If you’re a manager, an agile coach, team lead or scrum master with no programming background, that might not be a problem. It may even turn out to be something you can use as a strength, but only if …
Category Archives: Agile
Rolling Out Scrum – How Hard Can It Be?
The belief that an idea like Scrum can be easily and predictably rolled out in an organization is still wide spread. It’s a tempting fantasy and a potent recipe for problems. Scrum is not about installing best practices – it is about activating curiosity, using all of the brains we do have, and giving experience […]
Introducing: a Software Development Canvas
Those who know me know me or have taken one of my classes know of my keen interest in helping people go beyond method – towards a deeper understanding of why we are getting the results we are getting. Lately, I’ve been working on a thinking tool that might help in that regard. First, a little background. […]
Why Task Assignment Sucks
You may be like me. Some things at work suck the life out of me. I can’t always explain why. Most of the time I can learn to live with it, and therein lies the crux. I accommodate things that I really should refuse outright. Here’s one such thing: task assignment. See if you agree. […]
Bringing In an Agile Coach
Agile coaches are everywhere these days. The nice thing about that is that agile has become so popular. The sad thing is that there is now a greater risk that you end up a with an agile coach that doesn’t really make things better for your company. Here’s what you need to think about before […]
Copy-Paste Management
Developers sometimes engage in copy-paste development. If you’ve never written code, this is when a developer copies, pastes and possibly slightly modifies some existing code – instead of following the cleaner practice of reusing the code by (for example) turning it into a single function that can be called from multiple places. Copying and pasting […]
Prioritizing Effectively as a Team
My new article “Prioritizing Effectively as a Team” is up on AgileConnection.com. The article starts out like this: “A common reaction to the product owner role is to see it as too big for a single person. If the idea were that one person should do everything from guiding the vision to writing user stories, I […]
The Worst Daily Scrum Ever
I once observed what was probably the worst daily scrum ever. Just when I thought it was over, something interesting happened.
What Is an Advanced Scrum Master?
Being a scrum master is more than just reminding a team to perform certain ceremonies, it’s about growing the best possible workplace. To begin with, let’s clarify this whole thing about the “scrum master”. It’s the name of a role. It’s a relatively new and pretty ridiculous name by intent, because a change was needed […]
Broken Software
I sometimes hear the agile manifesto being criticized for focusing on “just working software”. It’s said that working software is not enough, that we need to reach further. I agree that we need change, but not in the wording. If your definition of working software is “if it compiles, ship it”, then the manifesto’s words […]