In many of my transitioning to agile clients, the managers want to know when the project will be done. Or, they want to know how much the project will cost. (I have a new book about this, Predicting the Unpredictable: Pragmatic Approaches to Estimating Cost or Schedule.) Managers ask for estimates because they want to […]
I’ve been talking with clients recently about their managers’ and HR’s transition to agile. I hear this common question: “How do we manage performance of the people on our agile teams?” Reframe “manage performance” to “career development.” People on agile teams don’t need a manager to manage their performance. If they are retrospecting at reasonable
I have an article up on agileconnection.com called Common Misconceptions about Agile: There Is Only One Approach. If you read my Design Your Agile Project series, you know I am a fan of determining what approach works when for your organization or project. Please leave comments over there. Thanks! Two notes: If you would like to
Is there room for functional managers, such as development and test managers, in agile organizations? Maybe. It depends on whether they take the role of an agile manager. If you have organized as a feature teams-based organization, the functional managers (development, test, analysis, whatever) can take these responsibilities: Develop trusting relationships with the people on
I have a new column posted at projectmanagement.com. It’s called Does Agile Apply to Your Project? (You might need a free registration.)
I read the Business Week opening remarks, How Optimism Strengthens Economies. See this quote at the end: the group of people who turn out to be most accurate about predicting how long it will take to complete tasks—and how likely they are to succeed—are the clinically depressed. Optimists underestimate how difficult it will be to succeed.
A recent coaching client was concerned about the progress his team was making—or really, the lack of progress his team was making. We spoke about the obstacles he had noticed. “The team doesn’t have time to write automated tests. As soon as they finish developing or testing a feature, people get yanked to another project.” “Are people, developers
If you read my Three Alternatives to Making Smaller Stories, you noticed one thing. In each of these examples, the problem was in the teams’ ability to show progress and create interim steps. But, what about when you have a “wicked” problem, when you don’t know if you can create the answer? If you are
When I was in Israel a couple of weeks ago teaching workshops, one of the big problems people had was large stories. Why was this a problem? If your stories are large, you can’t show progress, and more importantly, you can’t change. For me, the point of agile is the transparency—hey, look at what we’ve
I posted my most recent Pragmatic Manager newsletter, Scale Agile With Small-World Networks on my site. This is a way you can scale agile out, not up. No hierarchies needed. Small-world networks take advantage of the fact that people want to help other people in the organization. Unless you have created MBOs (Management By Objectives)