Back in Manage It!, I suggested that for requirements, the questions should be, “How little can we do?” and still have a great product. My argument was this: the longer the project (regardless of approach), the more risk there is. Can you reduce risk by reducing the requirements? That would allow you to release earlier […]
We might start to think about agile approaches as a project change. However, if you want to “scale” agile, the entire culture changes. Here is a list of the series and how everything changes the organization’s culture: Defining “Scaling” Agile, Part 1: Creating Cross-Functional Feature Teams. Without feature teams, I don’t see how you can
One of the challenges I see in organizations is how managers can use agile approaches. One of the biggest problems is that the entire organization is organized for resource efficiency (think silos of functional experts). Agile approaches use flow efficiency. Thinking in flow efficiency changes everything. Many people in organizations believe that dividing up the
Note to my dear readers: As I write, I realize this series is growing. Thank you for your understanding in advance. In Defining “Scaling” Agile, Part 4: Sharing Agile Outside of Product Development, I wrote about an independent workgroup with one stream of work. I used Customer Support as an example. Support has one stream:
Here’s where we are so far in this discussion of what it might mean to “scale” agile approaches: Part 1: Creating Cross-Functional Feature Teams (Teams that can produce features on a regular basis) Part 2: Programs of Cross-Functional Feature Teams (Programs (multiple teams working together) that deliver features on a regular basis) Part 3: Agile Product
In the “Scaling” Agile: Part 1, I wrote about cross-functional collaborative teams. The cross-functional collaborative feature team is the basis for “scaling” agile. In “Scaling” Agile, Part 2, I wrote about programs. I realized I need another part before my original part 3 :-). This new part 3 is about creating agile product development capabilities.
New Year’s Tips for 2017 Other people like to help you plan for resolutions. Well, I’m a bit contrary. I don’t buy this resolution business. I never succeed. (I’m not alone in that.) On the other hand, I like to integrate tips for my next year from my learnings from the previous year. I’ve been
The more I work with project portfolio teams and program managers, the more I understand one thing: Cost accounting makes little sense in the small for agile, maybe for all knowledge work. I should say that I often see cost accounting in the form of activity-based accounting. Each function contributes to some of the cost
3 Quick Project Portfolio Tips The second edition of Manage Your Project Portfolio is available now, in ebook and paper. I’m so excited. To celebrate, here are three tips to help you manage your project portfolio. Tip 1. Make your work visible. When I lead workshops to help people understand how to manage their project
Productive Vs. Busy I received some fascinating responses to Do You Want More Productivity? One correspondent told me that managers need to move people—especially testers—from one project where they are not busy to another project where they could help. His experience matches mine—many projects do not have enough testers. However, we do not share the