Heuristics are useful, especially in the complex world in which we find ourselves. Unfortunately, they’re often underutilized, and the notion of heuristics is largely misunderstood. What we frequently find instead are platitudes that, while inspiring, do little to help us determine our next step. In fact, I have my own set of these platitudes that […]
Heuristics for an Agile Context Read More »
Invitation over imposition. This is at the heart of agility. Scratch that. It’s at the heart of being a sincere and empathetic human who believes in others and wants to make a difference. Unfortunately, I’m sure many of us have seen Scrum imposed on teams. They’re told to begin using sprints. They’re required to conduct
Invitation Over Imposition: A Four Step Guide to Effective Change Read More »
Mike Cohn inspires a lot of my work. In fact, when I began this blog years back, Mike stopped by and offered a piece of advice on my first blog post that has stuck with me. He said he’d often track the number of questions he’d ask and compare it to the number of statements
Seven Simple Metrics for the Sprint Review Read More »
I began helping out a team recently. This team had been together for some time, but they still had a number of struggles. One of those struggles was sprint planning. They realized they could be getting more out of it, but they weren’t sure how. My first thought was to educate and then step in,
Is Your Team Struggling With Sprint Planning? Read More »
I think many of us have been going about this predictability thing all wrong. Don’t misunderstand. It’s not for lack of trying, and we’ve had all the right intentions. Still, in many cases, we’ve done more harm than good, and I’m just as much to blame as anyone else. A colleague had much the same
So You Want More Predictability? Read More »
I’ve been mentoring a group of young Scrum Masters for the last seven months, and recently one of them asked me a question: How do I foster trust within my team? Immediately, two thoughts came to mind: But why? Whether family, friends, or colleagues, we’re surrounded by people most times of the day, and our
How Do I Foster Trust Within My Team? Read More »
I’ve said it before, and it’s worth repeating. What civilians call agility the Marine Corps calls leading Marines. I’ve compared my decade in the Corps to my experiences as an agile coach in a pair of blog posts here and here, and I think it’s time to revisit this theme. Today we’ll focus on the
The Relationship Between Agility and Discipline Read More »
A Medium follower asked me a few questions recently: What’s the difference between a Scrum Master and agile coach? How can they both be involved in Scrum? Why is it seen as a natural ‘progression’ to move from Scrum Master to agile coach? These are popular questions, and I’ve run across many–maybe too many, in
What’s the Difference Between a Scrum Master and Agile Coach? Read More »
Teams that don’t deliver working product frequently aren’t agile. I hold firmly to this truth for many reasons. For example, how can we iterate on a product that isn’t real? Wouldn’t you agree that continuous improvement is at the heart of agility? So if the product isn’t real, how can we be sure we’re learning
Six Reasons Agile Teams Deliver Frequently And Why It Matters Read More »
Ask most Scrum Masters, and they’ll tell you their favorite event is the retro. It’s rewarding to create space for learning or to inspire a conversation between team members as they discover brilliant, new ways of working together. And you’d think that after the 750+ retros that I’ve facilitated that I’d have it down to
A Guide to Surviving Your First (Or Hundredth) Retro Read More »
