I’ve been working with teams that feel a ton of pressure. On top of the pressure, a senior manager says these words: “Failure is not an option.” When managers say that, they ignore all the possibilities for success. They put their heads down, ignoring ways to manage risk. When managers don’t collaborate to manage risk, we […]
Work From Home? Three Ideas for Better Project Agility Samantha, an agile manager, had a big problem. Back before everyone had to work from home, they had pretty good results with their standard agile approach. However, now that this eight-person team worked from home, they had these problems: The team didn’t share the same work
Yesterday, you worked in an office with everyone else. Today, you’re supposed to work from home—and so is the rest of your team. And not just for the next few days, but for the next few weeks. What tools do you need? My list of the most important tools: A good microphone and headset so
Collecting data isn’t free. There’s a cost to every piece of data. There’s also value. How do we balance the cost and value of data? As with all juicy questions, it depends. And, in general, the easier the data is to collect, the less value there is in the data. Examples of Useless and Cheap
A client wants to know how best to calculate their software capitalization. They had a “standard” approach when they used waterfall. They no longer have all waterfall projects. They’ve started to use agile approaches. And, the projects don’t all look the same. Being somewhere in the middle means they’re having trouble reasoning about capitalization. Why
In Costs of an Agile Approach for Hardware Products, I suggested that an iteration-based approach for hardware was too expensive. I focused on the actual development costs. Let me talk a little about the team and alternatives here. What Does a Hardware Team Look Like? Agile software teams are cross-functional and interdependent. The team is
I had a conversation with a hardware engineer whose organization got the mandate, “Go agile or bust!” They’re attempting to manage their technical and schedule risk with two-week iterations. And, they’re trying to show finished product, not simulations. And, even though they work independently, they’re supposed to have a standup every day. None of that makes
I spoke with a project manager recently. She told me her story. I used to facilitate project teams as a project manager. Why a project manager? Because the project had a beginning and an end. We had (and still have) too many products to keep the same teams on them for a long time. For
A potential client called me. “What’s a good tool to see the state of my projects? I need a tool.” I asked, “What problems do you see?” “Everything is late. No one’s synchronized. I can’t tell where the projects are.” “How many projects do you have in progress?” “At least 100.” (I was pretty sure
I spoke with an agile coach whose team works in flow, similar to this board. They don’t use iterations—they plan on demand. The column on the left, “Stories to Workshop” is their backlog refinement column. Recently, the team decided they need “minimum” WIP (work in progress) limits. Especially on the Workshop column. Why? Their product