Agile Coach Journal

Agile software development is a big change for many organizations. The most typical pattern is to start with one or two small projects and then build on success with more projects. In time, a wider change in organizational process and culture is underway. If your company is about to take this journey into unfamiliar territory or if they have gone part way and are feeling a little uncertain about their current location in the Agile landscape, you should consider hiring an experienced guide. In the Agile world, this guide is called an Agile Coach. Here are some advantages of hiring a Coach to help you find the way. Read more…

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Earlier this year I was in an Open Space workshop about teaching games. We chose the Definition of Done as a game subject and started brainstorming ways to illustrate its importance. It was harder than we anticipated. Ironically, we ran out of time and did not finish our game about being done.

I did get one insight out of this exercise that I find useful in my teaching and coaching now. I average about two original thoughts per year so I am hanging on to this one with both hands. We started with the question “What does it mean to be done?”. This question was surprising difficult to answer. I closed my eyes, made a plea to the Muses, reached back into my life experiences of things completed in jobs, hobbies, school, chores. I gathered up the feeling that was common to them all. And this emerged:

“Done” means that I don’t have to think about it anymore.

This post is done.

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In my early Agile days, we did not have a formal Definition of Done. We went by feel. If we were happy with the implementation from a design standpoint, if the story did what the Product Owner asked for, if it was fast enough for the user and if we did “enough” testing, then it was done. Since then, experience has suggested the need to be more precise about the criteria for “done”. It helps us to get agreement from all interested parties. Read more…

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I spent this week at Agile 2009 in Chicago. On the third night, after dinner with friends, I wandered over to the Music stage. There was a fellow playing one of the community guitars. I picked up another and we tried a little jam. Two other people came by. One picked up another guitar (Michael Bolton). The other grabbed the bongos. We tried out a couple of songs, adding vocals. They were just songs we knew in common or were simple enough that the others could follow along. Another fellow showed up with his own guitar (Paul Roub). Another fellow (George Platts?) conjured up a one-string washtub base from somewhere . Not kidding.

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Here are some ideas that came up in a discussion with others who shared their experience and ideas about training from a distance.

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This is an old post that got lost in a technology shuffle. I was reminded of it recently while reading Tom DeMarco’s great book Slack.

One of the things I do when I am not working is play guitar. I also study guitar, though I have made slow progress over the years. It is still fun. One of my favorite teachers is Ronnie Earle. I have an old VHS tape of his in which he shares his philosophy of playing. And he makes this statement that has stuck with me for years: ”Sometimes, you have to leave some space between the notes.”

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