Improving the world with software
Better software. Better questions.
Essays on software development, teams and the craft of building things that last.
Essays on Teams
147 essays on teams
-
Agile Project Management—The Delusional Role
Bare with me, I’m trying to make a point. Read through, leave the flame wars for other posts. An Agile Project Manager is an oxymoron, a contradiction. You can’t be “agile” and “project manager” at the same time. Here’s some examples: Why? You correctly ask: BECAUSE the theories of the world for Project Management and …
-
How AI will clog our product development processes…
I recognize the temptation. “If I could only do this fastidious planning work a bit faster, I’d get home earlier…” Sure, it’s easy to see how AI would write User Stories faster… BUT: the real world is different: the whole point of product work is navigating uncertainty. We don’t know what’s valuable yet. That’s the …
-
The key to successful engineering teams: The OTOG Principle
Have you ever wondered why some software teams seem to be in constant conflict between product ambitions and technical realities, while others achieve the impossible together?Here’s what I’ve learned about great teams, and great organizations from my experience as a developer, project manager, product manager, director of product, and running my own company as well …
-
Agile change catalyst wanted! Let’s work together
I’m looking for an Agile Change Catalyst. Are you that Agile Change Catalyst? Read on! In an age where people are saying “Agile is dead”, I think it is important for us to recognize that in practice, what is being said is probably more: “agile is not new, and shiny, so I’m not so enthusiastic …
-
What does the future of #Agile look like? And other critical questions from #Oredev 2023
This week marks the rebirth of my hope for humanity, and the #Agile and #Software communities!I was at #Oredev (one of the largest software development conferences in Europe), and got inspired by all kinds of talks, and corridor conversations.Below is a list of some important questions I got inspired to ask during #Oredev, and will …
-
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 …
-
#NoEstimates for the perplexed – a simple principle that makes estimations obsolete
When we think of estimation, we immediately associate some concepts that are attached to the estimation activity: listing all the work, sequencing all the work, assigning all the work, etc. All of those activities are accessories to estimation. The fact is that a task does not have an intrinsic duration, it has a duration that …
-
The Errors of Estimation
What we often hear from estimators is that estimates are supposed to be “intervals”, not single-point values. This blog post is now a podcast also, narrated by Billy Elchin As usual, they don’t define what “interval” should be. They just say that you have to be “accurate”, but not so “precise”. Ok, let’s explore what …
-
The most dangerous phrase I’ve heard in my life as an Agile Consultant
Have you heard this phrase lately: “we’re working on it”? If you have, you may have found a symptom you should tackle quickly. Learn how in this blog post.
-
The Ski Tertulia, a space for generating breakthrough experiments
The Ski Tertulia is a space for learning, in the Alps, with Vasco Duarte and Jacopo Romei.
-
#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 …
-
Why projects are often late, and how to avoid it – A #NoEstimates Post
I was watching a video of @nntaleb on youtube and it became obvious to me why scheduling / estimating is a bad idea for a Software Project. Here’s my take on it. Have you ever been HOURS early arriving from a flight? No. Have you been HOURS late? Sure. Happens all the time. I’m writing …
-
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 …
-
How to manage risk in Agile?
Unvalidated opinions are “bets”, with the caveat that they beget even more “bets” (decisions based on that opinion). So we can say that unvalidated opinions generate other unvalidated opinions based on the original one, therefore creating exponential growth in risk. The process of validating an opinion (like Popcorn Flow by Claudio Perrone) helps us jump …
-
How to define purpose for an Agile team? A practical guide to defining purpose and aligning with your organization’s goals
As a Scrum Master, we are often worried about what goes on with the teams we work with. We care about the people. We help the team communicate, collaborate so that they can achieve the team’s goals. However, we often don’t work on a larger goal: the goal of the organization that needs that team. …
-
5 tools all Scrum Masters should be familiar with. From managing conflict to Lean Startup
Today is Tuesday. I get up and go to work. This Tuesday is the same as every Tuesday. After a few Tuesday’s we get the hang of the work we do. We get familiar. And after the familiar comes the routine and ultimately the boring. Is this how you want your job to be, routine and ultimately boring? …
-
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 …
-
ScanAgile 2016 – Help Shape The Conference
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about a possible Vision for the 2016 edition of ScanAgile. But that was only my Vision and I was looking for feedback. ScanAgile was, and has always been team work, so when we got together with some of the team members we decided that we needed your …
-
A possible Vision for Scan Agile 2016: Work 3.0
As I’m writing this blog post, in the balcony of my apartment, enjoying the mild Finnish end of Summer (it is not snowing… yet), I am forced to acknowledge how the world of work has changed. It is not that far ago that we lived under a Feudal system, where the notion of fairness was …
-
FREE Agile Retrospectives Program
Agile Retrospectives is all the rage right now for good reason: never before companies and teams had so much understanding how Agile Retrospectives can help companies. However, it’s easy to get sucked into the trend of Agile Retrospectives, run a few sessions, and literally wind up with nothing to show for it. Most Scrum Masters …
-
Accidental complication: another reason why estimates don’t work
Accidental complication Another reason why estimations can’t work goes by the name of accidental complication. J.B. Rainsberger introduced this concept at Oredev 2013 . The gist of the argument is this: every feature or functionality added to an existing project has two cost elements (what you want to estimate): Essential complication or g(e): How hard …
-
All the Conferences and talks about #NoEstimates in 2015
Are you talking about #NoEstimates at a local or global conference during 2015? Email me at [email protected]. I’ll collect all the #NoEstimates talks and conferences that include the topic right here! Agilia 2015, Brno, Czech Republic Speaker: Henri Karhatsu Topic: #NoEstimates – Going Beyond Estimates Date: March 23rd, 2015 Agile India 2015, Bangalore, India …
-
A Scrum Master Podcast is born!
Me and Luis Gonçalves, my partner at Oikosofy, will be premiering our Scrum Master Toolbox podcast this month! This is a Scrum Master podcast, where we interview guests from all over the world, and they share what they have learned in their careers. Today you get a first sneakpeek at the show! 🙂 Below is …
-
The Top 50 Agile Conferences of 2014, including Lean, Kanban or Scrum (and yes, also XP :)
Every year many Agile, Lean, Kanban or Scrum (and even XP!) conferences are organized throughout the world. So many that it is hard to choose from such a large number. That’s why I decided to create the list of the Top 50 Agile Conferences for us who work in the IT field. I’ve decided to …
-
ScanAgile 2015 submissions are open!
Just a quick note today to let you know that the Call for Sessions for ScanAgile, the Agile Finland annual conference is open for submissions. You can read the whole call for sessions here. You will find the submission form in that page as well. For me the most interesting tracks are: Off-Piste: interesting lessons …
-
5 No Estimates Decision-Making Strategies
One of the questions that I and other #NoEstimates proponents hear quite often is: How can we make decisions on what projects we should do next, without considering the estimated time it takes to deliver a set of functionality? Although this is a valid question, I know there are many alternatives to the assumptions implicit …
-
Lean Change Management: A Truly Agile Change Management approach
“I’ve been working in this company for a long time, we’ve tried everything. We’ve tried involving the teams, we’ve tried training senior management, but nothing sticks! We say we want to be agile, but…” Many people in organizations that try to adopt agile will have said this at some point. Not every company fails to …
-
The No Estimates principle: The importance of knowing when you are wrong
You started the project. You spent hours, no: days! estimating the project. The project starts and your confidence in its success is high. Everything goes well at the start, but at some point you find the project is late. What happened? How can you be wrong about estimates? This story very common in software projects. …
-
The Release Paradox: releasing less often makes your teams slower and decreases quality
Herman is a typical agile coach. He works with teams to help them learn how to deliver high-quality software quickly. Many teams want to focus on design, architecture, or (sometimes) even on business value. But they are usually not in a hurry to release quickly. Recently Herman conveyed a story to me that illustrates how …
-
How to create a knowledge worker Gemba
I am a big fan of the work by Jim Benson and Tonianne Barry ever since I read their book: Personal Kanban. In this article Jim describes an idea that I would like to highlight and expand. He says: we need a knowledge worker Gemba. He goes on to describe how to create that Gemba: …
-
How to choose the right project? Decision making frameworks for software organizations
Frameworks to choose the best projects in organizations are a dime a dozen. We have our NPV (net present value), we have our customized Criteria Matrix, we have Strategic alignment, we have Risk/Value scoring, and the list goes on and on. In every organization there will a preference for one of these or similar methods …
-
Hierarchies remove scaling properties in Agile Software projects
There is a lot of interest in scaling Agile Software Development. And that is a good thing. Software projects of all sizes benefit from what we have learned over the years about Agile Software Development. Many frameworks have been developed to help us implement Agile at scale. We have: SAFe, DAD, Large-scale Scrum, etc. I …
-
What is an Estimate?
If you don’t know what an estimate is, you can’t avoid using them. So here’s my attempt to define what is an estimate.The “estimates” that I’m concerned about are those that can easily (by omission, incompetence or malice) be turned into commitments. I believe Software Development is better seen as a discovery process (even simple …
-
What is Capacity in software development? – The #NoEstimates journey
I hear this a lot in the #NoEstimates discussion: you must estimate to know what you can deliver for a certain price, time or effort. Actually, you don’t. There’s a different way to look at your organization and your project. Organizations and projects have an inherent capacity, that capacity is a result of many different …
-
Coming out of the closet – the life and adventure of a traditional project manager turned Agilist
I’m coming out of the closet today. No, not that closet. Another closet, the tabu closet in the Agile community. Yes, I was (and to a point still am) a control freak, traditional, command and control project manager. Yes, that’s right you read it correctly. Here’s why this is important: in 2003 when I first …
-
Humans suck at statistics – how agile velocity leads managers astray
Humans are highly optimized for quick decision making. The so-called System 1 that Kahneman refers to in his book “Thinking fast, thinking slow“. One specific area of weakness for the average human is understanding statistics. A very simple exercise to review this is the coin-toss simulation. Humans are highly optimized for quick decision making. Get …
-
Creating options by slicing features – #NoEstimates technique
Each feature (or story) in a product backlog contains many undiscovered options. By taking features as they are without slicing them into thin slices of functionality we implicitly commit to an implementation strategy. However, when we slice features we create options that allow us to pro-actively manage the scope of a project. Let’s return to …
-
Dealing with Complexity in Software Projects – The theory that explains why Agile Project Management works
Why do projects fail? This is a question that haunts all project managers. Good and bad, experienced and beginners, Agile or non-Agile. The reason for that is simple: we believe that if we crack the code of why projects fail, we will be able to avoid failure in our own projects. After all who does …
-
Real stories of how estimates destroy value in Software Development
A friend shared with me a few stories about how Estimates are destroying value in his organization. He was kind enough to allow me to share these stories anonymously. Enjoy the reading, I know I did! 🙂 The story of the customer that wanted software, but got the wrong estimates instead Once, one of our …
-
How Chaos Theory will influence management and management styles in the future
Managers all over the world are faced with a critical challenge to their role. They ideas about management and their management style is being challenged. And this is even more important because many managers have reached a position of in their career where they thought they could “take it easy”. Nothing could be further from …
-
We want to make Agile Finland even better, who wants to join? A platform for 2014-2015
The ideas below reflect the discussions we (Maaret Pyhajärvi, Martin von Weissenberg, Vasco Duarte) have had while reflecting on our Visions for Agile Finland. We hope these ideas are discussed and developed within the Agile community in Finland, and end up in a set of actions for the Agile Finland Executive Committee 2014-2015. We also …
-
Management science’s impossible quest: in search of predictability
Many years ago some people came up with a brilliant idea: “what if, we could turn abundant lead (Pb on the table of elements) into scarce gold?”. A brilliant idea to be sure, but as we know now, impossible. What made Alchemy grow and thrive as a science, was that people at that time did …
-
Fractals, the solution to all of your scaling problems. Including Scaling Agile
It is no secret that I love planning. I’m not coming out of the closet now, that’s been true forever! And at some point in my life I was even “cool” with that. Additionally, I want you to know (although you will not yet understand why) that I still love planning. That’s me 🙂 Now …
-
The simple recipe for disciplined organizations
One question puzzles non-Agilists more than any other question. It is the question that uncovers why Agile does not fit their view of the world. A question that makes non-Agilists feel insecure and reject Agile completely or mostly. This question is: how can less structure, and less planning deliver software more reliably, and with higher …
-
How injecting randomness into your project can help it succeed
Success and failure differ, very often, by very little. Take nature as an example. A small change in our DNA (a few mutated genes) can have catastrophic consequences. On the other hand, without these mutations humans would never have come into existence. Humans and other species in the planet evolved because of chance (although not …
-
Why projects fail, is why (we think) they succeed!
When I started my career as a Project Manager, I too was convinced that following a plan was a mandatory requirement for project success. As I tried to manage my first projects, my emphasis was on making sure that the plan was known, understood and then followed by everyone involved. When I started my career …
-
Why processes fail us, and what to do about it
Organizations go through different levels of maturity as they grow. Some will say that they “learn to perform”, others will say that they “become ossified and slow”, yet others would say that they “mature”. In my view neither of these classifications is accurate, they all touch on possible outcomes of a process of “aging”. Organizations …
-
What is Chaos? And how we found out about it…
As he looked at numbers e noticed that the oscillations of his model did not repeat. In fact he entered the numbers again, and again, and again but his model would refuse to behave the same way twice. During our long education we were taught that given the initial state of a system (the present …
-
The most valuable question for your software project
Every time a software project is started, a dance starts: the dance of project approval. Decision makers and project delivery team take different positions at a table, some ask questions, others do their best to respond, given that these questions are typically about the future. Some of the questions are so much into the future …
-
My secret to flow and a productive day
As I start my day, I have this routine I do. I review all the loose threads that I have in my mind, and write them down (a mindmap, usually). After I write them down I quickly evaluate what are the most important goals for the day. Then I write those goals on a post-it …
-
Use #NoEstimates to create options and deliver value reliably
Why do I use #NoEstimates? Certainly the first reason is obvious in the name of this movement. But there are may other reasons. One of the reasons that does not get enough airtime is that it creates more options than using pre-estimated methods to manage software projects. Value is unpredictable, generate options to explore the …
-
Which do we need the most, Project Managers or Line Managers?
Should we organize around the delivery of products or along the structure of our organization? Which organizational paradigm is the most effective or efficient? This is a question that most managers struggle with regularly. At least when they are asked to “re-organize” their respective organizations. In Europe (and I suspect elsewhere) this has led to …
-
Using #NoEstimates when deciding which projects to take on
One of the questions (Part I, Part II) that emerged from the #NoEstimatesQuestions discussion on twitter was: “How do I choose between options or opportunities (without having estimates regarding the cost)?” The thinking goes: I can spend some time doing A or B, but which should I do first? To answer this question we can …
-
The #NoEstimates questions, Part II
Last week we did not cover all the questions on #NoEstimates. Twitter gave us a lot more questions than could be listed last week, and even more interesting ones. Read on for the questions and my take on their meaning. How do I choose between options or opportunities (without having estimates regarding the cost)? Choices …
-
Amazing content created by Agile practitioners can change lives
Have you heard of Scrum? An Agile methodology that swept the world by storm? Or Real Options? An approach that can change you manage risk and value in your projects? Or Impact Mapping? Probably the most revolutionary product management and requirements management approach created in the last 10 years? You can change people’s lives I …
-
Story Points Considered Harmful – Or why the future of estimation is really in our past…
This article is the companion to a talk that myself and @josephpelrine gave at OOP 2012. We have a lot to learn from our ancestors. One that I want to focus on for this post is Galileo.Galileo was what we would call today a techie. He loved all things tech and was presented an interesting …
-
XP2012: The Extreme Challenge
“Agile has crossed the chasm” we hear often. But has it really? In the last few years Agile has gone from being “the cousin in the corner that shouts and screams but no one wants to talk to” to being “the famous cousin who everyones wants to talk to”. It was not an easy transition, …
-
Kanban in a networked process — Visualise the network!
It seems that the idea of a work-network instead of work-flow is catching on and I’d like to throw a bit more fuel in that fire! Knowledge work is not linear! This we have learned from the experiences with failed Waterfall projects. There are things we do over and over again, and there are things …
-
Adapting to a different country and culture – a story
This is the story of Jerome (names changed to protect the innocent), and his adventures while changing countries for work. Jerome always wanted to work in another country. He had bought into the whole globalization/Cultural experimentation ideas of the 90’s. The economy was growing quite strongly, there was a strong need for IT professionals and …
-
Dude! Where’s my manager? or Why you should attend LESS2011
Many teams start their agile transition from the “developer-side”. This is quite normal, developers (coders and testers) feel the pain more than others because they need to actually get the product/system finished. But by focusing on developers, aren’t we missing something? Aren’t we forgetting that many of the consequences we so detest come from un-informed …
-
On rewarding and performance systems…
The ideas of “pay-for-performance”, and it’s twin sister “management by objectives” exist to try and increase the performance of a group and ultimately the whole company. The basic idea is: promise them a carrot and they’ll work more / better. But is that true? Can a company really perform better by promising people they will …
-
LESS goes Stockholm for LESS2011, join us there in October
Last year I was involved in the organization of a unique conference. LESS2010 was a unique conference because it brought together different communities. We wanted to make sure that people with different points of view would discuss those points of view. The aim was to create a space for sharing ideas from different communities in …
-
Agile is about customer delight
Today on twitter I got into an interesting conversation with @jeffpatton. The discussion was about whether Agile, as a family of methodologies and a value system is (or isn’t) directed at customer delight. @JeffPatton‘s point was that it is not. Here’s one of his replies to me on this subject: Later on during the day …
-
You cannot transition to Agile. Stop and just embrace it!
I am writing this blog post to explore a concept. So bear with me, I’ll probably ask more questions than I’ll answer. Why do most Agile fail in our companies (or government organizations for that matter)? My view is that we cannot actually transition from a command and control management paradigm to Agile / Complex …
-
Kicking up dust for the Agile Finland 2011-2012 season
A big moment for the Agile Finland community is approaching. On May 25th we’ll get together and select the new Agile Finland Board for the 2011-2012 season. There are many reasons why it is a big moment. In my opinion it is a big point in our history as a community. Agile Finland was started …
-
ALE Network in active discussion in the Agile Finland mailing list
Last Friday looked to be normal day. Too much work, too little time. But then it got better.After I sent an email to the Agile Finland mailing list announcing the Helsinki event to discuss the ALE Network vision, a lot of replies came in. It was a very active discussion. Below is my (necessarily) short …
-
What would a European Agile comunity look like? #ALEnetwork
Many of us have been involved in many different communities. Agile Finland for a start. But also other communities: our local kindergarten or school parent’s group, the school or kindergarten itself; the local neighbors; the apartment building executive board (“hallitus” in Finnish), etc. In fact, if we look back in history all of our history …
-
My Agile adoption story, and why it matters to you
Every person has their own different story of how they found out about Agile and how they came to experiment and ultimately adopt it in their projects.Mine is also different than most, I started as a skeptic. I was one of those that said “it will never work”. But I did come around. Here’s the …
-
Short multimedia review of LESS 2010 conference
The LESS 2010 conference just ended on a positive note of shared knowledge, bridge building between different communities and celebration of great work in the area of Software Development. LESS was started with a great ambition of combining, from the starting point three different communities globally. Those communities were the Agile community, which is focused …
-
Short video introduction to my sessions at Agile Eastern Europe 2010
In about 3 weeks I’ll be flying to Kiev and meeting some of the best Agilists in the planet. But it won’t be just fun and games for me. I’m already stressing about my sessions. Check out the video introduction of my sessions at Agile Eastern Europe and, while you are at it why not …
-
Waterfall leads to 90% ready 90% of the time! (the very definition of unpredictability)
One of the most common anti-patterns I’ve seen in waterfall projects is the “90% done syndrome”. It goes like this: the project will get quite quickly to 90% readiness and will look to be on time until that point. However, after the 90% readiness point is achieved we start to see more and more delays …
-
The three main trends in long agile adoption processes
I was having a discussion with fellow agile adopters yesterday and a bunch of interesting patterns emerged from the discussion: We are getting to agile/process improvement fatigue The management of software development is changing, but agile adoption processes do not have a mandate to change the management approach We don’t have a process to learn …
-
Stop fighting reality, take the red pill! A tale about managers
Today I’m on a mood for a rant. Be warned! 🙂 I constantly get gob-smacked (to borrow a term from a friend) about the lack of simple understanding of reality. Let me explain. One particularly common symptom in management is that they tend to “believe” (that’s the word) that they can affect what happens in …
-
Agile Eastern Europe announced, I’ll be visiting
It is now official, I’ll be speaking at Agile Eastern Europe. Hope to see you there!I’ll be hosting a workshop and a talk. Both are about the business view of software development. One will be specifically about Agile: Business Agility. How to take advantage of an Agile R&D?Many companies have jumped on the Agile bandwagon. …
-
Don’t just plan, plan to be surprised!
Walking a tightrope without a net maybe good entertainment, but it’s hardly what project teams enjoy the most. When the deadline comes and your team is late, you know why that is. No matter how well you plan (and you must) there will always be a volcano or a flood or simpler things like changing …
-
Tired of useless boring planning meetings? Read on, I’ve got a solution for you
In a meeting today I was graphically reminded of how some of the basic concepts in software development still escape many of us. Case in point, the meaning of capacity. In many people’s minds capacity still means “how many man-hours we have have available for real work”. This is plain wrong. Let’s decompose this assumption …
-
Why do we keep on giving up any control over our project? It would be so easy to keep it…
I get very often shocked by the comments that I hear from supposedly very smart people. Today was no exception. I heard the following comment: There is content we don’t want to timebox, therefore there’s no need to link it to any timeline… — Quote from someone that has direct responsibility over scope in a …
-
Setting targets actually decreases your performance. Don’t believe me? See this video…
Many of the readers of this blog have probably faced this situation already in the past. When I was adopting Scrum in a local company, I was faced with the tyranny of setting targets. Targets and bonuses were part of that company’s HR policies. “This is how we motivate people” as the saying goes. Now …
-
We all want more value. Fine! But what do you mean by value? A discussion on the meaning of “value”
In the agile community there’s been lately a great deal of talk about “value” and why that is more important than “process”. I also believe that we should try to optimize for value in our software environment, be it a small ISV or a big SW corporation. But what does value mean for you? The …
-
Agile is easy! It’s making it work with your business that is hard!
Last week I gave a talk at Turku Agile Day. The premise of the talk was simple: adoption Agile in R&D only is not enough. The goal was to create simple model to guide us through Agile adoption in a company (as opposed to a team). I came up with a model that included 3 …
-
We continue to miss the point. It is not Kanban vs. Scrum, it is “people over process”!
The Scrum vs. Kanban debates rage on in the blogosphere but I can’t help but feel that our Agile community is missing the point. Where is the “People and interactions over processes and tools” that is part of the core values? I commented on Rachel Davies’s post about what she calls W-Agile (waterfall disguised as …
-
The Kanban vs Scrum argument stinks! But, can we learn anything from it?
There were some interesting conversations on twitter last evening, so interesting that they are worth some comment. There was an interesting back-and-forth between @jurgenappelo and @agilemanager about whether it is possible to do Scrum in a “pull” mode or not as well as other issues. But this was just the tip of the iceberg of …
-
How about the mistakes we did by not doing anything?
I’m sure there are many good quotes from Russel Ackoff. Here’s one that makes my day, I see this happening all the time! “Schools and other organizations use accounting systems that only record one type of mistakes. If you do something you should not have done you pay the price, but not when you don’t …
-
We need Proof!: Talk at Agile Saturday in Tallin
Last week I had the honor to present the keynote at Agile Estonia’s first public event. Agile Saturday was full of people from that community and it was great to learn how that community is being developed. The organizers also filmed the event, so here is the link to my talk video and slides. Enjoy! …
-
We need proof! For a better understanding of our business, without religious arguments
Whenever you hear someone talk about Agile being better than X or X being better than Y don’t assume they are right. Ask for proof. For many years our knowledge and society at large have advanced through the tried and often questioned, but always upheld view that it is not sufficient to merely claim something …
-
User Stories are representations of a conversation, not a list of requirements!
Great post by Martin Fowler about a hidden aspect of the User Story flow within a team. Many times I see teams that expect the Product Owner to behave just like a Requirements manager did in the past. Come up with the content, put it in the tool and stay out of the way! That’s …
-
Agile Scales, Waterfall doesn’t – Video of a talk at Agile Eastern Europe
Sometime ago I did a talk about Scaling Software Development at Agile Eastern Europe in Ukraine. The slides are up in my slideshare account, but now you can see the video of the talk that Agile EE made available. In this talk I try to describe what “scaling” means and come to the conclusion that …
-
We don’t need software engineering religion, we need software engineering science!
During the Scan-Agile ’09 conference there was a lot of discussion about why Agile works and if a specific flavor of it would be better than other flavors (you know, the Scrum vs Kanban fight). Despite those surface issues, there was a deeper debate going on. Why does Agile work? And in what context should …
-
PMI vs Agile, the debate continues
Prompted by a comment by Murray on my first blog in this debate I wanted to expand some of the ideas that have not yet been explored. Here are the key excerpts from Murray’s comment: PMBOK V4 is compatible with and supportive of Agile processes. Here are some relevant quotes from CHAPTER 2 − PROJECT …
-
We have Open Space for learning at Scan-Agile
I’ve been in many conferences, and without an exception the best part of every conference was the time I had to talk 1-on-1 or with a few people about some subject that really interested me. This normally started in the hallways, during the coffee breaks. We started talking and suddenly we realized that we had …
-
What can Science teach us about Agile? (or why you must come to Scan-Agile)
I’m sure that you’ve heard many things during your life that made you think: “Boy, that guy/gal doesn’t get the basics of (put your favorite subject here)”. Well, there’s a reason for that. People make assumptions and claims that are false because they have a faulty model in their head. They simply don’t know better! …
-
Why learning is *still* so important (or why you should attend Scan-Agile ’09)
Last year I wrote a very personal story about how learning made a huge difference in the life of two people of similar age and in a similar context. Check out my story about Grandpa Tony and Grandpa Frank (BTW: it’s a real story!). So, this year I thought of finding a different way to …
-
The challenge to the Agile community: can’t we do better than PMBOK?
Another Knowledge Area in the PMBOK is Human Resource Management. The very name of the knowledge area already gives away the values behind it. It should not say “resource management”, it should say People Management! The old-skool project management is very much based on the values of Scientific Management and Hierarchical organizations that have permeated …
-
“Déjà vu” all over again, or why PMI/PMBOK are dangerous for the agile movement
There are significantly different sets of beliefs between what I call Old-Skool project management (embodied by PMBOK) and what is emerging as Agile project management for Software Development. Old-skool project management is based on values and scientific breakthroughs that are over 100 years old. Scientific management (Frederick Taylor, circa 1911) Cost based management (optimizing costs …
-
Response to Lynda Bourne on Agile and the Business message
The following is a comment to Lynda that I was not able to submit to her blog. You can find Lynda’s original post here. @Lynda Nice post. I’m glad that the conversation is continuing. Both PMI and Agile people need this dialogue. A couple of comments on your post. 1. I agree that Agile Advocates …
-
On how PMBOK Change management creates variability and reduces predicatbility
In the last post I tried to point out how the analytical approach of any standard (and specifically PMBOK’s) will create problems for those actually having to implement those standards.Change management in PMBOK is a particularly large problem in this respect. Scope Control (PMBOK’s process for change management in scope) comes at 19 different activities. …
-
Why PMBOK fails to embrace change
Yesterday we talked about the Project Management Plan process and how it is not adjusted to many software organizations. Today we will talk about the Project Scope Management knowledge area in the PMBOK. PMBOK defines that within this Knowledge Area there are five processes[1] Scope Planning: plan on how the scope will be defined [plus …
-
PMI and the meta-planning process, or why software development planning is different
In the previous post I said I’d talk about Project Integration Management. Of that knowledge area from the PMBOK, I’ll focus on one specific Project Management Process within the Project Integration Management (this is how PMBOK calls the different components for each Knowledge Area).The process I’ll focus on is “Develop Project Management Plan”. There’s an …
-
A message to PMI: let’s start a much needed dialogue. First post
Why PMI style project management is different and why should we care? Continues… Given the brouha about my last post, I thought I’d give my self some posts to clarify where I think the big differences are between Agile project management and the PMI-style project management (this last one I will affectionately call old-skool, because …
-
To all PMBOK, PMP and PMI people: you are missing 1 million points! Stop trying to explain something you don’t understand!
The traditionalists are starting to be quite dangerous in the hostile “take over” of Agile and Scrum (Kanban can’t be far behind). In this post Glen tries to tell us that it is ok to call “project management” what we do in a Scrum (f. ex.) development effort. Now, that would not be so serious …
-
Agile scales, Waterfall doesn’t! The myth is busted!
I have, for many years, been working in software development and for about 6 years with Agile Software Development adoption. First as a project manager and later driving the adoption of Agile in the organizations where I’ve worked. One clear characteristic has become clear to me over time. You may not hear about it much …
-
Stop committing to iteration scope!
This may seem like heresy in the world of “Scrum requires commitments from the team”, but think about it. If your iteration is about two weeks (give or take) and your team is pretty much fixed for that period of time (you can’t really “change” a team that fast), then what else is left? Yes, …
-
Can Scrum and Kanban be used for non-software development work?
Can Scrum or Kanban be used to manage any other work than software development? Do the same concepts apply? The past week-end there’s been some chatter on twitter about using Kanban or Scrum for managing work outside the software development realm. People seem (pleasently) surprised that it can be done. But can it really? The …
-
Waterfall in a Scrum world, yes it is possible. See how below
Can you do waterfall at the same time you are doing Scrum? Let’s explore the subject a bit… We all know what problems there are with waterfall and long term plans that are not changed. We start executing the plans and see that things don’t really work out as we thought but we stick to …
-
Response to critical article on Kanban
I was reading Chris McMahon’s post “Against Kanban” and could not help but think that a response was in order. The post below is a response, in detail to the (flawed) arguments that Chris makes against Kanban. “were revolutionary, because they were software development processes actually created from scratch by people who were very very …
-
A feature team needs more than a cross-functional group!
In a conversation with a friend we identified an anti-pattern that can often happen to “feature teams”. Feature teams are supposed to be cross-functional groups that focus the software development process in valuable-chunks of work, which normally cross the whole system (vertical slices of the system).[1] There’s a way in which you can meet that …
-
Why specialization in Software development is bad for business
Specialization in software development hurts our business! I’m not talking about the kind of specialization that leads to spend some more time in one area than in others. I’m talking about the specialization that leads us to have Database Administrators (DBA) or Database Designers (DBD) or Kernel programmers that don’t do anything else! Take the …
-
Pearls of Wisdom: Taiichi Ohno on management
It is rare that one reads something written in 1978 that feels relevant to today’s world in so many ways that is hard to explain all of its consequences. This is what happened today and I wanted to share that. The following is a couple of paragraphs from the “Toyota Product System” (TPS) by Taiichi …
-
Demos, not memos!
An interesting story over at 37signals’ blog about a company/site that was started against someone’s better judgment because the people involved saw a working version of the site not a requirements document!My favourite quote: 1. Ideas are cheap and plentiful. Execution is hard. 2. Meetings suck. 3. Requirements documents suck. Read it. You owe it …
-
Marketing fail redux, the Agile Process edition
I was reading a web-site from a “well know” process person/company in the software field (which will remain unnamed) and found the following quote (names changed to protect the guilty): XYZ corporation senior management decided that ABC Unified Process is the way for better quality, higher productivity and lower cost. I can’t begin to describe …
-
The curious case of buttoned-up Benjamin
Benjamin works in a consulting company where there was no dress-code unless the client would have a dress-code. Since most consultants were testers and coders (and you know how we dress) the clients understood not to demand a formal dress code. Then Benjamin’s company changed his boss. The new boss required and insisted on everyone …
-
What makes a great company? Recognizing you are not one yet…
The statement in the title is true even for those that are commonly recognized as great, as they say “here today gone tomorrow”. If you really want to be great you should not shout it out loud at every opportunity, you should recognize what your strengths are, play to them and always, always be on …
-
Bas, and the world are not ready…
My good friend Bas Vodde just published a review of the panflet Scrumban. I see that his review is yet another manifestation of what I titled “the world is not ready“. I don’t think that his ideas are wrong, on the contrary, just that his ideas show that a lot of ground is still to …
-
Acceleration, schmeleration. Scott Ambler misses the point…
Through this post on InfoQ I learned that Scott Ambler is writing about productivity in Agile and how to measure it. He comes up with an interesting concept, that of acceleration. Anyone familiar with statistical process control knows that a process does not have “acceleration” by itself. A process is either under statistic process control …
-
Why failing matters…
In our world we are often pushed to succeed. All of time. But, as counter-intuitive as it may sound, failure is the key to success! If you are in a position where “they” say “Failure is not an option” or “Make it right the first time” and similar phrases, maybe you should make them watch …
-
Another post in favor of another User Story format
Some time ago I wrote a post supporting the idea of a new template for the User Story. In that post I tried to explain why we should bring the “value” (because) clause to the fore, to make it the most important clause of the User Story template. Then John Arrowwood commented on that post …
-
The world is not ready…
While reading a post and associated Twitter chatter between Karl Scotland and others I got to think that the world is not yet ready. For what? For flow. The idea that if you do one thing (to Done) first and then start working on another thing and get that to Done, you will be faster …
-
Turku Agile Day 09
Our friends in Turku are organizing their own Agile day. Check it out here.
-
The worst decision you could ever make, and will anyway do it…
I’m sure this has happened to you. Probably many times over your long career in software development. You wake up, take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror and courageously make that decision you had been wanting to take for the past few months. You go back to the office, take your manager …
-
Learn from the Sensei
It is seldom that we have the opportunity to learn from the masters, the Sensei. Here’s a good post for those of us that are interested in TPS (Toyota Production System). I especially like this part: In 1943 Taiichi Ohno was transferred to the automotive side of Toyota from the Loom Works. The architect of …
-
Estimation is needed but useless. Do it and throw away the numbers!
I’ve discussed this idea a few times with some friends, but I’ll concede that the ultimate argument for stopping to estimate altogether is still to come… In the meanwhile here is more food for thought. Rob Bowley argues why estimations are bad in software development. My favorite part of his presentation: [In a study discussed …
-
The reason why top managers should questioned and challenged by us, the Lego edition
For many people that have read about the Toyota Production System (TPS) the image of Toyota has been improved and their willingness to buy a Toyota car has been positively affected (heck, I _want_ to buy a Toyota, I just can’t justify buying a car). But how about reasons not to buy a product from …
-
The Toyota Way in the clothing industry, examples to pay attention
If you have been following this blog, it is no news for you that I’m a big fan of what is known as Toyota Production System and it’s ideas as described by Jeffrey Liker in the famous “Toyota Way“. What you don’t know is that I’m a big fan of many other companies that exhibit …
-
Nokia goes agile. Will the rest follow?
Ari Jaaksi from maemo.org is blogging about Scrum in Nokia’s Linux/Open source projects.Also, Juha-Markus Aalto (of Object development fame) presented what I would call the “Nokia Agile Requirements Model” (and what Dean Leffingwell calls “Lean, Scalable Requirements Model“) at the Object days in Tampere. See the slides here(PDF alert). With all of this I can …
-
Note to self, use more simulations…
Great simulation description by Elisabeth Hendrickson, and I’ve got great first-hand feedback from this simulation. I can’t wait to see it live! Check out the post here.
-
The next step, Agile hungover
So, it is starting to happen. All around us we see people like James Shore or Rob Bowley proclaiming the end of Scrum, that we don’t really get it and that many teams do cycles, but forget about the rest. If you have been following the different waves of software process adoption this should be …
-
What is Velocity? (in agile software development)
Velocity is a term used in agile software development to illustrate the “rate of progress” for a team or a set of teams (i.e. a project/program). The simplest way to define velocity is: the number or user stories a team/project can do in one sprint (“do” here means that it really is done and potentially …
-
Punished by the Annual Performance Review
Many of us in the Agile community have voice our opposition to the individual performance reviews and target setting.Now, a professor from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has come out with a similar position and not less than in the serious Wall Street Journal (copy of the article), yes, the same that your …
-
Learn or else…
Through Elisabeth Hendrickson I got to Brett Pettichord’s post about the role of feedback in Agile. Read it if you haven’t yet. Here are the pearls that made me post this: “If you don’t have meaningful feedback then you’re not agile. You’re just in a new form of chaos.” and “Agile practices build a technical …
-
You are not ready for agile if…
This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for a long time. Who am I kidding, I don’t have the time right now, so I’ll let Andy do the talking: You’re not ready for agile if you: * behave territorially. You mark your territory like an aggressive dog, refusing to share power or information, …
-
Why learning is important (or why you should attend Scan-Agile ’08). The story of grandpa Tony and grandpa Francis
I’ve come to realize lately that today’s ability to learn is similar to last centuries ability to read. Confused? Let me tell you a story.One of my grandfathers (let’s call him grandpa Francis) knew how to read, he was able to keep up with the latest developments in agriculture and even read the weather forecast …
-
Belief without proof is dangerous!
Believing in some far-fetched (or indeed any) explanation without having any proof is dangerous. It is dangerous in the case of the flat-earthers and it is dangerous for project leaders and team members. Whenever a theory emerges why something works (or doesn’t) in your project/company, it is your duty to either prove it right or …
-
Great description of Agile planning sessions
Lasse has written a great post on estimation using the Story Point concept and the Planning poker practice. Some time ago I also wrote a post on how to make these Planning Poker sessions timeboxed but still effective. If you are interested in estimation and planning in Agile Software Development these posts are worth a …
-
The new skill paradigm
In the past we hired managers because they could “keep the people under control” and they could “get things done no matter what”.Although the first one is clearly in contrast with the self-organizing nature of Agile, some people still believe the second one… Well, I propose that the most important skill for managers today (in …
-
Spreading the happy flu, an experiment to study epidemics (meme-style)
In the interest of science (studying epidemics dynamics) I’m posting this “spread the happy flu” post. I got the happy flu from Henrik Mårtensson.
-
For a better format for User Stories
Karl follows up on a post by Liz Keogh about the fact that User Stories need to have a different format. The original format was: As a <customer role> I want <functionality> because <customer value explanation>. Before explaining the new format let me dissect a little bit this old format. Why is it wrong? Clearly …
-
An inconvenient truth, in work management
I bet anyone in my position (Agile Coach) has faced this before: you present a work method to a team or a person (be it scrum, XP, DSDM, FDD, etc.) and they go “yeah, I see what you mean, but that would never work here”. If I only had a dime for every time I …
-
Project smells
Jason suggests that projects, in his experience, face similar problems (I’m assuming he is talking about all projects, including Agile projects). What is your experience? What are the mistakes that happen all the time as Jason suggests? In the waterfall world one of my favorites that happened all the time was: requirements change constantly. Can …
-
The Green Shift Anti-Pattern
This is a pattern that effectively prevents any team from succeeding, and in many cases just causes a whole organization to behave in a dysfunctional way. Check it out. Has it happened to ? No, honestly! Blogged with the Flock Browser
-
Don’t blame, reward people that surface their own mistakes!
In Lean thinking errors or mistakes are seen as opportunity for improvement and growth. But in lean, mistakes don’t come alone, they also provide an opportunity for the team to create a poka-yoke tool/device. Poka-yoke stands for “mistake proofing”, i.e. making sure the same mistake does not happen again. This can only be done by …
-
Personal Scrum or Work 2.0
So, I’ve been inflicting Scrum on myself. This is my “eat your own dog food” because I’m an Agile Coach at the company where I work, which in practice means that I try to work with teams and help them with Agile adoption, and in some cases with the Agile development. For me to preach …
-
Admitting mistakes is the first step to learning, not just for you, but also for your team and company
Here is an excellent piece from the blog Evolving excellence about how a worker at Toyota battled his fear of admitting a mistake and was rewarded by his pears and supervisor for not hiding, but rather disclosing the mistake he had done. Admitting you committed a mistake is a very important part of continuous improvement. …
-
Busy vs. Productive, which one are you?
Eye-opening piece about the biggest cliché in the work-world: Work smarter not harder (or longer). Do you see yourself in this? Busy-ness is impressive. It puts you in the heat of the action. It gives you an elevated sense of importance. You’re always late for social engagements, barely have enough time for family get-togethers, and …
Nothing matches that yet.
Keep the conversation going
The essays work best in company. Join the community to keep the questions coming.