea. Very true. Agile (Lean, Scrum, XP, etc.) […]

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What is the scope of impediments?

Last night at Agile-Carolinas we had Israel Gat, VP of Distributed System Management at BMC Software. He spoke on “Leading the Disruption.” He is giving this talk also in Austin, TX (and maybe elsewhere). If you get a chance, I urge you to go, or just contact him. After that meeting, I had several conversations. […]

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