agile transformation

agile, MPD, project management

Cards, Stickies, Whiteboards or Tools

Shane Hastie and I taught our Working with Geographically Agile Teams workshop last week in Sydney. One of the questions that arose is “What tool do I use with a distributed team?” That same question is on the scrumdevelopment mailing list this week. Shane and I don’t know what is wrong with a whiteboard and

MPD, project management

Refactoring, Redesign, Time, and Transparency

I love it when my readers challenge and question me. Thank you, Sam and Paulo for asking the equivalent of “Huh?” for Refactoring and Redesign are Different. You asked great questions. Let me see if I can answer. For me, the time issue is the lack of transparency about the time required to complete the

MPD, project management

Refactoring and Redesign are Different

I’ve been working with people starting their transition to agile. They are all smart people—some of them scary-smart. And some of them are misusing some of the terminology. Some people are using the word “refactoring” to describe significant work, say, weeks or even months of effort of rework. Sorry, I call that redesign. To me,

agile, MPD

Functional Managers Acting as Scrum Masters: Not a Good Idea

I often meet people who are transitioning to agile, and they decided to pick Scrum, because it’s a helpful project management framework. Ok, that makes sense. But then they decide that they no longer need project managers, and that the development manager can act as the Scrum Master. The Scrum Master is not a management

agile, MPD

Multiple Product Owners for an Iteration

I’ve been working with clients making the transition to Agile. They are accustomed to a product manager “owning” a product, and negotiating for people to work on their product. Of course, that means begging, borrowing, stealing people from other projects and lots of multitasking. It also means that specific people have very specific knowledge of

agile, MPD

Wage Cost and Project Labor Cost

I’ve been working with teams who want to move to agile. Some people on their teams are in another location, where the salaries are cheaper. It’s difficult to get agile started with a geographically distributed team. If everyone’s distributed, it’s easier than if just some people–especially if they are all one function, such as developers

Articles

Agile Managers: The Essence of Leadership

As organizations have transitioned to agile projects and programs, what happens to the managers? Do we need managers any more? If so, what good would they do? Yes, we need managers. And in a truly agile organization, where the managers are freed from the day-to-day tactical project tasks, we need them more than ever as

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