A common question asked in large enterprises when they start transitioning to Agile is “What about dependencies?” When we talk about incremental development, evolutionary design and simple solutions some people get nervous. “But our system is huge and complicated!” we hear. How can we apply Agile to something with a lot of cross-dependencies or external dependencies? Or even dependencies between Agile Teams? Read more…
Prioritization of desired product functionality is often ad-hoc. Balancing the needs of all stakeholders is a challenge. A client recently shared a technique for gaining consensus on priorities and gave me permission to share it. Read more…
September 8th, 2011
Roger
I like to brighten up my training classes with wall posters. They typically reproduce slides in my presentation materials. In one class we had some audio-visual challenges and I actually used the posters as my slides . They serve as reminders of important concepts throughout the class and a focal point for specific exercises.
At first, I struggled with various technologies for making posters but finally found the magic formula. Here it is for anyone who would like to try it.
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I spent much of this week in Salt Lake City at Agile2011. This year’s theme was 10 Years since the signing of the Agile Manifesto. It was very cool to have many of the original signatories present. I have had a chance to meet some in the past and met more this time. I was impressed by the humility expressed by many of them given what has emerged in those 10 years. I got a chance to personally thank one for making my current career possible. Read more…
“What are the Best Practices for Agile?” If I had a dollar for every time I have been asked this question, I could buy a weekend on Maui. This industry term has taken on a “silver bullet” quality. In our endless search for perfection, we lazily think that going through the motions of the best practitioners will get us the best results for ourselves. Read more…
I spent the week at the Seattle Scrum Gathering, starting with a day-long retreat for Certified Scrum Coaches and Trainers. I learned a lot this week and made a lot of notes about things to check out, new ideas, new tools, new people, etc. Then I left the gathering in a hurry to catch my plane and accidently left my notebook behind. I am pretty sure it got gathered up with the trash. So I had a great time but was bummed to lose my external memory. Yeah, I know, a modern person would take notes with an iPad and never let go of it. Oh well. If I promised you something, please send me a reminder. Read more…
