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Many people are conditioned to say Yes to every request that comes their way. I met a CIO like that. He told me his policy was to never say No to the business. So he always said Yes, and the business was always angry because things he agreed to didn’t get done, or got done […]

This is the second post in our blog series, Measuring the Impact of your Agile Investments. The series focuses on measuring the impact that Agile practices have on business outcomes. For many leaders, increasing the productivity of the development organization (delivering features the business needs and generating improved ROI) is their primary and over-riding goal. […]

Some pundits proclaim that leadership rests on charisma, the ability to create a vision, or “presence.” Teams do need a vision and a compelling goal.  But to teams need one charismatic leader? No.Teams need leaders of a different sort. Teams need leaders who don’t need to be out in front, who are able to work […]

At the SQE Agile Development Practices (ADP/West) Conference last week in Las Vegas, Yvette Francino interviewed me on the topic of cultural change.  Here is the video of that interview.

I’ve been noticing what’s missing lately. In some ways, its harder to see what’s not there than what is. But there’s lost of useful information in what isn’t said, as well as what is. For example: A manager, talking about one of the people who reported to him said: “He’s difficult to manage.” What’s missing? […]

(this article originally appeared on gantthead.com) Agile project management depends on transparency and feedback. Visibility into the product and process is built in with iteration reviews and retrospectives. Task walls and Kanban boards make progress (or lack of it) and bottlenecks obvious. Stand-up meetings seek to raise impediments to management attention. But are managers ready […]

Anyone who’s been around in the agile space for a while knows the standard agile mantras: inspect and adapt, people over processes, and my own personal favorite: fail fast and learn fast.Since my personal predilection tends toward trying to ensure succ…

A few days ago, I blogged about “monumental” agile adoption, and discussed about how large-scale adoption (not just large projects), with 1000s of people involved in an agile transformation needs not just bottom-up, grass roots momentum and buy-in, but…

Here in the United States, our business culture tends to be action-oriented. We value the ability to think fast and act decisively. These qualities can be strengths. However, like most strengths, they can also be a weakness. Taking action when you don’t know the facts can lead to irreparable harm. Deciding too quickly before you’ve […]

Takeuchi and Nonaka have written an article on Leadership in the Harvard Business Review. The latest issue.Since they are the godfathers of Scrum, one feels compelled to discuss leadership in the context of Scrum.First. we must note this is a big topi…