Tag Archives: agile management
Agile Culture: One More Secret to Building it
I recently read the excellent and fascinating book “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. The book doesn’t only cover habits of individuals, but also habits of communities and organizations. Reading it reminded me of a conversation I had with … Continue reading
Agile Product Partners: Friends or Frenemies?
Guest post from Ellen Gottesdiener, founder & president of EBG Consulting It continues to baffle me. Clients share their struggles managing three, four, or five different product owners (or, as we refer to them, product champions). Delivery teams end … Continue reading
What Happens When the CEO is the Product Owner and Part-Time Developer on the ‘The Team?’
I recently visited with a client where the CEO and founder of the company is also an active part-time developer on the Dev Team. This provides an interesting dynamic that has some advantages but also some genuine risk. This company is … Continue reading
Managing the Middle Manager Conundrum
Attending Agile 2012 and meeting many practitioners and soon-to-be practitioners of agile development was an awesome experience. The opportunity to network and talk shop with a wide range of individuals cannot be duplicated. Many of the conversations re-opened an age … Continue reading
Must-Haves for Agile Contracts
Agile contracts are a hot topic. In our recent thought paper, Sourcing for Agile, we discussed the challenges of sourcing software development services where speed and agility are key, and we discussed different management and agile development methodologies that have been tried … Continue reading
Does ‘Who Makes a Good ScrumMaster’ Have Much To Do With Their Current/Past Role?
Recently I’ve read a few blog posts and forum posts discussing, ‘what role do the best ScrumMasters come from?’ One post in particular suggested that perhaps Technical Leads are the best candidates because they have deep knowledge of the technical … Continue reading
Using Velocity to Make Smarter Management Decisions
On agile projects, we use a team’s historical velocity to help us plan for how much work they can get done in upcoming iterations. Velocity is the rate at which a team is able to deliver software in a period … Continue reading
Fred’s Foot: A Lesson in Managing Team Conflict – Part 2
The team had been locked in a room for 8 hours with long-time respected teammate, Fred, who now had a horrifying funk emanating from his body that made nose hairs curl. How did I handle the situation? Dutifully and reluctantly, … Continue reading
The Agile Resiliency Factor: Part 2 of 2
In my first post I explained the importance of building a resilient organization through agile development. Now we shift our focus to the price… and the payoff. Here are the rest of my thoughts. There is a price of admission, … Continue reading
The Agile Resiliency Factor: Part 1 of 2
What’s the first thing that pops into your mind when you hear the term agile development? Is it something along the lines of responsive and adaptive? Did you automatically equate this to responding and adapting to changing software requirements? If … Continue reading