Archives

Respect

I just led a course in Charleston mostly for people working in/on government or military projects. I was asked many good questions, and I was not able, in the time allotted (two days) to answer them all as well as the questions deserved. I have other clients who also have very difficult situations to deal […]

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King of Anything

Sara Bareilles, whose music I have enjoyed, has a new song: King of Anything. I think you will like it. You might be asking: Why is he talking about this song here? And the answer: In work, we must recognize the importance of freedom and self-organization. For their own sake (these are human rights, after […]

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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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Suggestions for a better Daily Scrum

It is my view that the main problem with doing Scrum is that we don’t “feel the music” while we do the dance. That is to say: we don’t understand the values and principles underlying the practices we are doing. In general, this is true of all of us. Saying, “I get Scrum better than […]

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New Courses

All up-coming courses are posted on LeanAgileTraining.com. And you can see the calendar in the widget to the right. We are excited, for sometimes different reasons, about each of these courses. We have enjoyed the people we have met (so far) in each of these cities. We enjoy working with the co-leaders. And each of […]

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