Marcus Blankenship and I wrote a follow-up piece to our first article, mentioned in Discovery Projects Work for Agile Contracts. That article was about when your client wants the benefit of agile, but wants you to estimate everything in advance and commit to a fixed price/fixed scope (and possibly fixed date) project. Fixing all of
Linda Rising gave a great talk last night at Agile New England. Her topic was problem-solving and decision-making. One of her points was to discuss the problem, out loud. When you talk, you engage a different part of your brain than when you think. For us extroverts, who speak in order to think, this might
You’re working on a project or a series of tasks for some deliverable. Do you know why? The reason behind the project explains the value of your work. You might work on something just for the fun of it. Back before I had children, I bicycled, crocheted, and needlepointed. I made time for these hobbies
Back in the ’90s, everyone was into repeatable processes for software. What that often meant was we were supposed to do all projects in exactly the same way, regardless of the type of project. We were supposed to document what we did and deliver the same documentation each project. It didn’t matter how much innovation
In our first article — “Stay Agile with Discovery” (May 11, 2016)— we discussed how to use a discovery project to show a non-agile customer or sponsor the benefits of going agile. Now we will focus on building trust with a client who is ready to consider agile approaches. After the discovery project, Martha was ready
People often ask me, “When is agile right or not right for a project?” I’ve said before that if the team wants to go agile, that’s great. If the team doesn’t, don’t use agile. That answer is insufficient. In addition to the team, we need management to not create a bad environment for agile. You
Marcus Blankenship and I wrote an article, Stay Agile with Discovery, to discuss how to help your clients see the benefits of working in an agile or more agile way. We have seen too many clients want “agile” and not want all the responsibilities that being a Product Owner or customer involves. If your client asks
I see a lot of confusion around velocity in new-to-agile teams. Too many people treat velocity as an acceleration measurement. That is, they expect velocity to increase to some large number, as a stable state. Velocity is a rate of change coupled with direction. When managers think they can measure a team with velocity, they
I had a great time with my previous version of the Non-Fiction Writing Workshop: Write Non-Fiction to Enhance Your Business and Reputation. I am offering it again, starting this August 24. I added another week, so you have the chance to practice more. I am also offering a personal accountability option. If you want, you can
Ryan Ripley and I spoke on his Agile for Humans Podcast, Agile Program Management with Johanna Rothman. We had a blast. We spoke all about Agile and Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization, estimation, value, and much more. I hope you listen.