SWAT Team, a Pattern for Overloaded, Multi-project Organizations

We all have seen it in our projects. Some teams are overloaded and can’t deliver what we need while others are not so busy and could even tackle more work if there was a need for that. This type of partial overloading is easily understood if we picture the work flow as a network of …

Patterns of Agility. How to recognize an Agile project when you see one…

Instead of fighting about “who’s agile” or “who’s more agile than whom”, it would be useful to create a set of patterns, that once recognized would help us define if we are or have been able to successfully implement an Agile life-cycle for our project and portfolio. These patterns or symptoms are useful for us …

End the never ending design discussions: Timeboxed estimation for User Stories, a pattern in Agile adoption

In this post, Jason explains one common problem with the estimation and planning sessions in Agile teams. The problem he describes however, is quite common and has lead to implementation of the Separate Design and Requirements anti-pattern in the traditional software development world.So I thought I’d write a pattern about a simple and common solution …

The Proxy Product Owner, a pattern in Scrum adoption: version 1

Below I try to describe a pattern that I’ve faced and have seen in other teams in the context of an Agile transition.See the explanation section for more details on each of the sections in the pattern.If you have faced similar situations let us know of your own story in the comments below. Proxy Product …