We’ve seen the “motivational posters” on office walls. These can be very valuable. They also can be a target for snickers and dirision. There’s even an entire market for “demotivational” posters! The best way to make sure a poster has value for your company or team is to start out with good information. Platitudes don’t [...]
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A Great Retrospective
Today is planning day for our largest team. After an interesting Sprint Review in the lab, we retired to the larger training room for the Sprint Retrospective. The feel in the room was largely up-beat but had some unspoken tension. I shifted gears quickly to start different than planned. I asked that we go around [...]
A Holistic View
A few weeks ago, lying in bed, waiting for my mind to turn off, my thoughts carried me to think about an Agile enterprise. What would be important? What would it look and feel like? A diagram of concepts formed to define the general areas of focus for an Agile enterprise. The next day I [...]
Work Stories, Not Tasks
Traditional or waterfall project management calls for definition of all tasks up front. Each task has a “resource” (i.e. incorrect term for a person) assigned and an estimate for how long the task will take. The task and the assignee are logical guesses that will likely come to pass, even if the task is less [...]
Shortest Time As “New Guy.” Ever!
Last week the VP and CTO of my division wanted to have a chat. While not wholly unusual, it’s always a good thing when we chat! Running out of time during the week, he suggested we meet for breakfast on Saturday morning. (Liberty Market in Gilbert, Arizona, USA) When the VP invites to Saturday breakfast, [...]
Scrum Teams Have A Team Lead
Many companies define positions by a list of “Roles, Responsibilities, Accountability and Authority.” The RRAA concept is that every individual needs to have RRAA defined for them so everyone knows what each person is supposed to do. This supports the common focus on individuals as “resources.” (Funny how companies talk about the importance of teamwork [...]
Agile Team as a Product?
James Carr (@jamescarr, http://blog.james-carr.org/) is an agile developer in Missouri, USA. I met him through Twitter and hope to meet him in person one day. A nice guy with usually good things to say! This morning James posed a question about sharing lessons learned between teams: Any quick suggestions on how to facilitate a retrospective [...]
People Vs. Technology: Creating the Team
The Agile Manifesto emphasizes a focus on people over other things. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools … Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Most of us that work with technology are enamored with it. Even those not struck by love of bits and bytes seek predictability in our work. Humans are so much harder [...]
