Archives

Free Speech

One of the great themes of Agile is freedom. There is no doubt that some take freedom in the wrong way, and what they get is more like anarchy, which is not freedom. But, from what I see, most people don’t really understand freedom. Based on actions, they seem to think it means, “I am […]

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Greater Joy

One of the famous phrases from this season (in the Christian part of the world) is this: “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.” A slightly similar agile saying is this: “If you are not having more fun, you are not doing it right.” This is very […]

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Spontaneous Order

I will not remember this well (knowledge decay), but there is a great quote from Fujio Cho (now Chairman of Toyota) at the beginning of Liker’s The Toyota Way. Something like: “There are many things you do not understand, and therefore we ask, ‘Why don’t you just go ahead and take action? Try to do […]

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Scrum Success Story

We hear a lot about all the problems of life. People are bad. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. (Help me W. B. Yeats, you’re my only hope.) Today I would like to share an unsolicited note: Jeff Sutherland and I are doing a CSM class next week (Dec. 15 through Dec. 16) in […]

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The best work?

I just received an email in which the writer said their group does not have a real project-type project. This got me thinking. Key idea: How do we know our Agile teams are getting the most important stuff to work on? It seems to me we have the theory that, magically, “the users” will always […]

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Scrum Tools

Revised slightly: 6/19/2021 A course attendee asked about Scrum tools. First, in the Agile manifesto it says, “Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools.” Naturally, being geeks, the first thing we want to talk about in or after the course is [drumroll…] tools. We have to have a sense of humor about this. First, I […]

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Getting Senior Buy-in

Questioner: How do I sell my executive team on doing this stuff? Jim Highsmith: Don’t. Just do it. They don’t know what you’re doing anyway. (This quote is also taken from “Fearless Change” by Rising and Manns. A great book, recommended. See Chapter 6.) I saw this Highsmith quote as a tagline on a Ron […]

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Is Scrum perfect?

Sometimes I want our Scrumming to be perfect. I want everyone to be happy, I want no arguments, I want maximum Business Value, no mistakes, no wasted time, no re-work, no stupid ideas, no misunderstanding what the customer wanted, no muss, no fuss, no confusion and no chaos. Then, I heard this song by Frank Sinatra: […]

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Why working software is important

In a recent discussion, Jeff Sutherland was talking about how important it was to have working software at the end of every Sprint. As a small part of that discussion, I suggested several reasons why working software (or what I call “done, done software”) is so important. Here is an excerpt from what I said […]

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Certified ScrumMaster Course with Jeff Sutherland Dec 15

I am next looking forward to doing a CSM course with Jeff Sutherland on Dec. 15 to 16. Should be lots of fun. I hope Jeff (or I) will take enough time to talk about “The Concept of Ba” by Takeuchi and Nonaka. I truly enjoy working with Jeff for lots of reasons. If you […]

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