When I teach agile, I explain I like small and short stories. I want to see value in the product every day. Many developers can’t do that. That’s because they have interdependencies with other teams—not developers on their team, but other teams. They can’t implement in the way the picture next to this shows: small, […]
I spoke with a Scrum Master the other day. He was concerned that the team didn’t finish their work in one 2-week iteration. He was thinking of making the iterations three weeks. I asked what happened in each iteration. Who wrote the stories and when, when did the developers finish what, and when did the testers
Two development managers were arguing: “I need Tom on my team,” Chase said. “He has the specific knowledge I need. We’re not going to be able to release unless we get Tom on my team.” Pierce retorted, “You can’t have him. He’s working really well with my team. He likes my team. Forget it.” They
I’ve been teaching workshops these last few weeks. A number of the participants think that they need to create great estimates. I keep hearing, “I have to create accurate estimates. My team needs my estimate to be accurate.” I have found that the smaller the work, the better the estimate. If people work as a team,
I’ve been traveling, teaching, speaking and consulting all over the world. I keep encountering managers who talk about the “resources.” They mean people, and they say “resources.” That makes me nuts. I blogged about that in People Are Not Resources. (I have other posts about this, too, but that’s a good one.) I finally determined what
Do You Want More Productivity? A senior manager asked me, “How do I get more productivity out of my people? We have cross-functional teams. Each team has their expertise. I just feel as if the teams could do more.” I asked, “What kind of expertise? Is it expertise as a team or are people experts
How often do you reflect on your career or life? If you are like me, it’s easy to let the daily pushes and pulls distract you from reflection. I realized about a year ago I had not reflected purposefully about my work and my life in a couple of years. I reflect on consulting, individual
A couple of weeks ago, I had a great time participating in the Agile in Large Enterprises panel, a part of the Continuous Discussions (#c9d9) that Electric Cloud hosts. Here’s the recording: We discussed these questions: Why agile in large enterprises and what are the challenges? Where should you start? Centralized? Decentralized? Where should agile
Have you ever been told you have “a lot of potential”? My teachers told me that. Some of my early managers told me that, too. I thought I was working up to my potential, so I was frustrated when I heard that. Then, I changed a few things about how I worked. I used inch-pebbles,
The discussion to now: Resource Efficiency vs. Flow Efficiency, Part 1: Seeing Your System Resource Efficiency vs. Flow Efficiency, Part 2: Effect on People Resource Efficiency vs. Flow Efficiency, Part 3: Managing Performance Resource Efficiency vs. Flow Efficiency, Part 4: Defining Accountability When you move from resource efficiency (experts and handoffs from expert to expert)