8 ways to kill Agile

Want to kill your high performance agile dev team? Make it hard for them to deploy to Production. Set up a bureaucracy of approval gates, review boards, committees, and meetings. Make sure they miss their deadlines and disappoint their customers.  Control them until they can't get anything done. Don’t let them [...]

By |2023-04-22T21:12:49-04:00December 16th, 2011|Uncategorized|Comments Off on 8 ways to kill Agile

My Product Owner will kick ass

My Product Owner is my business owner. He deserves all the credit when we succeed, and all the blame when we fail. He has the most important role in my Agile team. He should be the highest paid because he takes the greatest risk: if he fails, he’s fired. So says Mike Dwyer, and I agree. My PO [...]

By |2023-04-22T21:12:50-04:00November 30th, 2011|Uncategorized|Comments Off on My Product Owner will kick ass

Get Ready to Get Done: Definition of Ready

Once upon a time, the team was having trouble getting things Done. We asked why, five times. We found a root cause: we struggle to get backlog items Done because we aren't Ready on sprint planning day. So we brainstormed a Definition of Ready. We use it as a checklist to ensure we understand each backlog item well [...]

By |2023-04-22T21:12:50-04:00October 13th, 2011|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Get Ready to Get Done: Definition of Ready

Dear Future Product Owner

Dear Future Product Owner, Congratulations on your new job.  I want you to play a strong Product Owner role. I am excited about this. We haven’t had a strong Product Owner. The backlog is yours. You define it: you tell us what you want, and you understand what our customers want. You prioritize it: you [...]

By |2023-04-22T21:12:50-04:00August 23rd, 2011|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Dear Future Product Owner

Stop wasting your time: use Agile

A colleague writes: Is Information Overload Wasting 40% of Your Time? In general, multiple studies have indicated that >50% of people feel like they are experiencing "Information Overload”. At the more detailed level, Basex (a consulting firm that focuses on this area) derived the following from a survey intended to determine “How does a typical [...]

By |2023-04-22T21:12:51-04:00August 16th, 2011|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Stop wasting your time: use Agile

National cultures: know your team, know yourself

Playing well together is important: communicating, learning, sharing, getting things done. Our native culture shapes how we think, how we behave, and how we perceive our coworkers. Geert Hofstede is a master of understanding culture. In his book, Culture’s Consequences, 2nd ed., he shares the data and analysis of many years of research on national cultures. [...]

By |2023-04-22T21:12:51-04:00June 28th, 2011|Uncategorized|Comments Off on National cultures: know your team, know yourself

Rock-paper-scissors Happiness!

Happiness is important.Happiness is a leading indicator of your team’s success. Many economists think a happiness metric is more important than GDP and other metrics. Want to knew whether your team is happy--whether your team is trending toward success? Play this game, and find out. Rock-paper-scissors Happiness In this game, team [...]

By |2023-04-22T21:12:51-04:00June 7th, 2011|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Rock-paper-scissors Happiness!

Low tech andon: it’s all green

High tech andon lights are great. Your build breaks, your tests don’t pass, a server goes down, and the bright red light goes on. The team swarms, someone fixes the build, and the light goes green. It’s all good. But it takes some technical effort to set up that magic red/green light. Why not go low [...]

By |2023-04-22T21:12:52-04:00May 11th, 2011|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Low tech andon: it’s all green

Lean optimization of the home brewery

Lean optimization: a case study (Alternate title: Lean optimization of the home brewery) Subtitle: Why does my back hurt? (Alternate subtitle: How to convince my wife I need a kegerator) Beer is good. Homebrew is better. I don’t brew often enough, but when I do, my back hurts the next day. I must be [...]

By |2023-04-22T21:12:52-04:00May 11th, 2011|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Lean optimization of the home brewery

Highlights from Agile Games 2011

Here are some highlights from the amazing Agile Games 2011 conference . First, my major themes from the event: Learn Fast, not Fail Fast Teach People Early, not Disappoint People Early Luke Hohmann of Innovation Games gave a rousing inspirational keynoteabout how awesome it is to work on software. One key problem he noted is that we don’t talk to our customers [...]

By |2023-04-22T21:12:53-04:00April 29th, 2011|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Highlights from Agile Games 2011

Want me dead? Build me a mansion.

I’ll be dead soon. I’ve been out in the cold rain for three hours. Hypothermia is setting in. You try to sell me a mansion. You show me the plot plan and the floor plan; you did a lot of planning up front. You brag about the foundation, firm and solid, ready to last [...]

By |2023-04-22T21:12:54-04:00March 31st, 2011|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Want me dead? Build me a mansion.

MobiCampBos4

led two sessions at this year’s Mobile Camp Boston on February 19: one on mobile consumer identity, and the other on agile software development. Give them what they want: mobile consumer identity We talked about knowing your mobile customers.  The most important question for you to ask your customers is, would [...]

By |2023-04-22T21:12:54-04:00March 4th, 2011|Uncategorized|Comments Off on MobiCampBos4
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