Exploring servant leadership
A few weeks ago I was sitting next to a log fire, sharing a glass of wine with a few like minded individuals chatting about all things Agile, one of the things we discussed was a time when one of the...
View ArticleThe non challenging Scrum Master
Earlier this year I was invited to join the Scrum plop, to help write some patterns for the Scrum community, unfortunately the stars were not right and I was not able to attend. It did however help me...
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It might look like rapids, but it’s still a waterfall
This is my second post in my Scrum coaching patterns series. In my last post I asked for some help with a pattern format that I could follow and at least one person must have read my blog as I now have...
View ArticleIt’s a game of two halves
Does development process for the stories you build in the first half of the sprint flow nicely, do you have few defects? How about the second half of the sprint? Do you miss things, are there more...
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Evolving the Story map
I can’t say enough about how useful story maps are and how essential they are on any Agile project. Jeff Pattonis the undisputed (certainly in my mind) master of the story map and it’s well worth...
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Chart your happiness
We all know or at least we should know that retrospectives are one of the Agile recipe’s 11 secret herbs and spices. It performs a valuable role in the improvement of the team and its practices, as...
View ArticleIt’s all about demand
When you are coaching / mentoring there are times when you just get stuck, no matter what you try the message does not get through. You speak to your peers and you come up blank there too. This...
View ArticleSprint planning – turning the what into how
What does your sprint planning meeting look like? Are you the “do it as fast as you can” efficiency hounds or the “sit and listen while the tech lead drones on” type, or are you a “real team” who fight...
View ArticleSometimes average is good.
The Big Estimation Debate There have always been, and no doubt always will be debate over estimation; the pros and cons, behaviour anti-patterns and the how and why of it all. In this post I am not...
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Stand by your values!
I recently ran a “get to know your team” session to help a team with lots of new members to better understand each other’s history, motivations, likes and dislikes. We did a number of exercises...
View ArticleEven done is never done
A “done” definition in an Agile project is a statement that the team use to measure whether they’ve met all of the requirements for completing a userstory / feature (and in some cases completing an...
View ArticleThe document dilemma
The Agile manifesto states “Working software over comprehensive documentation” – this seems to be one of the biggest mindset shifts that organisations need to make when adopting any Agile framework....
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Visible workspaces – a house of cards or something far more solid?
Many people’s first encounter with an implementation of an Agile framework is the visible workspace. I find first reactions to this very telling: for some it feels like a natural way of expressing...
View ArticleThe Wall of Pain
Software projects experience a problem called technical debt. In short, technical debt is the result of making a quick and dirty work around (often for valid reasons such as deadlines) which creates...
View ArticleKanban is not for the Idle or Newbies
For four of my six and a half Agile years I was solidly in the Scrum camp, Lean, in my opinion, was already part of Scrum and its influence made Scrum even better. I don’t think that any Agile practice...
View ArticleAre your votes going to waste?
It’s common among Agile teams to use some form of voting to make decisions, and that’s especially true for retrospectives where the team as a whole decides what to fix next. Over the years I have...
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