The nice folks at shepherd.com asked me to create my curated list of “scaling” agile books. That’s when I realized there is one core thought behind what we need to scale agility: collaboration between people and teams. That core thought is why I wrote Agile and Lean Program Management. And why I recommended these books: […]
At the Influential Agile Leader workshop earlier this year, I led a session about scaling and how you might think about it. I introduced the topic and explained that “scaling” might not be the answer. My experience is that when people use frameworks for larger efforts, they experience these unexpected side effects: The framework actions
Years ago, Roy Osherove interviewed me about project management, agile thinking, hiring, and management. We had a great conversation. (See Roy’s Archived Interviews page for my interviews with him.) I just listened to some of the questions and answers. If you are not sure about effective management, listen to the interviews. After a nudge from
Let me summarize what I’ve been talking about in these posts. The problem I’m seeing is that too many teams and organizations plan too much in too much detail too soon. Instead of architectural BDUF (Big Design Up Front), it’s project planning as BDUF. They expect one single person (a product manager or a product
The nice folks at Planisware organized a webinar with me, called Scaling Agile. They recorded that, and you can hear the video here: Scaling Agile with Johanna Rothman. We spoke a lot about Agile and Lean Program Management. I referred to my multiple part series about Defining “Scaling” Agile. If you are thinking about “scaling”
What does “scaling agile” mean to you? For me, there are two ways to think about scaling: one is moving from one project to a program. The other is sharing agile across the business. Let’s talk about moving from a one-team project to agile programs. A program consists of several projects across the organization. While
It seems as if everyone is talking about “scaling” agile. What they mean is a strategic collection of projects with one business deliverable: a program. We don’t have “best” practices for agile program management. However, you might find some reasonable practices help you use agile or lean even better. Think Product, Not System Sometimes, we
I posted my most recent Pragmatic Manager newsletter, Scale Agile With Small-World Networks on my site. This is a way you can scale agile out, not up. No hierarchies needed. Small-world networks take advantage of the fact that people want to help other people in the organization. Unless you have created MBOs (Management By Objectives)
I keep hearing a lot about “chief” this and “chief” that when it comes to Big Agile, aka program management. You know, chief product owner, chief architect, that kind of thing. I’m kind of puzzled. I thought agile was all about self organization and no command-and-control. Chief anything reeks of command-and-control to me. At the