I’m a huge fan of team-based collaboration to complete small stories through the architecture. (The image above shows three small stories implemented through the architecture.) More collaboration means lower WIP (Work in Progress). That lower WIP allows the team to increase their throughput (finished features) and lower cycle time (release something useful faster). (See how […]
This is the November 2024 Pragmatic Manager Newsletter, from Johanna Rothman. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email.Is your “hybrid” team working? So far, most of my clients say, “No!” Managers think there’s not enough collaboration. Team members discover their meetings don’t work because the office is not sufficiently equipped with the
When I started working on projects, we thought we could use a serial/waterfall approach to project management and product development. While we were wrong, one very good thing happened in the 1970s and 1980s: We took the time at the end of each phase to do a little retrospective. Yes, even for a serial approach,
I’m working on finishing a talk based on a recent Pragmatic Manager newsletter: Three Tips to Focus to Deliver Better Products Faster. I wrote that newsletter because I’d given several recent talks where the audience told me their “agile” teams could not collaborate. Those “teams” were component teams and they were not near each other.
Susan, a new-to-the-company program manager, could not understand why Product A was so late. The teams used a well-known agile approach. They weren’t working on anything else except for production support. Yet, even though the teams worked hard, not one team could meet any of their deadlines. The teams were unhappy with their progress. They
If you took an agile workshop sometime in the past 15 years, you probably played the “ball game.” That’s where people emulate a Scrum approach, complete with asking the team to do “more.” As described in the link above, it can be a terrific simulation. There are many reasons to use simulations when trying to
Barney, a senior manager, said, “I need everyone to return to the office. I’m okay with what they’re doing, although I miss the buzz of people doing the work. But I don’t know how to build the human connection with them when they’re not here.” I nodded. “You’re always telling me to have empathy with
Meetings. We all have them. Most of us hate them. When I ask why, here are some of the responses I hear: They take too much time away from our “real work.” It’s too hard to find time to meet. Our calendars are too full. We can’t find a place to meet. If we’re back
Workshop Objective: In this workshop, you’ll learn how to use principles first, to create, support, and improve your successful distributed agile team. Workshop Overview: You’ll learn the eight principles of successful distributed agile teams and how to use them to personalize your team’s success. Learn how to: How the eight principles change the practices. How
Before the pandemic, Jenny, the VP of Engineering, insisted that the engineering staff needed to work in the Boston area. She expected that people would mostly work in the office, and they did. However, during the pandemic, Jenny changed her mind. She said that as long as teams had sufficient hours of overlap, she didn’t