Agile Project Management

Dependencies Break Agile

I’ve been running around lately telling people that the presence of dependencies break Agile. Just for the record, I want to explain what I mean when I talk about dependencies. Agile in general, Scrum specifically, is predicated on the idea that the team has everything it needs to deliver an increment of value. When the team does not have everything it needs to deliver an increment of value we have...
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The Case for Project Management

How far ahead should we plan? I depends on what you are building, when you need to have it done… and if you aren’t going to get done… how soon do you need to know about it. If...
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Who Owns the Risk?

Back in my late 20′s I was a project manager in a pretty good sized IT shop. I worked under a great VP that put me in situations that were really beyond my abilities.  He fundamentally...
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Agile Project Management – Extending PMBOK

I have long held the belief that agile is only a part and a subset of the wider topic of project management.  I feel there are various aspects of project management that aren't particularly...
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PMBOK and Agile

When I was a project manager using more traditional project management methods, I found the PMBOK (Project Management Body Of Knowledge) really useful.  Unfortunately the PMI (Project...
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Discussing the Definition of Done: 8 Questions & Answers

Establishing an upfront, common understanding of “done” that suits the unique dynamics of each development project can be one of the most critical activities for Agile teams. With...
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Do Not Drive Beyond Your Headlights

I’ve heard stories where organizations have “tried Agile” and the results were so bad that they’ll never make that mistake again. In some of these stories the blame is laid...
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A Sample Format for a Spreadsheet-Based Product Backlog

I want to show a real easy way to put user stories in a spreadsheet-based product backlog. I wrote this after seeing someone tweet a screen capture of a product backlog I made 9 years...
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Feature Folly

In my executive presentations I spend a fair amount of time on the topic of Do Less, talking about how we waste an incredible amount of time and money building features that are rarely...
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Balancing Adaptability and Predictability

One of the most vexing issues for executives and managers is balancing the need for both predictability and adaptability in software delivery. While this might seem like an either/or...
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Don’t You Have to LOGIN first?

In my previous post, Avoiding Iteration Zero, I suggested starting with “the one obvious thing that needs to be done? (Hint: it’s not ‘login.’)” As Jon Kern has recently...
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Agile Best Practices?

I’ve decided I really don’t like the idea of best-practices… it’s too easy to use them as a crutch. Some of our best stuff… daily standup meetings, sprint planning meetings,...
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Agile ALM: The Future of Delivery Automation

In the old days, you know those days when waterfall reigned and a certain 3-letter acronym product was widely used, Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) systems were large, monolithic,...
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