Improving the world with software
Better software. Better questions.
Essays on software development, teams and the craft of building things that last.
Essays, page 8
147 essays in the archive
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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! …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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! …
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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 …
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