I’m almost at the end of the January Practical Product Owner workshop. One of the participants has a problem I’ve seen before. They have a backlog of work, and it’s all tasks. Not a story in sight. I understand how that happens. Here are some ways I’ve seen the tasks-not-stories problem occur: The technical people […]
Is your agile transition proceeding well? Or, is it stuck in places? Maybe the teams aren’t improving. Maybe no one knows “how to get it all done.” Maybe you’re tired and don’t know how you’ll find the energy to continue. Or, you can’t understand how to engage your management or their management in creating an
I had a conversation with Amitai Schleier last year. I told him how much I enjoyed Agile in 3 Minutes (the podcast). I learned something from each podcast. He invited me to contribute one. Naturally, I chose management. My podcast, 34: Manage is up. If you like the podcast, you should check out the book, too. See
In Manage Your Project Portfolio, I’m agnostic about who manages the project portfolio. I prefer that the managers responsible for the strategy make the project portfolio decisions. And, I recognize that the PMO often makes those decisions. I am doing a series of webinars with TransparentChoice. The first one is live. See How many “points” does
When I talk about Minimum Viable Products or Minimum Viable Experiments, people often tell me that their minimum is several weeks (or months) long. They can’t possibly release anything without doing a ton of work. I ask them questions, to see if they are talking about a Minimum Indispensable Feature Set or a Minimum Adoptable
A couple of weeks ago, I spoke locally about Manage Your Project Portfolio. Part of the talk is about understanding when you need project portfolio management and flowing work through teams. One of the (very sharp) fellows in the audience asked this question: As you grow, don’t you need component teams? I thought that was
I just read Zappos is struggling with Holacracy because humans aren’t designed to operate like software. I’m not surprised. That’s because we are humans who work with other human people. I want to talk with people when I want to talk with them, not when some protocol tells me I must. It’s the same problem when
I have a new article up on projectmanagement.com, Continuous Agile Program Planning: Think Big, Plan Small. It’s about how to use rolling wave planning especially for an agile program. If you are a Product Owner or you are responsible for planning what when, and want to learn how to do this, join my PPO Workshop, starting
I don’t know if you retrospect on a regular basis. I do. (I know, you are so surprised!) Andy Kaufman asked me to share my biggest learning for his podcast. Take a listen to The Most Important Lesson You Learned Last Year. I’m pleased and proud to be in such good company. Thanks, Andy!
Many agile teams attempt to plan for an entire quarter at a time. Sometimes, that works quite well. You have deliverables, and everyone understands the order in which you need to deliver them. You use agile because you can receive feedback about the work as you proceed. You might make small adjustments, and you manage