An Appropriate Use of Metrics

by Martin Fowler, 19 February 2013 | The Agile Blogosphere

Like many of us, my colleague Patrick Kua has seen a lot of use of metrics. Management love their metrics. The thinking goes something like this, “We need a number to measure how we’re doing. Numbers focus people and help us measure success.” Whilst well intentioned, management by numbers unintuitively leads to problematic behavior and ultimately detracts from broader project and organizational...
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Are there PMs in Scrum? No (but…)

by Joe Little, 17 February 2013
The Agile Blogosphere

Scrum has only 3 roles: Product Owner, ScrumMaster and Implementer. Who is responsible for ‘the project’?  Well, that would be the whole Team. What do we do with George,...
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6 Steps To Success With Your Executive Boss

You probably think it's simple.  Your boss wants "good news."  The way it will work is three steps: You will do "a good job" at your job You will tell your boss They will reward...
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If you wait for perfection, you might wait too long

by Joe Little, 13 February 2013
The Agile Blogosphere

I guess I will take credit for this phrase (see title). To me, it reflects a  key idea behind lean-agile-scrum. It is an idea expressed in many other ways also.  Ex: The perfect...
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ScrumMaster Tales: The Team collaborate on Acceptance Criteria

by Mark Levison, 5 February 2013
The Agile Blogosphere

Image Credit: robinsonma http://www.sxc.hu/photo/917101 The team has just completed Sprint Planning, committing to four stories: As a first time book buyer I would like to read a review...
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We want a Stable Team

by Joe Little, 27 January 2013
The Agile Blogosphere

I think our (your) business is about knowledge creation.  (Well, knowledge creation is key for almost all the people who come to my courses and workshops.)  It is about innovation,...
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Agile and Government: The Perfect Storm

Is your organization operating at the level of efficiency necessary to do more with less? At the recent "Innovation for Government Effectiveness” forum hosted by the Center for Strategic...
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Determining Business Value

The topic of business value is a complex one and it’s easy to get mired in the morass of calculating ROI or in trying to define what intangibles are relevant to your organization....
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Keep Looking To Improve

I have to admit that I don't follow Football news. However, this story caught my eye. When Nigel Atkins was terminated as manager at Southampton, he lefthis players with a positive...
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A Big Estimate is Not a Sum of Small Estimates

I’m working with a client that has multiple, non-collocated component teams working on one project. It’s not my ideal situation, but we’re making the best we can of...
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Too Lazy To Refactor?

Larry Wall wrote in Programming Perl "We will encourage you to develop the three great virtues of a programmer: laziness, impatience, and hubris." Laziness is defined as the quality...
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Retrospectives, Part 2: In a Sentimental Mood

by Olga Kouzina, 16 January 2013
The Agile Blogosphere

In the first part of the series on agile retrospectives, I mostly focused on the visual inventory as I went over the reports and charts we’ve been using at TargetProcess, along...
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Retrospectives, Part 1: In Your Own Sweet Way

by Olga Kouzina, 16 January 2013
The Agile Blogosphere

Setting out to write a series of articles on agile retrospectives, I looked at some of the sources currently available on the subject. It turned out that most of the books, articles...
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ScrumMaster Tales – Waiting Too Long to Create Acceptance Criteria

by Mark Levison, 13 January 2013
The Agile Blogosphere

The recent Backlog Refinement session helped split the upcoming User Stories. The team was able to get from a very large Story: “As a first time book buyer I want to read a trustworthy...
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Agile Expects More Than Scrum: A Bulletin From The World of Rugby

Are you tired of being lectured by "Pure Scrum" fanatics?  Some people are so quick to judge!  They will tell you "that's not agile!" or "that's a smell!" when: you have a defined...
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Software Development: Specialize or Generalize?

Now here’s a good topic for discussion. Many years ago we were hiring software developers as such. For the most part, they were good at their job, but not all of them.  Me, personally,...
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Getting Permission to Coach

Ever walk into a room and feel like no one is listening? It absolutely drives me nuts. Sometimes it happens in a lecture hall, sometimes a classroom, the worst is when it happens in...
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