Books like Mike Cohn’s Succeeding with Agile and Henrik Kniberg’s Scrum and XP from the Trenches were two of the first books I read as I began my agile journey. These books were useful to teach me about Scrum, but Scrum is simple to understand. People though? They’re a challenge. As Ronika Lewis eloquently put it: The […]
The Best Books About Scrum Aren’t About Scrum Read More »
Scrum is not agile. I think Scrum is a brilliant and simple framework, but again it’s certainly not agile. It was Allen Holub in his Death of Agile keynote that convinced me of this. Watch for yourself. He makes many excellent points, some I find more agreeable than others. For frequent readers, I’m sure you
Scrum Is Not Agile Read More »
I have a confession to make. I’m an introvert, and I feel this is at odds with my responsibilities as an agile coach. Or at least I used to feel that way. Over time, I’ve found more like me. In fact, I’ve learned that it’s not as uncommon as I had thought. Many educators, speakers,
The Introverted Agile Coach Read More »
Scrum Masters tend to optimize for the team, and they’re right to do so. I know as a young Scrum Master I wanted to ensure teams were the center piece of the organization. Over time though and as I experienced the challenges of scaling agile, I began to realize optimizing for other dimensions had to
Optimize for the Team — Sometimes Read More »
Managers in an agile shop. It’s an interesting—and sometimes controversial—topic. In fact, Andy Cleff and I collaborated in June on this. We go in depth in his blog post titled Managers and Agile and Riding an Elephant. Since I haven’t yet written about managers in an agile shop on my own blog, I wanted to
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I think every agile team should be viewed as a small startup. When you do so, you can begin viewing senior leadership largely as venture capitalists (VC). They’ll occasionally visit your office, they’ll provide valuable expertise and insights that will help your small company succeed, they’ll paint a vision of your competitive landscape so you
A Simple Model for Better Decision Making Read More »
Impact over velocity. In other words, don’t just do things. Do the right things. It seems obvious, but how many of us are guilty of deciding the success of a sprint by how many stories or story points we completed? But don’t worry. You’re not alone. Velocity is an easy number to get at, but easy isn’t always
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Spikes. It’s part of my blog’s name: Spikes and Stories, and it’s a bit of word play, which I’ll explain at the conclusion. Because of this, it seems only appropriate that I pay homage to spikes and explain how I’ve used them with teams. They have their origins in Extreme Programming (XP), and I define a spike as:
Spikes: Purpose And Usage Read More »
Great scrum masters and great agile coaches are a rare and special breed. They often do their best work behind the scenes, and they seldom want credit for a job well done. Instead, they’re most satisfied when they see their teams grow and succeed. In many ways, it’s like watching our kids grow up. They
Qualities of Great Agile Coaches Read More »
I think I learned agility differently than most. I learned it through osmosis. Through my leaders, I learned what agile looked like, what behaviors were ideal, and which were counterproductive. The first time someone accused me of being “agile,” I was confused since I had no idea that’s what it was called. Where most can
What the Marine Corps Can Teach Us About Agility Read More »
