I see a lot of confusion around velocity in new-to-agile teams. Too many people treat velocity as an acceleration measurement. That is, they expect velocity to increase to some large number, as a stable state. Velocity is a rate of change coupled with direction. When managers think they can measure a team with velocity, they […]
Cindy works for AgileSoft as the Product Owner for its clients. AgileSoft contracted with Acme to do product development for its marketing website. Acme sells a variety of products and services, and wants the website to serve all audiences, from casual browsers to long-time customers. Acme’s Marketing, Sales and IT teams are involved, but Acme’s
Use the Power of Your Rumor Mill Project and program managers often ask, “How can I get people to work across teams? I don’t want to delay people or solve problems for them when they can solve problems themselves. I just don’t know what to try.” My advice: Use the rumor mill. You’ve seen the
In software, overloaded operators exist when an operator or operation has different meanings in different contexts. A developer might do this unintentionally when she uses a variable to mean one thing in one context and that same variable has a different meaning in another context. We even overload conversational operators. A number of years ago,
I bet your list of things to do is overflowing. You have a ton of work. You know you need to do it. And, if you’re like me, some of it is work you don’t want to do. I’m not excited about cleaning my office. I have much more interesting work: articles, books, client proposals
I’m a new contributor to the TechBeacon site. I have an article up, called Small-world networks: a lightweight alternative to SAFe for scaling agile. Yes, it’s based on Agile and Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization. Hope you enjoy the article.
If you’re the project manager for a geographically distributed team, you have likely encountered time zone challenges in running your meetings: 7 a.m. New York time is 8 p.m. in Singapore. Meetings at these times can exhaust everyone. Here’s a common scenario faced by managers of distributed teams: “We’ll have our next standup tomorrow, same
I sent my newsletter, Scaling Agile and Lean to Programs to my subscribers yesterday. (Are you one of them? No? You should be!) If you are trying to use agile for several projects that together deliver value (a program), you might be wondering what the “right” approach is. You’ve heard of frameworks. Some of them
Scaling Agile and Lean to Programs Using agile or lean for one project can be a challenge. What happens when you want to extend agile or lean to multiple projects or across the organization? Many people try frameworks. Frameworks assume you have the same context and challenges as other efforts–even inside your organization. You have
Build Your Agile Leadership In your organization, agile has helped your teams improve their value delivery. Although the teams retrospect, you expected more improvement. You think your agile journey might be stuck. Maybe it’s time for you to build a culture of agile leadership. Tip 1. Make your work transparent. Do other people know what