Interesting Articles to Spark Ideas

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Always Improving Always LearningI come across many articles that I think would be great to pass on to others.  The issue with that approach is that they are lost to the social media wind. There are many book marking tools and ways to save links, but I’m going to give this idea a shot and see what happens. My idea is quite simple, I’m just going to add articles to this article. I’m going to put the date I added them and anytime I add a new one, I’ll update the post so it gets sent out again to subscribers (again only if there is a new article). Let me know what you think — I’d love to hear any thoughts, pro or con! Continue reading →

Project retrospectives that focus on every project detail are frustrating!

Why Project Retrospectives Are Challenging

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Project retrospectives are challenging. I spoke a bit about this in lessons learned vs. project retrospectives. You might look at a merger, acquisition, implementation of a new ERP system, or even a major upgrade of an ERP or CRM system. These are non-reoccurring events. A retrospective of this type is quite different from a typical agile retrospective, primarily because on this type of project, people will change and the project will not repeat (the definition of a project is that it is a unique endeavor). At issue here is the fact that if the people will not be the same and the project does not reoccur – then they can’t come up with actions they will apply right away based on what they learned. Ideas for change often just end up in a spreadsheet, a book shelf, or some electronic tool. A big book of “lessons learned” that sits on the shelf gathering dust does not provide much, if any, value. Continue reading →

Agile Commitment — Classic Pig & Chicken (Part 1)

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The Pig & Chicken is a cartoon that many in the agile community are familiar with. I know some will see it and ask, why is this one being rehashed (I know this because I reviewed it with a few people and they asked). Some will be quite annoyed, since many “strongly dislike” the cartoon (which is fine – please add your comments!). So, for anyone reading this and thinking any of those things, please read on. I’d like to say “don’t worry, I have a plan”, but only you can judge for yourself how it pans out! Tweet the Agile Safari Cartoon!

agile-safari-pig-and-chicken-part1

What Is The Pig & Chicken Cartoon?

For readers who are not familiar with agile (or any agile folks who have not seen the cartoon), the ideas is that the pigs are the team (or Scrum Team). The chickens are everyone else. Continue reading →

Scrum commitment vs forecast

Scrum Commitment or Forecast

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I’ve been training, talking, coaching, and writing recently on the topic of commitment and realized that anytime that comes up, it reminds me of the old (seems old – but not really that old!) discussion on commitment or forecast. I still find there are many questions on this topic. It certainly has not been put to bed. The approach I like to take is to step back and ask “what is the real problem?”  Is a word stopping you from succeeding or is something else causing the problem?  What am I talking about? — I’m talking about when the Scrum Guide was updated to change commit to forecast. Continue reading →

three agile coaches with three coaching approaches

Agile Coaching Framework Visual Walk-through (Part 3)

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Learning the different approaches an agile coach may take can be challenging without experiencing them. My preference when training people is to run exercises to help them experience the various approaches to agile coaching. Most recently, I had the opportunity to run one with a diverse group of people at a recent conference. We got into some amazing discussions! I also had a chance to riff back and forth with Bob Hartman, who joined me for part of the session, which created a fun dynamic!

Since getting together in-person is not always possible, this article includes visual diagrams of the agile coaching framework, to explain visually, how to walk-through the framework. Continue reading →

Agile Safari – Best Agile Project Management Software

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Agile-Safari-Best-Agile-Project-Management-Software
No, I don’t hate agile project management software — it can serve a purpose. At issue is if there is an actual purpose and if it is misused. Often the software stalls progress or worse, move us backwards. For any readers who are not familiar with agile or don’t work in software — the idea here is that instead of using the monitor to display some type of software tracking tool, the new scrum master just used sticky-notes and stuck them on the monitor. What is the simplest thing that works in your world?  Continue reading →

Focusing your retrospectives - what will you focus on?

Focusing Agile Retrospectives

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The most common agile retrospective focus is on the sprint (or iteration) that was just completed. For most agile teams, this is the past two weeks. We have many more options for retrospectives than simply looking back on the last sprint. We can look at a specific topic, an event, use a future focus, or look at a much longer timeline. Regardless of the focus, we are aiming to learn, generate ideas, and (ideally) agree on actions to take moving forward to improve to sustain. Continue reading →