I must be in quite the mood today. I am disagreeing with just about everything I see online. I saw a tweet today for an opening for an agile coach who needed to have C++ in his or her background. Why??? Is the coach going to be developing? I hope not. Testing? I hope not? […]
Shane Hastie and I taught our Working with Geographically Agile Teams workshop last week in Sydney. One of the questions that arose is “What tool do I use with a distributed team?” That same question is on the scrumdevelopment mailing list this week. Shane and I don’t know what is wrong with a whiteboard and
I love it when my readers challenge and question me. Thank you, Sam and Paulo for asking the equivalent of “Huh?” for Refactoring and Redesign are Different. You asked great questions. Let me see if I can answer. For me, the time issue is the lack of transparency about the time required to complete the
I’ve been working with people starting their transition to agile. They are all smart people—some of them scary-smart. And some of them are misusing some of the terminology. Some people are using the word “refactoring” to describe significant work, say, weeks or even months of effort of rework. Sorry, I call that redesign. To me,
There’s a question on one of the forums, about how to ask questions in a phone screen for junior developers. I thought I would answer it here, and then post a link. These tips work for junior developers, testers, writers, BAs, whatever. In a phone screen, you first want to ask elimination questions; then essential
I just finished the SDC conference in Wellington and am now in Sydney, ready to start SDC here tomorrow morning. One of the highlights for me was the experiential workshop Shane Hastie and I led about kanban Tuesday afternoon. We started with a backlog and a minimal board: not started, in process with a WIP
I’m in Las Vegas waiting to get on a plan to Los Angeles to go to New Zealand for SDC. I led a workshop yesterday for real estate project managers about how to define success and manage some of the early-in-the-project risks. We discussed issues such as the Hudson Bay start, context-free questions, release criteria,
It’s easy to hire for a “normal” kind of job, where you say, “Developer” and everyone knows what you mean. But what if you are looking for a new kind of role, say, “knowledge management” or “social media guru”? Those roles are new. They mean different things to different people. Well, if you’re like my
Shane Hastie and I have been working across timezones in preparation for a workshop: Working Effectively With Distributed Agile Teams. I’m keynoting at SDC in a couple of weeks, and am looking forward to being back in Wellington and Sydney. First, Shane and I built a backlog in Google docs, so we could both see
For years, I have ranted against traffic lights as a way to discuss project status. That’s because on serial lifecycle projects, or on long projects, the traffic light was always yellow or red. And, because managers, especially senior managers expected the light to turn green by itself with no outside intervention. But Lisa Crispin noted