MPD

agile, MPD

How Short Can Your Iterations Be?

One of the problems many people encounter when moving to agile is that they (literally) cannot imagine iterations shorter than 4 weeks. I rarely recommend an iteration as long as 4 weeks now, and if people insist on 3 weeks, suggest they find the root cause for the reason their iteration needs to be so […]

MPD, project management

Pairing Helps

I’ve been working with Gil Broza on our teleclass series, Prevent Your Agile Titanic, both on marketing it and on its content. And it never fails, we have questions for each other almost every day. Sometimes I’m developing something and it looks “funny.” So I ask for review. Sometimes, as with the content, we discuss

MPD, writing

PragPub Out With an Article From Me

I wrote a little article about Barriers to Agility in the most recent version of PragPub, the online magazine from the Pragmatic Bookshelf. There’s a bunch of other good articles in there, too. Andy Lester has a great article about speaking as a way to practice interviewing, a bunch of comments/thoughts/rants about the iPad, and

conference, MPD

Trip Report for Japan Symposium on Software Testing

I just returned from Tokyo, where I keynoted at JaSST, the Japan Symposium on Software Testing. 10 years ago, when they started the conference, maybe it was just about testing, but now it’s evolved to be about quality in the organization. Some highlights from my trip: Everyone (and everything) I met appeared quite orderly. Everything

lifecycle, MPD

Catching My Breath: Many Media Opportunities for You

I’ve been busy the last couple of weeks, first preparing and then delivering the teleclass, 3 Crucial Factors for Preventing Your Agile Titanic. If you missed the call, you can still sign up for the replay. If you like what you heard on the replay, join us for the whole series of calls, starting Feb

agile, MPD

Still Time to Reserve Your Spot for "3 Crucial Factors…"

Wow! I can hardly believe how many people have signed up for the brand-new free teleclass, “3 Crucial Factors For Preventing Your Agile Titanic” that Gil Broza and I will be teaching next week! I guess we struck a nerve with many people who want (or need) to get Agile going, and who don’t have

MPD

Prevent Your Agile Titanic

I have a question for you:  Have you come across team whose first attempt at Agile adoption resulted in conflicts, pain, or just fell short of expectations? I’ve met plenty of teams like that. I’ve heard statements like “nobody knew what they were doing”, “management still dictated an impossible deadline” and “those sprints became small

conference, MPD

Creativity Flows in Person

I’m back from our AYE conference planning. I had a blast. The best thing, aside from being able to publish our program, is that we discovered that when we are together, the creative juices fly. For example, instead of two people pairing to teach the warm-up tutorial, we decided we all teach the tutorial. Not

management, MPD

Problem Solving Requires the Right Question

The December Harvard Business Review has an article, Is the Rookie Ready? (You have to subscribe and pay to read the whole thing.) The story is this: Kristen is the new project manager, reporting to Tim. The old PM left because Tim, who’d been her manager for 6 months didn’t know how to work with

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