Archives

Leadership – 2

“To lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!’” — Lao-Tsu […]

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Loneliness

I have a book by Rollo May that I have barely started to read: “The Courage to Create.” This seems to me an important topic, creativity, because hopefully it is what I am training teams to do — to be more creative — and what he says is that it takes courage. One aspect of […]

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Leadership – 1

Takeuchi and Nonaka have written an article on “The Wise Leader” in the Harvard Business Review. (May 2011). Since they are the godfathers of Scrum, one feels compelled to discuss leadership in the context of Scrum. First, we must note this is a big topic, and with somewhat different issues depending on the size of […]

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Giving context

I am in Norfolk and the weather is foggy, and I am thinking about how best to do Release Planning. More specifically, how to plan for a big two-year project where everyone is used to a waterfall approach. So, here are some thoughts. Our problem is like being lost at sea in a fog — […]

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Little’s Second Law

Little’s Law is a nice idea that tells us we want small batches of work. Smaller, always smaller. See here for a start. This is from a John Little at Case Western Reserve, and it’s fairly old. Unrelated: One day the following phrase came to me: “People are remarkably good at doing what they want […]

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Freedom and Responsibility

Now I want to start talking explicitly about freedom and responsibility — the twins. For most normal people, freedom and responsibility come together. That is, we are only free when we accept responsibility. This may seem like a paradox, like saying, “We are only free when we become a slave,” but it is not. If […]

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Thank You!

I am back from a visit to Lima, Peru. And from New York, Newark and Sarratoga Springs. Freud said that life is about arbeitung und lieben — work and love. To me, these words have started to intermingle. At a deep level, I think we wish that those we love know we have tried to […]

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Happy Independence Day!

First, a word about happiness. I am sure I don’t know everything about happiness, but I am still quite sure it is important. Mr. Jefferson included in his draft, “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Jeff Sutherland says, “If they aren’t having fun [with Scrum], they aren’t doing it right.” Serious fun, fun that […]

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An Intro to Business Value Engineering

On June 30, 2010, while I was in Montreal giving a CSM course, I joined the Scrum User Group and gave a new, somewhat different, presentation on BV engineering. The group seemed to like it, so I am making the point in a more practical, concrete way. Click here to see my presentation.

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Courage

I have suggested in other posts that a tremendous amount of improvement can be made in five areas: ScrumMaster leading the removal of impediments Product owner executing the 85 percent to 33 percent rule (like the 80 to 20 rule) Team having more fun! Team reducing technical debt all of the time Continuously better business […]

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