What happens when you have no product owner at all? How does a team know what features to develop in what order? Several teams I know encountered this. They all had product managers. Most of them had Business Analysts. All of them had a technical manager who was willing to be their product owner, but […]
I prepare for my speaking and workshop engagements. This year, I’ve been all over the world. I’ve had a great time, and my clients and audiences have had a great time, too. Well, except for this past week at my session, “The Budgeting Black Hole: Predicting the Unpredictable” at Agile 2011. There, I bombed. I
I recently spoke with a colleague who’s a little confused. John was just promoted to being the development manager in a small organization. He’s used to doing lots of work—whatever needs to be done, he does. Now, he’s managing 6 developers in an organization that’s trying to move to agile. No, they haven’t had any
Lisa, Vin, and Derek in their comments on Agile, Architects, and Programs were concerned about how an architect might lead the test architecture work. They have good reason to be concerned. I hadn’t expressed how I see architecture working in an agile program, and they haven’t been to my talks, where I have discussed it.
When I was on vacation, I realized that lots of people already know that we need development architects on complex programs. And, lots of people forget that we also need test architects on complex programs. The more complex the product, the more you need integrated testing, so the more agile makes sense for your product.
Feature-itis. It’s an agile Product Owner game. It’s when the Product Owner says, in his or her best George Carlin voice, “Gimme Features. I don’t care about no stinkin’ framework. I don’t care about no technical debt. I don’t care that it’s going to make your work harder later. I only care about now. I’m
I posted a new newsletter, Three Tips for Your Geographically Dispersed Agile Teams. If you subscribed, you’d have seen it last week… There’s still time to sign up for the workshop in Tel Aviv next week.
Bob Payne interviewed me about agile program management last year at the Agile 2010 conference and posted the podcast. We always have a great time talking, and that podcast was no exception. He makes me sound quite coherent! Matt Heusser interviewed me about my new workshop with Rebecca Wirfs-Brock about Agile Architecture. My column on
When I lead public workshops, I ask people what their experience with with agile is. In the past, if I asked people if they were experienced with agile, their answers were reliable. Now, not so much. People think if they can spell agile, they are agile. If they sometimes use timeboxes, they are agile. If
I’ve been writing through my travels. Today, Stickyminds published Not Ready for Agile? Start Your Journey with Release Trains. In February, Gantthead.com published Timebox or Kanban: A False Dichotomy. I would have let you know, but I was traveling and was unaware they published it! I write the columns ahead of time and don’t know