Archives

Two Levels of (Agile) Planning

Almost all firms that I work with have at least two levels of planning.  I call them “high level” and “team level.”  High Level At the high level, project or product ideas come in.  Someone has to prioritize these opportunities initially, to see which ones make the cut.  Often this is formally done once a […]

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Something Unexpected

What do we do when something unexpected happens? “The readiness is all,” said Hamlet. So we must be ready.  Ready to meet that new thing, that innovation, that crazy idea, that new person…more than half-way. Yes, we may be skeptical. Yes, as Polonius says (careful grandmotherly type that he may be)…we must try our friends […]

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Release Planning: Risks, Dependencies, Learning, MMFS and Other

[This is a continuation of a series on Release Planning that starts here.] Now we come to the point of (re)ordering the Product Backlog (PB). Note: After calculating the R Factor, I like to order the PB by R.  Not that I would expect the Team to do the work in that order, but to […]

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Enabling Specification

This is a “just enough, just in time” concept.  As some of you know, just-in-time (JIT) was one of the first names for what we now call Lean. Just enough documentation to enable the implementers to implement it, delivered ‘just in time.’ This is closely related to the “Definition of Ready” or DOR concept.  Which […]

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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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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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Why our CSM (Scrum) course + Workshop is unique.

We believe our CSM (Scrum) course plus Workshop is unique.  And better.  For the following reasons. 1. We focus on results. We want you, your team and your customers to get real results in a big way.  In 3 words, more satisfaction, more money, more fun. 2. Therefore the teaching style is not toward remembering […]

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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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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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