Once you have a roadmap/product backlog for hardware, the teams need to know what to do and when. As a program manager, program product owner, or other interested party, you might want to know where the work is. The roadmap shows the big picture. The demos and team-based backlogs show the details and interdependencies One
I’m writing like mad, trying to finish the program management book. I’m working on the “Integrating Hardware” chapter. The problem is that hardware comes in several varieties: Mechanical engineering Silicon (part of electrical engineering) FPGA (which looks like software to me) Each component (yes, I do call these components) has a different value at different
Productive Vs. Busy I received some fascinating responses to Do You Want More Productivity? One correspondent told me that managers need to move people—especially testers—from one project where they are not busy to another project where they could help. His experience matches mine—many projects do not have enough testers. However, we do not share the
I meet many people who are convinced there is One Way to Do Agile. Oh, and it’s the way they are using the agile practices. In their opinion, everyone should do agile their way. They believe that the kanban board is more valuable than a Scrum board—or the other way around. They believe that as
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