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I’ve heard stories where organizations have “tried Agile” and the results were so bad that they’ll never make that mistake again. In some of these stories the blame is laid at the feet of bad coaches. In some it’s blamed on lack of coaching. In some, the blame is placed on clients who aren’t ready […]

In my executive presentations I spend a fair amount of time on the topic of Do Less, talking about how we waste an incredible amount of time and money building features that are rarely or never used. Published studies put this number at far greater than 50%. I see audience members agreeing, but I can […]

One of the most vexing issues for executives and managers is balancing the need for both predictability and adaptability in software delivery. While this might seem like an either/or issue, the solutions are really both/and ones. In presentations I often ask the question, “How many of you have been on Agile teams and were asked […]

In my previous post, Avoiding Iteration Zero, I suggested starting with “the one obvious thing that needs to be done? (Hint: it’s not ‘login.’)” As Jon Kern has recently mentioned, this same topic has come up elsewhere. I was also in that list discussion. Jon is, of course, right in a narrow sense. You can […]

I’ve decided I really don’t like the idea of best-practices… it’s too easy to use them as a crutch. Some of our best stuff… daily standup meetings, sprint planning meetings, retrospectives, Scrummasters, and Product Owners… all have their limitations. They are not best all the time. But Mike you say… you are a Ri level […]

In the old days, you know those days when waterfall reigned and a certain 3-letter acronym product was widely used, Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) systems were large, monolithic, document-centric, and universally hated by rank-and-file engineering staffs. Then came the Agile movement with the manifesto and it’s first principle which stated, “Individuals and Interactions over Process […]

“Everyone tries to do too much: solve too many problems, build products with too many features. We say ‘no’ to almost everything. If you include every decent idea that comes along, you’ll just wind up with a half-assed version of your product. What you want to do is build half a product that kicks ass.” […]

Teams new to Agile often realize that they have a lot to do before they get their new development process at full speed. Looking at this big and unknown hill in front of them, many Agile teams choose to do an Iteration Zero (or Sprint Zero) to prepare before they start delivering regular increments of […]

This is essential in Scrum.Why public? Well, so everyone can see and offer feedback on what are our team’s biggest impediments.Oh, and the list is prioritized. If the priorities are not obvious, then the ScrumMaster breaks ties.And the real juice is th…