Implementing Scrum helps your development department but breaks the old way of doing things, so the overall process actually slows down. Everyone was bashing your development department. You were too slow, you were the bottleneck - if only development would be faster, we could earn so much more money ... you know what I'm talking … Continue reading Has your Scrum implementation caused more problems than it solved?
Category: Kanban & Agile
Why projects fail and how to make them succeed with more transparency
Imagine you’re driving your car through uncharted territory to a destination only vaguely described by "That Guy" who told you to go there. "That Guy" was kind enough to give you an absolutely non-negotiable deadline too. With that in mind, you race to the first waypoint - you should already be able to see it … Continue reading Why projects fail and how to make them succeed with more transparency
Stop missing out on collaboration opportunities by creating situation awareness
Yesterday, I was waiting for the train to arrive for my daily commute. After it pulled up to the station, a mother with a baby carriage tried to disembark. She struggled with the carriage while carrying a heavy bag, a second child pulling her arm. Naturally, I jumped in to help out and she was … Continue reading Stop missing out on collaboration opportunities by creating situation awareness
The Daily Standup: One step closer to the goal
Almost 9:30am. Time for our stand-up. What did I finish yesterday? What do I plan on finishing today? What's stopping me? The daily routine of the morning stand-up is so ingrained, I go through the above liturgy without conscious thought. For me, the stand-up provides a focused center for the team, our morning huddle. We … Continue reading The Daily Standup: One step closer to the goal
How to make a team self-organizing
Self-organizing teams perform better than micro-managed ones. The ability to really make a difference motivates the team members and makes everyone contribute his best effort. But how can we create self-organizing teams when everyone is used to hierarchical command and control patterns? To be able to self-organize and perform optimally, a few basics need to … Continue reading How to make a team self-organizing
Optimizing Offshore Software Development with Agile
This is a guest post by Prasad Chaudhari, freelance java consultant. He was appointed as a project manager for the project mentioned below and played a role of ScrumMaster. The first prerequisite to going agile offshore is a mature and realistic understanding of agile at home. We've been practicing scrum on-site for several years including … Continue reading Optimizing Offshore Software Development with Agile
Cross-dysfunctional Teams and the Story Point Fight
Agile developers know how to estimate story points for customer features. And while transferring this knowledge over to the project team can take a few sprints, it is speedily adopted and velocity becomes a focal point of the sprint planning games. But, if the all the project participants aren't officially on the team, a growing … Continue reading Cross-dysfunctional Teams and the Story Point Fight
