How to “control” a software project, and why control is never achieved with planning

When a software project starts, and we’ve put considerable effort into the planning tasks, we feel the project is under control. Or “in control”.  However, that’s fundamentally wrong. I tried to come up with a way to describe how I understand control in software projects, to illustrate the need and applicability of the empirical management …

#NoBacklogs: How to never lose a good idea by keeping the Backlog short!

“I’m afraid we might lose all these good ideas!” This is a phrase I hear very often when facilitating a Vision and Backlog session with the teams I work with. This is true for software teams as well as for business teams and mixed business + development teams. The fear of losing a good idea …

The Project Slippery Slope: why the concept of Projects lead to Waterfall, sooner or later, but inevitably…

All that is below applies in the context that is defined here. This is not supposed to cover your personal “projects”, musical “projects”, art “projects”, home improvement “projects”, etc. You get the picture. In a company that uses the concept of “projects” to decide what to work on, fund, plan, control work (contextual boundary), projects …

#MyCoreOfAgile: Global retrospective, what’s the one thing Agile is about for you?

I had an amazing conversation about the Core of Agile with some members of Torino’s local Agile community. We met at Trattoria Valenza. Which was an excellent location to enjoy tradition and look at what we can learn for the future.The conversation touched many points, but the one that I want to talk about is …

Two simple heuristics that will solve (most of) the problems you face as a Scrum Master

I regularly hear about the problems Scrum Masters face. After more than 200 interviews with Scrum Masters in the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, here are the 3 most common problems that we face in our work, in order of frequenc): As a Scrum Master, I lack support from management, and when they don’t actively fight …

Don’t plan to fail! Or how to never be late, never ever! #NoEstimates

Project management methodologies involve some kind of estimates on the content of the project (i.e. scope) and effort/duration (i.e. schedule). Simple techniques like WBS (work breakdown structure) with Gantt Charts or more complex techniques like PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) involve estimating the content and ultimately the duration or effort of each of the …

A #NoEstimates tool: The slicing meeting, replacing estimation meetings while creating shared understanding

Before we start, I’d like to thank to Neil Killick and Woody  Zuill for inspiring this technique with their work. Sit down. Let’s estimate This is not a good start of a meeting for many of us. Asking for estimates may be an easy thing to do, but going through the process of estimating Stories …

Agile incremental delivery visualized – how to explain Agile and Incremental delivery to anyone

If you are interested in Agile and if you want to read up on it (reading books, blogs or following discussions on twitter) you soon stumble upon the following picture to visualize incremental value. I believe it’s from Henrik Kniberg: I do understand where this picture is coming from. It is about focusing on value …