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Advice from an experienced successful PO

I was doing a course with Dave Muldoon in Ottawa. And Rich O’Grady visited us. He had become a very successful product owner in a difficult environment where others had failed.  He mentioned 6 ‘top tips’ that day, and then he wrote me explaining them a bit more.  What he wrote was pretty much what […]

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Adopting Agile: Ask questions

Some of you know I like Yogi Berra.  As a side note, here are a lot of his quotes. I hope you laugh at a few. (Laughter is a great way to influence people.) Ok, so Yogi Berra reminded us by saying: “Some people, if they don’t already know it, you can’t explain it to […]

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What’s wrong with that impediment list?

Let’s pretend that the impediment list I just posted (the one from the Charleston class) was a real public impediment list for your team. What would be wrong with it? First, the most important thing to say is: GREAT!  Finally, a public list of key things to work on.  And, if we worked hard on […]

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Impediments: from the Charleston CSM class in September

As you may know, I think in Scrum it is key to aggressively attack impediments. I think each Team should have a (mostly) public impediment list. The SM should be attacking the top impediment each day.  This ‘kaizen’ should lead to improvements in velocity. Every Team can get better. Always. An impediment is anything (anything!) […]

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Scrum is Hard! (Scrum is fun!)

The classic phrase from Sutherland and Schwaber is: Scrum is simple, but Scrum is hard. Yet, with almost any decent Team, Scrum is fun. Unless the personal chemistry is dysfunctional. So: If I don’t warn you that Scrum is hard, I am lying. But if I don’t ‘warn’ you that Scrum will be fun, I […]

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At first, when Scrum and when Waterfall?

When your company is first starting Scrum, how do you decide which projects use Scrum and which ones do it ‘the old way’?  (Let’s assume the old way is a form of waterfall. You are waiting to transition them from waterfall, later.)  Assuming for now (for a transition period) some projects must remain in waterfall. […]

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What are impediments? Definition of Impediment

Definition of Impediment is anything that is slowing down the Team.  (The Scrum Team)  Anything! In PMP words, it is any kind of issue. And it may include risks as well, but typically only high probability risks that are likely to occur fairly soon. (I typically also recommend a simple risk log for each Certified […]

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When would I not want to do Scrum?

This is a slight variant on the question I asked before. I wanted to add a few things that I did not say before.  You still might want to do a project despite some of the things I will mention, but I have gotten impatient as I have gotten older. So, when? Some things I […]

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When should you NOT use Scrum?

I was asked this question in a class recently.  (When should I not use Scrum?)  I gave an answer, but I want to give a better answer, or at least a different one. To be fair, it is a hard question. And a hard question for me. My personal answer, which I gave, is I […]

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Creativity and Process

Here is a good quote: Now I have to tell you something, and I mean this in the best and most inoffensive way possible: I don’t believe in process. In fact, when I interview a potential employee and he or she says that ‘it’s all about the process,’ I see that as a bad sign […]

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