Too much Agile Guidance for C-Suite
One key action: Agile Guidance for C-Suite leadership If my job title was a three-letter acronym and the first letter was a “C”, I might be un-festively fed-up with people telling me how to...
Business Agility Agile coaching, training, consulting and leadership
Two DevOps Metrics for Agile Teams & their Managers
After almost two years of frustratingly slow progress, the DevOps transformation leaders at MIB (Massive Investment Bank, whose name is interesting but not important) are re-evaluating their choice of key performance indicators (KPIs). They’ve...
Course: Advanced Agile MasterClass with Alistair Cockburn
Adventures with Agile are offering a 3 day MasterClass with classy master Alistair Cockburn Thanks to Simon Powers for hosting this ‘not to be missed’ event. Starts Tuesday, September 13, 2016 9:00 AM ETC...
Shu Ha Ri: a Chef Metaphor for Agile Learning
The Shu Ha Ri Agile metaphor Nobody tells a Shu Ha Ri story better than Alistair Cockburn, and listening to his Sushi-slicing version whilst in France last year, inspired me to write (derive) a...
Writing an Agile Article for a Proper Journal
The work of the agile business analyst is never done is one of the conclusions reached in my first agile article for online journal InfoQ User Stories Are Placeholders for Requirements. At 3500 words...
Planning for Agile Delivery with Scrum’s Secret Meetings
In a previous post I looked at Scrum’s regular planning meetings as a way of doing Agile Delivery. You can read that post Use Scrum Planning Meetings for Agile Delivery. There are two other...
The Secrets of the Sprint Planning Meeting Revealed
Why is the Sprint Planning meeting so difficult to get right? Agiliser Russ Lewis reveals secrets of the meeting that the Scrum Guide time-boxes to eight hours and describes in just 704 words. Remember...
Use Scrum Planning Meetings for Agile Delivery
There are three regular planning events in Scrum, and although each has a different objective and audience they form the basic mechanism for Agile delivery and risk-management. Managers that understand the purpose of these...
Storm in the Top 100 Agile Blogs
Many thanks to the team at Oikosofy for including this blog in the Top 100 Agile blogs. We only just got in, at number 98 – but we’re in none-the-less and I’m delighted for...
Who are You, Agile Coach?
This post is an homage to the brilliant coach Lyssa Adkins, who explains the inexplicable work of the Agile coach in her book “Coaching Agile Teams“. It’s a bright autumn morning as I drive...
Scrum in Large Organisations: Are you LOST?
Scrum was never intended for large organisations but those are the places it’s being used. People doing it often seem quite lost, hence the need for a simple guide to surviving Scrum in large...
The Heart of Agile – with Alistair Cockburn
When a speaker opens with some light-hearted banter that gets approving laughs from the audience you relax, you know it’s going to be OK. When the presenter is a “Utahn” of Scottish descent and...
What Does Digital Mean?
I first became aware of a shift from analogue to digital in the 70s. We were school kids then and music was everything to us. We talked, pretentiously, as much about the quality of...
Agile Coaching – Who should be Coached?
Photo courtesy of Institute for Sustainability Several people I respect have written recently on the subject of Agile coaching. The question they all pose is ‘who should be your coach?’ The next question is:...
When to press the Emergency Stop Button
Agile and Lean wisdom teaches us that hitting the stop button is something best avoided. Seymour Cray’s 1964 supercomputer had an Emergency Stop button on the operator’s console. It’s at 5 o’clock to the...
In an Agile Lean World, do we need Phase Gates?
Everyone wants to meet project deadlines in a timely fashion, no matter whether they’re using Agile or Waterfall methods Is this as another Agile vs Waterfall face-off? I was at a briefing session last...
Agile Legal Contracts: an Oxymoron?
Are the words Agile and Contract even compatible? The goal of Agile is delivering value when detailed long-term planning either isn’t useful or possible. There are recent signs of change however. The UK government...
Agile Business Analysis: Developer or Analyst Role?
Inspired by the post What Increases Project Risk? which explored the collaboration between project managers and the management function, here’s an ‘agile process improvement’ response to one of those risks. Do developers need to...
What Increases Project Risk?
Agile or Waterfall, Ignore Project Risk at your Peril This question got Project Managers (not agile PMs by the way) rather fired-up recently. Their answers help reveal the extent of the underlying problem. Of...
Believe Me, I’m Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
Research of agile process improvement honours the management gurus of the 50s and 60s The phrase ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’ appears in bold green lettering every time I do any ‘proper’ research....
