Archives

The Agile Recipe; on second thought…No recipe.

I have been asked recently to provide a recipe for how to do Agile. I am sympathetic with this request, but I feel it misses an important point. First, why am I sympathetic? Well, because I look at Agile as an art form, like playing the violin or learning Hapkido (Korean version of Aikido). It […]

Read More »

Leadership: Getting us there

We always need leadership to help us through the many hard patches, and on to ultimate success. It is hard to describe a good leader, but some important elements are.. passion for the vision perseverance courage helping others overcome their roadblocks assuring that most of the team is winning and that few things lead to […]

Read More »

Knowing where to go

To me, the essence of leadership boils down to two things. 1. Knowing what needs to be done. The ability to identify and articulate what needs to be done is enormously useful. In most business situations, it means understanding the customer. It means focus on a few relatively important things. It means explaining this to […]

Read More »

Delivering Solutions

As I was saying earlier, in all my clients there is this divide between business and technology. “I’m a business guy, not a technology guy.” “Oh, I work in IT; go ask the business folks that.” This is not a helpful distinction. The customer does not want business or technology or even a product. The […]

Read More »

Have Compassion

Today I was in a meeting with business and technology folks, and I started talking about customer collaboration over contract negotiation. (Many will recognize this line from the Agile Manifesto.) I talked about how there is distrust, tension and misunderstanding between the business side and the technology side. Well, at least on Day One, every […]

Read More »

Keeping with the Beat

Where would I go to find the latest information on Agile and Lean? What if you had a question and wanted expert advice? Try these “boards.” Sign up. They are free. ScrumDev Extreme Programming Agile Project Management Lean Software Development Industrial XP I am a particular fan of the last one. Its theme is applying […]

Read More »

Proposed Reading List

A teacher recently told me this: “To know and not to do is not to know.” We know from many teachers that we learn best by thinking a bit and then practicing some, and then thinking some more and practicing more. This is embedded, as one example, in the Deming Cycle. So, I have already […]

Read More »

Business Value: Some useful links…

Here are some related links you may find useful: I like these principles of Lean, especially the first one, about specifying value. And I like this HBR article by Womack and Jones on Lean consumption: See what they call the six principles of Lean consumption. I call ’em a pretty good summary of what people […]

Read More »

Business Value: What is it?

On Wednesday, I will lead a session on Business Value in Charlotte, N.C. The topic will be, “What is it?” This is Part 1 of the full session I will lead at Agile 2007. (Part 2 in Charlotte will happen on May 24, 2007.) My hypothesis is that we don’t know as much about Business […]

Read More »

Jeff Sutherland in Charlotte July 11-12

Jeff Sutherland will teach a Certified ScrumMaster course in Charlotte on July 11 to 12. See Jeff’s blog for some information. See here for specific information. Jeff includes a lot of ideas associated with XP and Lean in his practice of Scrum. (And equally, Kent Beck and the Poppendiecks have been influenced by Jeff Sutherland, […]

Read More »