Hans Samios' Personal Lean-Agile Knowledge Base

10_reasons_estimation_and_planning_fails_and_what_to_do_about_it_by_troy_magennis

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-01T15:06:55+00:00

"10 Reasons Estimation and Planning Fails and What to Do About It" by Troy Magennis Notes and Review Great pitch. The base idea is that a lot of bad things happen which increase utilization into the “non-linear” zone and which make estimating useless and forecasting difficult.

2014_completed_events

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:54:41+00:00

2014 Completed (and Selected) Events Event Type Location Date Comments Lunch and learn Organize Huntsville 2014-12-22 Clean code practices Development Process Refresh

2015_completed_events

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:22:15+00:00

2015 Completed Events Event Type Location Date Comments SAFe Program Consultant v4.0 Certification Virtual 2015-12-28 [SPC4 Certification] Effective Testing (QA) Certification Virtual

2016_completed_events

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:43+00:00

2016 Completed Events Event Type Location Date Comments Essential SAFe - Dean Leffingwell Attend Milwaukee 2016-10-18 My notes SAFe v4 PI Planning Coach Madison 2016-09-06 Part of SAFe v4 ART; New Train (7 teams) SAFe for Product Owners

2017_completed_events

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:29+00:00

2017 Completed Events Event Type Location Date Comments Leadership Workshop Coaching Houston 2017-11-28 Workshop aimed at helping top level supervisors understand what they need to know and do to drive the transformation

2018_completed_events

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T15:02:38+00:00

2018 Completed Events Event Type Location Date Comments

2019_completed_events

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T15:00:05+00:00

2019 Completed Events Event Type Location Date Comments

2020_completed_events

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-12-03T20:14:58+00:00

2020 Completed Events 2021 Completed Events Event Type Location Date Comments

2021_completed_events

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-10T13:29:16+00:00

2021 Completed Events Event Type Location Date Comments

2022_completed_events

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-17T18:23:06+00:00

2022 Completed Events Event Type Location Date Comments PI Planning Coaching Weston 2022-11-15 Support for PI Planning event of new Train.

2023_completed_events

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-17T16:14:18+00:00

2023 Completed Events Event Type Location Date Comments SAFe 6.0 Update Certification Upgrade Online 2023-03-17 Updated SAFe certification to the latest

accelerate_-_building_strategic_agility_for_a_faster-moving_world_-_john_p_kotter

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:28:58+00:00

"Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World" - John P Kotter Notes and Reviews Kotter starts with the premise that organizations that have hierarchy and related approaches did so for a reasons of efficiency and these approaches have been highly effective and that if we need to do something that is more innovative we cannot just create a separate

acceptance_test-driven_development

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:22+00:00

Acceptance Test-Driven Development This is one of those areas where there are a number of acronyms all of which seem to be related, including: * Acceptance Test-Driven Development: Better Software Through Collaboration by Ken Pugh. * A good starting point is a short introductory video on the concept * Web site offers extensive resources * Example-driven development (EDD) by Brian Marick

adam_yuret_-_waiting_for_godot-_concrete_approaches_to_busting_delays_and_why_your_enterprise_should_care

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:51:54+00:00

Adam Yuret - Waiting for Godot- Concrete approaches to busting delays and why your enterprise should care Nobody likes waiting the glacially slow two-minutes it takes to microwave their lunch. Imagine how our customers feel waiting years for products only to discover the product doesn't actually solve their problem anymore. Or, worse yet, it solves a problem they needed solved years ago. According to David J Anderson or Troy Magennis, queues, handoffs and wait times represent at least 85% of de…

agile_2011

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:21:54+00:00

Agile 2011 Conference Premise Notes from the Conference (to be written) My Session My session on “Overcoming Traditional Project Release Reporting with an Agile Approach Focused on Change” was accepted and I presented this at the conference with good feedback. estimates forecast reporting executive conference agile2011

agile_2015_-_conference_start

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:32+00:00

Paul Hammond - Chair Program Chairs - Lunch - downstairs two levels 250 sessions 10:45 Wednesday - open jam See research displays Sign up for dinner with friends - before noon tomorrow. Then at noon go back to organize.

agile_2015_-_industry_panel

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:25+00:00

Agile 2015 Industry Panel Premise Hear from leading industry analysts as they discuss the latest trends and emerging best practices around Agile software development. Learn how the most successful software organizations are utilizing Agile to drive business performance. Find out how the latest innovations in Agile practices continue to mature as development organizations deploy Agile further across the enterprise.

agile_2015_-_research_short_papers

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:36+00:00

Agile 2015 Research Short Papers Premise Join us for 6 short Research presentations: Symbolic Innovation in Agile Transformation - Doug Rose The Impact of Human Factors on Agile Projects - Aline Chagas, Melquizedequi Santos, Célio Santana, Alexandre Vasconcelos Is Agile Portfolio Management Following the Principles of Large-Scale Agile? - Maarit Laanti, Mirette Kangas Development of Complex Software with Agile Method - Alan Braz, Cec´ılia M. F. Rubira, Marco Vieira Gap Analysis Between State o…

agile_2015

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:24:46+00:00

My notes from sessions I attended at the Agile 2015 Conference. Monday * Agile 2015 - Conference Start * Luke Hohmann - Awesome Super Problems * Johanna Rothman - Scaling Agile Projects to Programs * Larry Maccherone - How Long Will It Take * Jeff Sutherland - Stalwarts Tuesday * Tim Ottinger - Agile Productivity * Daniel Vacant - Why Winning the Lottery is More Predictable Than Your Agile Project * Prateek Singh - Retrospective: Moving From a Subjective to an Objective World…

agile_2016

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:12:49+00:00

Agile 2016 Conference in Atlanta, GA Notes from the Conference. 2500 people 42 countries 1/3 SM, 1/3 Exec, 1/3 product owner 18 tracks 19 session at same time 220 sessions Additional Activities My Proposal I sent the following proposal into the submission session. Past experience indicates that if you submit one session the probability of getting it accepted is pretty low but this one was accepted.

agile_extension_to_the_babok_guide_-_iiba

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:26:15+00:00

"Agile Extension to the BABOK Guide" - IIBA Notes and Reviews Idea is to make sure I am clear of expected role of Business Analyst in agile approach. Pretty good description of process overall. One problem is they use the word “retrospective”

agile_is_dead_by_dave_thomas

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:29+00:00

"Agile is Dead" by Dave Thomas Reference Agile is Dead by Dave Thomas Notes Agile as originally intended is an adjective, not a noun. video webinar learning agile basis review

agile_jokes

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-04-22T18:26:38+00:00

Agile Jokes Let’s face it, agile and lean sometimes takes itself way too seriously, so I started to collect funny quotes associated with agile and lean thinking. We should all remember Rule Number 6. Most of these come directly from field experience. Read and enjoy.

agile_values_and_principles

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:56+00:00

Agile Values and Principles The granddaddy of them all, there is no self-respecting agile book that doesn't reference these in some way. The original is at and is best read there. Following list is maintained for my convenience. Values The Values are:

ahmed_sidky_-_keystone_habits_leading_to_sustainable_enterprise_agility

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:58+00:00

Ahmed Sidky - Keystone Habits Leading To Sustainable Enterprise Agility Premise From my experience of leading Agile Transformations in three Fortune 100 companies (over 2000 people per transformation), the sustainability of agile at an enterprise level is deeply linked to how the organization “transforms” to agile. We know that transforming an organization to become more agile requires more than just process change. Rather, it requires a complete culture shift.

alan_dayley_-_freedom_to_align

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:15+00:00

Alan Dayley - Freedom To Align Premise Summary: Multi-team release planning with a Product Wall brings alignment of business strategy down to daily Sprint work. Freedom to align on value! Learning Objectives: * Alignment across the program is a powerful force to create business results

alexander_brown_-_free_yourself_from_the_myth_of_one-size-fits-all_scaling

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:32+00:00

Alexander Brown - Free Yourself From The Myth Of One-size-fits-all Scaling Premise Summary: Proscriptive scaling approaches may work in one context yet fail spectacularly in another. Learn a versatile modular language for scaling. Learning Objectives:

are_there_any_benefits_to_the_team_of_estimating

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-11-02T18:47:50+00:00

Are There Any Benefits to the Team of Estimating? While the initial benefit to the Team of estimating is in understanding their capacity to deliver value, there are in fact other benefits of estimating to the Team: * Clarity: Teams understand the type of work they do and what the market is asking for. They can ask clarifying questions to make acceptance criteria detailed enough for them implement the work. Through discussion as a result of estimation there is increased clarity for the whol…

arthur_richards_-_distributed_agile

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:07+00:00

Arthur Richards - Distributed Agile Premise Summary How the mobile web engineering team at the Wikimedia Foundation became a successful Scrum team by embracing geographical distribution. Learning Objectives: Session attendees will learn: * Best practices and effective tools for fomenting and managing remote collaboration.

blog_entry_tags

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:19+00:00

Blog Entry Tags

bob_galen_-_stuff_bad_scrum_coaches_say

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:46+00:00

Bob Galen - Stuff Bad Scrum Coaches Say Premise Summary: Scrum coaches say many things - both good and bad. It's a tough balancing act to be effective. This might help your coaching & teams. Learning Objectives: This is a fun way to get every attendee to contribute some silly – odd – terrible – dysfunctional – funny – damaging – etc. things they’ve heard from themselves and other “agile coaches” during the course of their work. So, we’ll be collecting anti-patterns.

books_to_read

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:07+00:00

Books To Read Title Author Subject Audience Comments Readability Recommended "Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders" David Marquet Transformation; Leadership Management Medium Yes "Accelerate - Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World" John Kotter Transformation; Change Management

bridging_the_communication_gap_-_specification_by_example_and_agile_acceptance_testing_-_gojko_adzic

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:50:01+00:00

"Bridging the Communication Gap: Specification by Example and Agile Acceptance Testing" - Gojko Adzic Review and Notes If you are having troubles collaborating with all stakeholders on user stories, if you find you are not clear on requirements, then the advise in this book will help you get started. This is the book I wish I had when I started down the pathway of using examples and

can_we_trust_story_points_as_a_measure_of_effort

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-10-07T13:25:30+00:00

Can We Trust Story Points as a Measure of Effort? Many people worry that Story Points do not help us estimate effort. They are, after all, “estimates” with the additional problem of being “unit less” - how does that work? The reality is that point based estimates provide a more realistic view than time tracking systems.

canonical_references_on_scaling

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-09-16T15:40:37+00:00

Canonical References on Scaling Description

chris_sims_-_leadership_styles_for_a_successful_agile_transformation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:22:17+00:00

Chris Sims - Leadership Styles for a Successful Agile Transformation Transforming an organization to become more agile requires leadership, but what kinds of leadership? When? Who needs to do the leading? And how? Chris Sims guides you through the process of mapping the styles of leadership that will be needed at various points in your company’s agile transformation.

coaching_values_and_principles

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-01-04T21:10:40+00:00

Coaches Values and Principles Since so much of Agile and Lean operates through values and principles it is clear there are also values and principles that can be applied to Coaching. The following values and principles reflect my view of “good” Coaching.

collaboration_at_scale_-_keeping_retrospectives_fresh_by_ben_linders

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:31+00:00

Collaboration At Scale: Keeping Retrospectives Fresh Premise Scrum Alliance pitch “Retrospectives are great … except when they’re not. Without care and attention, retrospectives become stale, boring, and ineffective. And this is especially likely with distributed teams, where it is easy to put yourself on mute and start answering email instead of focusing on your team. In this Collaboration at Scale webinar, we’ll explore how you can keep retrospectives fresh, engaging, and impactful. We’ll f…

communication_approaches

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:00+00:00

Communication Approaches Related Tags research practices communicationapproaches

complexity_references

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:57+00:00

Useful Complexity References Description Link Level Bad use of metrics in complex situation Advanced Bad use of measurement in general Advanced Estimating Complexity Intermediate learning reference basics complexity

conferences

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:44+00:00

Conferences Agile Alliance * Agile 2016 * Agile 2015 * Agile 2011 Plus How to Get Your Session Accepted at an Agile Conference SAFe Summit * SAFe Summit 2016 Scrum Gathering * Scrum Gathering 2015 Ideas for Future Conference Sessions * Ideas for Future Conference Sessions Note: see Webinars for more virtual events I've participated in.

conflict_resolution_-_daniel_dana

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:21:43+00:00

"Conflict Resolution" - Daniel Dana Review and Notes When I got accepted to present the session How to Work Personality Issues Without Sounding Like a Marriage Guidance Counsellor? at the Agile 2016 Conference I decided that I needed to do more research into the issue of general conflict resolution. This book was recommended to me by Bob Schatz with the comment

continuous_delivery_in_a_large_enterprise_transforming_enterprise_it_by_henk_kolk

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:05+00:00

"Continuous Delivery in a large Enterprise – Transforming Enterprise IT" by Henk Kolk Reference Continuous Delivery in a large Enterprise – Transforming Enterprise IT by Henk Kolk (Chief Architect at ING Bank) Notes Henk Kolk is the Chief Architect at ING Bank. Message is that starting in 2008, ING decided that all their services are being provided as software and that, in fact they are more a software / technology company than anything else (

creating_psychological_safety_in_the_workplace_by_amy_edmondson

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:41+00:00

“Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace” by Amy Edmondson Premise In her book, The Fearless Organization, Amy Edmondson offers practical guidance for teams and organizations who are serious about success in the modern economy. With so much riding on innovation, creativity, and spark, it is essential to attract and retain quality talent—but what good does this talent do if no one is able to speak their mind? This Soundview Live webinar explores the culture of psychological safety, and p…

dan_greening_-_agile_capitalization

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:29+00:00

Dan Greening - Agile Capitalization Premise In many companies, agile software development is misunderstood and misreported, increasing taxes, volatility in profit and loss (P&L) and costly manual time-tracking. Agile and Scrum teams inherently create production cost data that are more verifiable, better documented, and more closely aligned with known customer value than most waterfall implementations. Better reporting can mean significant tax savings and greater investor interest.

daniel_vacanti_-_why_winning_the_lottery_is_more_predictable_than_your_agile_project

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:28+00:00

Daniel Vacant - Why Winning the Lottery is More Predictable Than Your Agile Project Premise “When will it be done?” That is the first question your customers ask you once you start work for them. And, for the most part, it is the only thing they are interested in until you deliver. Whether your process is predictable or not is judged by the accuracy of your answer. Think about how many times you have been asked that question and think how many times you have been wrong. Now think about how muc…

data_on_effect_of_teams

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:22:58+00:00

Data on the Effect of Teams * Agile Conference - "The Impact of Agile Quantified" - Source of the numbers above. Analysis done by Rally (now CA) of 13,000 teams. My copy of the data ["The Impact of Agile Quantified"] consultant tools teamformation kickoff highperformanceteams firstsprint team

day-to-day_with_people

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:02+00:00

Day-to-Day With People A lot of the time we are working directly with people. Here are some articles that could help deal with specific situations. * Managing a Person with Victim Mentality. Key idea here is that you are not a psychologist, so focus on standards, outcomes, and try to set things up so that the victim has the chance to see something else.

dean_leffingwell_-_nine_immutable_principles_of_lean_agile

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:12+00:00

Dean Leffingwell - Nine Immutable Principles Of Lean Agile Premise Software is consuming the world. Industries of all types are faced with growing competitive pressures that can be addressed only through more innovative and productive IT operations, software-based systems, products, solutions and services. Many of today's systems are of such complexity that they require hundreds, and even thousands, of practitioners to build.

dean_leffingwell_-_one_on_one_meeting_through_icon

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:23:23+00:00

Dean Leffingwell - One on One Meeting Through Icon One on one with meeting Dean Leffingwell. Through icon. Photos Notes * Velocity impacted by project based cost accounting * Product companies not issue * Lose knowledge as temporary structure - persistent knowledge

designing_organizations_-_strategy_structure_and_process_at_the_business_unit_and_enterprise_levels_-_jay_r._galbraith

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T17:43:55+00:00

"Designing Organizations: Strategy, Structure, and Process at the Business Unit and Enterprise Levels" by Jay R. Galbraith Notes and Review I had trouble applying this book in a practical sense in that, while the Star model is an interesting model to think about how to structure an organization, most organization change I have worked through has started with a specific business issue that needed to be addressed. For example, we had a new business focus, or an new implementation approach, or a …

devops_for_the_agile_enterprise

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:06:21+00:00

DevOps for the Agile Enterprise Background History is that Scaled Agile has purchased licensing rights to Icon (Mark Rix) material and with be releasing a course based on this shortly. There are a couple of differences in approach but basics are the same. Differences include:

devops_values_and_principles

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:59:20+00:00

DevOps Values and Principles Values The values are defined as the “3 Ways”: * Way 1: Systems thinking * Way 2: Amplify feedback loops * Way 3: Culture of Experimentation and Learning Principles There are a number of discussions about the principles of DevOps

dhaval_panchal_-_estimating_is_not_planning

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:32+00:00

Dhaval Panchal - Estimating Is Not Planning Premise Summary Advanced planning techniques that deliver on promise of empirical evidence based predictability and improve organizational Agility. Learning Objectives * Overview of various Estimation biases

difficulties_and_benefits_of_working_in_agile_environment

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:20:19+00:00

Difficulties and Benefits of Working in Agile Environment “The class mostly covers Agile processes. Many of these students will be graduating this semester, and will be future programmers, and the closest they have come to working as a team is paired programming.

do_managers_matter_in_an_organization

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:56+00:00

Do Managers Matter in an Organization? There seems to be a general discussion in agile circles about whether managers matter. Early agile discussions seemed to be actively hostile to management, stating that you do not need anything like a management - just have self-empowered Teams.

do_we_need_points_to_generate_a_release_burn-up_chart

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-24T15:45:30+00:00

Do We Need Points To Generate a Release Burn-up Chart? I attended a presentation recently which talked about issues with estimation. It was pretty interesting, but one thing I thought was particularly interesting was the idea that someone said that they could track the progress of their release by generating a release burn-up chart in terms of the number of stories completed (what I call

do_we_put_story_point_estimates_on_a_spike_enabler_story

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-04-10T19:05:37+00:00

Do we put Story Point estimates on a Spike (Enabler) Story? " Yes. The basic rule is “if it takes capacity of the team to get the work done, then it should be visible in the Backlog and have an estimate.”" Estimates and velocity help Teams to understand the capacity of the Team and reason about how much work a Team can take on. Further they provide Product Managers and Product Owners with the data needed to provide forecasts and roadmaps. In order to be used this way Team's need to ensure tha…

do_we_really_need_a_full-time_product_owner_or_scrum_master

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-02-06T22:19:48+00:00

Do We Really Need a Full-time Product Owner or Scrum Master Most managers, when they see the designation of specific roles such as Scrum Master and Product Owner worry that if they identify people to take on these roles then they immediately are reducing the capacity of the Team and so the Team will produce less work.

enterprise_lean-agile_coach_course

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:03:28+00:00

Enterprise Lean-Agile Coaching Course More advanced course on being an enterprise coach. Context is SAFe as that is where Alex is from so there anti-patterns you hear about in this Training are mainly as a result of consulting in a SAFe environment

epics_and_features_become_the_new_way_to_specify_fixed_scope_anti-pattern

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:09+00:00

Epics and Features Become the New Way to Specify Fixed Scope (Anti-pattern) Or “Its in the Feature Acceptance Criteria!” Consumer * Product Management * Business Owners * Epic Owners Description Epics and Features become the new way to specify fixed scope that is required to be completed before it is considered

essential_safe_-_dean_leffingwell

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:58:03+00:00

Essential SAFe - Dean Leffingwell Essential SAFe Milwaukee Scaling Agile Meetup Sponsored by Icon At Northwestern Mutual Presenter Dean Leffingwell Attendees Looked like 300 people in the room, friendly audience Reference Source materials and a few photos at

establish_a_done_definition_for_a_story_to_be_ready_for_the_team

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T15:03:25+00:00

Establish a "done" definition for a story to be READY for the team If work items are not precisely understood, development effort (and time) tend to balloon, which in turn cause the Sprint to fail. Therefore, define criteria which items must meet before they can be put on the Sprint backlog. This done criteria is often called

establish_a_keystone_story

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:17:21+00:00

Establish a Keystone User Story You can stabilize the estimates by establishing a keystone story. The idea here is to keep some degree of consistency as you go from sprint to sprint by having a User Story of known size against known definition of done so that all estimates for the team are based off this one User Story. Its like taking a brass plate to every meeting which involves estimation which has the User Story and Definition of Done inscribed on it so that everyone can easily come back to…

establish_a_things_that_matter_matrix

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:12:11+00:00

Establish a "Things That Matter" Matrix Establish “things that matter” (TTM) matrix to help steer discussion toward complexity. This is a simple tool to help explore the complexity of the story and so assist in properly establishing the estimates relative size. A TTM Matrix consists of a list of technologies (or any other issue such as

establish_points_guidelines_for_each_point_value

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:52:33+00:00

Establish Points Guidelines for Each Point Value The idea here is to keep some degree of consistency as you go from sprint to sprint by setting up definitions for each Story Point value that the Scrum Team understands and can work to. The definition should be general enough to work with just about any kind of User Story. The alternative is to have different definitions for different types of work and then map the 2's, for example, for each of these definitions to each other.

establish_typical_sizes_for_typical_work

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:19:19+00:00

Establish Typical Sizes for Typical Work Establish known size to known definition of done for all defects, research, new features, etc. For example determine what a typical size 2 work no matter what kind of work it is: * Defect to known, typical Definition of Done

estimates_are_based_on_current_knowledge

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:27:52+00:00

Estimates Are Based on Current Knowledge Story Points represent reality based on current knowledge of the relative size of the work, as opposed to wishful thinking. I've seen a number of situations where because the team has a rule that User Stories sized 13 and above do not fit into a Sprint, they arbitrarily size a Story to 13 because the Product Owner or Manager wants the work done in this Sprint. If the Team makes a commitment to the work it is expected that this work gets done. The Team d…

face-to-face_over_email_communication

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:25:09+00:00

Face-to-Face Communication Over Email Interesting to see data associated with the difference between face-to-face communication and email - the idea that we over-estimate what we can achieve with email. Conclusion from the article “If your office runs on email and text-based communication, it’s worth considering whether you could be a more effective communicator by having conversations in person. It is often more convenient and comfortable to use text-based communication than to approach someon…

faciliation_-_beyond_dot_voting

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:30+00:00

Facilitation - Beyond Dot Voting Premise Dot voting is a standard facilitation approach used to determine the priority or level of interest in a particular item or group of items often created as a result of brain storming. The problem with this approach is that, while you do get a majority view of interest, and some level of second order levels of interest (this was my top interest but I am also interested in these things). What it doesn’t allow is for people to register massive disagreement…

facilitation_-_open_ended_agenda

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:49+00:00

Facilitation - Open Ended Agenda Premise Lean Coffee and Open Space techniques are accepted techniques for creating an agenda based on the interests of people who attend. But like all techniques there are times when it may not be appropriate. For example, let’s say a group of people are getting together to come up with a new product. Each person comes into the room with a different set of perspectives, and different understanding of different aspects of the product - sales view, marketing vie…

facilitation_-_play_pass_or_move

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-07-22T22:34:40+00:00

Facilitation - Play, Pass, or Move Aka “Secret Santa”. The idea of “relative sizing” can be applied in a lot of situations. Most first learn of the concept in agile when we do estimates of the size of work. When agile Teams require an estimate of the work, they often use Story Points, a measure of relative size, as an estimate. We use Story Points because it is faster than estimation of absolute amounts. And the data that results is often more accurate as well. The idea that we can gauge somet…

facilitation_-_ritual_dissent

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:24+00:00

Facilitation - Ritual Dissent Premise Learning from others implies openness: both by peers and colleagues to formulate openly their critics, doubts and suggestions, as well as by the learner to listen to feedback - positive and negative - and then draw conclusions. Ritual dissent is a formalized way for a group of peers to criticise sketched ideas, drafted proposals or strategies in order to increase their resilience. After a short presentation, the learner turns around and listens attentively…

facilitation_-_walk_in_my_shoes

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T14:54:59+00:00

Facilitation - Walk in My Shoes I’ve often noticed that when people get very established in their viewpoints, it is hard to break them away from their established positions. Most will agree that they have one viewpoint, and it is different to the “other side” but because it is entrenched they find it hard to get away from their own thinking. In the worst of cases this degenerates into thinking the other side is “stupid” etc.

financial_advice

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:30+00:00

Financial Advice for the Kids Background Moving from country to country as I did in my adult years meant that I had to worry about saving and investment in a lot of countries. This meant in particular I needed to figure out a way to invest money for the future. Coming from Australia the best place to

fixing_defects_does_not_mean_you_are_addressing_technical_debt

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-11-03T14:55:32+00:00

Fixing Defects Does Not Mean You Are Addressing Technical Debt I am not sure entirely how it happens. As part of training for Scrum Teams, we introduce the concept of Technical Debt so we can reduce the harm we are introducing into our code through shortcuts, and to start a discussion about investment required to bring down the technical debt associated with our fielded products. We talk about

focus_more_on_the_detailing_and_executing_the_plan_than_on_planning_and_alignment_anti-pattern

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-03-13T15:44:46+00:00

Focus More on the Detailing and Executing the Plan than on Planning and Alignment (Anti-pattern) Or “We need more planning so we can execute!” Or “We need a detailed, accurate plan!” Consumer * Product Manager * Release Train Engineer (RTE)

frequently_asked_questions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-29T19:38:59+00:00

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) As I work with people I find there are often situations where the same kind of questions come up. Rather than invent answers every time, here are some standard ideas, based on experience that has worked in the past, to get you started.

getting_value_out_of_agile_retrospectives_-_luis_conclaves_and_ben_linders

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:23+00:00

"Getting Value Out of Agile Retrospectives" - Luis Conclaves and Ben Linders Reference "Getting Value Out of Agile Retrospectives" - Luis Conclaves and Ben Linders Notes If you need a focussed way to get started making your retrospectives more effective then this book will help. If you have done a lot of retrospectives this book is a basic. I did like the

give_default_estimates_for_classes_of_work_and_then_work_exceptions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:20:47+00:00

Give Default Estimates for Classes of Work and Then Work Exceptions Don't treat everything as a complex problem but rather give default estimates for classes of work and then work exceptions. For example, some teams say “relatively speaking all TRs are a 1. If someone thinks a TR is not a 1, then we will estimate that exception.

hans_samios_how_to_work_personality_issues_without_sounding_like_a_marriage_guidance_counsellor

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:52:31+00:00

Hans Samios - How to Work Personality Issues Without Sounding Like a Marriage Guidance Counsellor? This idea has been floating around in my head for some time and so decided to pull together a proposal for the Agile 2016 Conference. This session was accepted.

hendrik_esser_-_is_there_a_best_practice_for_agile_transformation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:24+00:00

Hendrik Esser - Is There a Best Practice For Agile Transformation Premise Companies and organizations are complex, adaptive systems. In this talk you will learn what this actually means and how you can use this to practically deal with your way through your (agile) transition.

high_performance_teams

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:45+00:00

High-Performance Teams One of the basics of agile is the idea of a a team, a true team, as opposed to a working group or other structures we call a “team”. The idea is that the unit of execution in agile is a “team” and we aim to create “high performance

how_can_the_development_manager_be_effective

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:41+00:00

How Can the Development Manager Be Effective? In particular, when it comes to reviews and / or ranking, how can the Development Manager have enough information to be fair. Being a Development Manager is hard and requires some basic actions to stay in touch with the people they are supervising to help them understand what is happening with that person. Some examples include:

how_can_the_po_is_to_be_the_focal_point_for_contact_when_an_project_managers_for_example_are_used_to_going_to_individual_team_members_for_status_of_work

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:38:41+00:00

How can the PO is to be the focal point for contact for work when an Project Managers (for example) are used to going to individual team members for status of work? People often struggle with these kinds of issues when starting an agile implementation because they are used to working in an environment where the

how_can_we_decentralize_team_breakouts_process_in_a_pi_planning_event

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-03-13T15:33:11+00:00

How Can We Decentralize Team Breakouts Process in a PI Planning Event? Or “How can we reduce the impact of timezones on the PI Planning event?” PI Planning events becomes more complex as more timezones become involved. I have now experienced events where, for example, we have teams and distributed teams in people in locations as diverse as France, USA east and west coast, Australia, and India (OK perhaps we should look at our team structure, but that is what we have:-/) for a single ART.

how_can_we_determine_how_many_undiscovered_defects_we_have

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-06-30T16:56:40+00:00

How Can We Determine How Many Undiscovered Defects We Have? Short blog this time as it mainly just references Troy's work. At one of my engagements a lot of the work the teams had to track was serial work with a (untrustworthy) third party, where the team effort is in testing results from the third party, waiting for the result, and then testing again. In these situations it is sometimes hard to determine when we have done something mainly because, as we all know, the more we test the more bug…

how_can_we_forecast_when_we_do_not_have_a_lot_of_data

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:15:51+00:00

How Can We Forecast When We Do Not Have a Lot of Data? " “How much data do we need to generate a useful metric?”" Many people think that you need a lot of data in order to get statistically useful data. For example, we hear a lot about “Big Data

how_can_we_improve_collaboration_on_user_stories

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-04-28T18:37:08+00:00

How Can We Improve Collaboration on User Stories? " “Everything is vague to a degree you do not realise till you have tried to make it precise” -- Bertrand Russell" When it comes to understanding and documenting requirements there always seems to be a discussion and room for improvement. In general we capture a user story in an automated tool with a summary / title and a description that has both the user story (“as a”, “I want”, “so that”) and a section describing the

how_can_we_improve_the_quality_of_feedback_at_an_iteration_demo

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-05-04T18:21:55+00:00

How Can We Improve The Quality of Feedback at a Iteration Demo (Sprint Review)? Or “How do we improve the quality of feedback at a System Demo?” I’ve had a number of discussions with teams recently where people are questioning the value of holding a Iteration Demo (Sprint Review). The feeling is that we are not getting good feedback from our internal or external stakeholders. Teams that raise this issue are often frustrated in that their prior experience with Iteration Demos (Sprint Reviews) h…

how_can_we_introduce_scrum_to_our_stakeholders

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:11:25+00:00

How Can We Introduce Scrum to Our (Customer or Field) Stakeholders? " “Some people are not only are they interested in the sausage, but also the sausage making process.”" While most people are not interested in the process we use to create value for them, some people are. For example, when you first have external stakeholders, whether someone external to your shop, or outside the company, you may need to explain the process we are using to them so they can be more engaged.

how_can_we_more_formally_capture_an_experiment

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-07-27T13:38:47+00:00

How Can We More Formally Capture an Experiment? Often we see people say things like “lets experiment” but then you notice that actually never go back and revisit the results. To combat this, it is useful to set up a more formal written experiment so that you specify things like what the experiment is, what kind of results you are expecting, how you will measure the results and the time box for the experiment.

how_can_we_put_an_estimate_on_complexity

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-28T19:04:20+00:00

How can we put an estimate on complexity? Or “How do we gauge how risky something is?” People often have trouble putting an estimate on things that are not known. One way to help people improve estimates is to help them better understand the uncertainty associated with the work. Liz Keogh talks about the following approach (see

how_can_we_scale_our_estimating_approach_beyond_a_team

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-12-08T21:47:37+00:00

How Can We Scale Our Estimating Approach Beyond a Team? Often, you need to provide estimates for items of work that are beyond the size of a typical Story, say an Epic or a Feature. For example, you might want to determine an overall road-map of intent and need to line that up with a calendar. This is only realistic if you have some kind of view of how long something will take. Or you might want to determine the Cost of Delay, which includes a sizing component in it, to determine what work you …

how_can_we_understand_the_real_value_of_fast_feedback_and_deciding_late

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:50:00+00:00

How Can We Understand the Real Value of Fast Feedback and Deciding Late? When you move to Agile you move from the concept of upfront planning / serial workflow to an approach which leverages iterations and feedback. The idea of feedback is pervasive both at the value production level (review with customer / stakeholders what we have produced) as well as the implementation level (retrospectives to improve the way we work, automation of build, test and deploy to increase feedback of quality of wo…

how_can_we_use_lean_and_agile_principles_to_increase_personal_effectiveness

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-04-03T18:49:12+00:00

How Can We Use Lean and Agile Principles to Increase Personal Effectiveness? Most of us, when asked, would like to be more effective. Most of us would say we are overloaded, too busy and so feel less than effective. We seem to have too much to do and no easy way of digging ourselves out of the hole.

how_can_we_work_more_effectively_with_remote_people

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:50:00+00:00

How Can We Work More Effectively with Remote People? ... and benefits of thinking that we have remote people on our teams, even when we don't have them. When we first started Scrum we talked in general about how to work with people who were remote. The conversation was based on the idea that co-location is ideal because it allows for high bandwidth communication, and that as we work with remote people we need to be working our communication approach so that it is as close to what you can achie…

how_do_architects_ensure_consistency

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:33+00:00

How Do Architects Ensure Consistency? Let’s take the example. One of the roles of an Architect is to establish the guardrails (or standards) by which the organization (enterprise, Train, Team) operates. However, we need to be careful that we say role is to just “establish guardrails”. This is a problem in that:

how_do_i_convert_points_and_velocity_to_dollars

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:44:12+00:00

How Do I Convert Points and Velocity to Dollars? " Or “How do I figure out how much I've spent on something?” Or “Do we still need to track time in a time tracking system for progress reporting?”" One base idea with agile to focus on completion of work rather than the effort it takes to get the work done. So, for example, we track the remaining work on a story rather than the counting the number of hours we spent on a story. This makes sense because while the effort might be interesting, we …

how_do_i_create_the_best_organizational_structure_for_success

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-16T20:41:04+00:00

How Do I Create the Best Organizational Structure for Success? Of all the things that a management can do to help your people become more effective this is probably the area where you will be most comfortable. Management, after all, usually defines the organizational structure of their people.

how_do_i_facilitate_a_portfolio_prioritization_meeting

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:42:07+00:00

How Do I Facilitate a Prioritization Meeting? Or “How Do I Start to Get My Portfolio Under Control?” Premise Often when we start an agile implementation it is well known that there is too much work to do, and insufficient capacity to get it done. But there is also a problem in that we have already

how_do_i_help_raise_awareness_of_transformation_problems

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:02+00:00

How Do I Raise Awareness of Transformation Problems? Or “We are mid-transformation. What problems do we expect to see?” Premise OK, so not the greatest name as their really isn’t a “mid-transformation”; it just keeps on going. But the idea was to say “it seems like we are doing so well - what could possibly go wrong” and realize the this is a time of large danger and people go on auto mode and we are not yet sustaining based practices let alone overall mindset.

how_do_i_hold_my_people_accountable

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-07T19:22:52+00:00

How Do I Hold My People Accountable? In addition to supporting your people you will also need to set high expectations. You need to do this even in areas where you don’t have domain knowledge. For example, it’s important that your team has solid testable solutions; that is one of your driving goals. You therefore need to get comfortable asking some questions that would tell you that the Team is making progress toward that goal even when you don’t have a solid understanding of the underlying tec…

how_do_i_lead_practically

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:50:47+00:00

How Do I Lead, Practically? I have been approached a number of times recently by Scrum Masters and Product Owners who had a similar question: “How do I get (my team, these people, etc.) to do this thing I think is a good idea?” For good reason they are not interested in being dictatorial. But they also want to see a particular behavior adopted because they think it is a good practice.

how_do_i_set_expectations_of_my_people_so_they_are_motivated_to_improve

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-07T19:19:58+00:00

How Do I Set The Expectations of My People So They Motivated to Improve? One of the base principles of Agile is that as a leader you provide ambitious goals to the people doing the work and then support them in achieving those goals. The influential HBR article calls this principle

how_do_i_support_my_people_so_they_improve

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-09-28T12:55:39+00:00

How Do I Support My People So They Improve? You’ve set the business goals. You’ve defined the structure. Job done, right? Even with awareness of Agile practices, you should not expect your Teams to be able to become high performing immediately. For example your Team might not know who the customer is and so will need time to establish the appropriate level of contact. Or your Team might not be able to deliver a running tested system every two weeks and so will need time to reach that goal. Or …

how_do_small_changes_lead_to_big_improvements

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-02-21T15:25:10+00:00

How Do Small Changes Lead to Big Improvements? " “Improving daily work is more important than doing daily work” - Gene Kim, The Phoenix Project" One thing that Agile encourages is a more iterative and incremental approach to delivering value. This thinking also applies to how we do the work. Agile expects that you will identify improvements in an incremental way, continuously and relentlessly improving the ability of your Team to deliver value. The expectation is that these incremental improv…

how_do_we_allow_for_innovation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:50:47+00:00

How Do We Allow for Innovation? " Or “Why Do a Hack-a-thon” Or “What You Can Expect from a Hack-a-thon?” Or “How Do You Set Up a Hack-a-thon?”" “Innovation” seems to be the business buzzword of the moment. But if you are part of a successful software development shop we all know the problem when people ask you to be “more innovative.” We don't really allow the time to do true innovation. After all everyone knows about all the urgent things we have coming up in the plan and if we take away c…

how_do_we_assign_business_value_to_pi_objectives

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-25T15:55:05+00:00

How Do We Assign Business Value to PI Objectives? There seems to be a lot of question the use of “business value” with PI Objectives, around the process of setting the value of PI Objectives, and how they are worked during the Program Increment. Let's look into this in more detail.

how_do_we_break_down_epics_using_an_mvp_approach

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-23T20:07:19+00:00

How Do We Break Down Epics Using an MVP Approach? " MVP isn’t just a startup trick—it’s a mindset that helps portfolio-level delivery stay adaptive, evidence-based, and ruthlessly focused on value." The term Minimal Viable Product (MVP) is used in many different ways today, often depending on the context in which it’s applied. Originally popularized by

how_do_we_build_and_maintain_context_when_all_we_have_is_a_backlog_list

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-04-20T20:35:27+00:00

How Do We Build and Maintain Context When All We Have Is a Backlog List? " Or “What is User Story Mapping” Or “How Do We Break Down a Big Chunk of Work”" A lot of people, while they like the simplicity of the approach of maintaining a backlog, feel like they lose context when they just have a list of user stories. Others cannot think in terms of lists but rather need something more pictorial to help them understand what is going on. One approach that I have seen useful in these contexts is t…

how_do_we_calculate_the_cost_of_delay_cod_and_the_weighed_shortest_job_first_wsjf

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-15T17:49:06+00:00

How Do We Calculate the Cost of Delay (CoD) and the Weighed Shortest Job First (WSJF)? Or “What is the mechanism for prioritizing and scheduling work?” Often priorities seem to come in from multiple angles at the same time - customer “yelling” at us for something, sales needing something in order to close a deal, new initiative required to expand the market, and so on. We have limited capacity (limited supply) and always have too much demand on that capacity. We need a better approach to reall…

how_do_we_control_work-in-progress_wip

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:50:49+00:00

How Do We Control Work-in-Progress (WIP)? One of the basics of improving our effectiveness is that we should control the amount of work we have in progress (WIP). Overloading people, teams and programs with more work than they can accomplish is a common problem. It causes multiplexing and frequent context switching. It overloads the people doing the work, reduces focus, reduces productivity and throughput, decreases quality and increases wait times for new functionality.

how_do_we_deal_with_constant_interruptions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-07-20T17:47:35+00:00

How Do We Deal With Constant Interruptions? Or “How do I plan when all my work is cannot be planned?” A base question I like to ask of newly formed teams is whether they have a feel for amount of work that is truly “interrupt driven” versus work that is “planable”.

how_do_we_deal_with_product_backlog_explosion

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-03-14T14:24:10+00:00

How Do We Deal With (Product) Backlog Explosion? " Or “aggressive product backlog triage”. Or “why should we set up an 'attic' state in out backlog?”" NOTE: The thinking below, while written from the perspective Product Backlog can be applied to all different types of Backlogs - Product, Program, Portfolio, etc.

how_do_we_demonstrate_something_that_results_in_a_new_api

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-12-01T17:41:52+00:00

How do we Demonstrate Something that Results in a New API? Or “We don't demonstrate API's, do we?” Teams are encouraged to demonstrate everything, every User Story in the case of an Iteration (Sprint) Review and every Feature in the case of a System Demo. The idea is to generate feedback on the increment delivered and to show how we are progressing toward commitments we have made. To ensure the appropriate feedback is generated, teams are encouraged to think about demonstrating the functionali…

how_do_we_determine_if_an_pi_objective_is_committed_or_uncommitted

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-28T20:30:11+00:00

How do we determine if an PI Objective is Committed or Uncommitted? Or how can we communicate level of certainty for Sprint Goals, Business Objectives, Roadmaps, etc.? There is often confusion about how a Team decides whether a PI Objective is Committed or Uncommitted. These notes clarify the purpose of Uncommitted PI Objectives and provide guidance for how a Team can think through this decision.

how_do_we_determine_what_to_demonstrate_in_the_system_demo

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-11-21T20:08:21+00:00

How do we determine what to demonstrate in the System Demo? The best way to determine what will be demonstrated in the System Demo is to look at your (up to date) Program Board. The Program Board shows the iteration when Features are expected to be complete, and so it is a simple matter to look in the column representing that iteration on the Program Board determine System Demo candidates.

how_do_we_do_software_capitalization_when_we_go_to_agile

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-10-08T13:19:36+00:00

How Do We Do Software Capitalization When we Go to Agile? In accounting, money is not just green, but also comes in two flavors: it comes out of the capital budget or it comes out of the operating budget. If it comes out of the capital budget, then we can defer the recognition of these costs until we actually start selling the result of the effort. If it comes out of the operating budget, the costs drop straight to the bottom line affecting your profitability immediately.

how_do_we_encourage_agile_thinking_in_non-agile_organizations_ssa

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T14:57:49+00:00

How Do We Encourage Agile Thinking in Non-Agile Organizations? - SSA Or: * “How do we improve our effectiveness?” * “How do we become Agile when there is no one here to help?” * “How do we do DIY Agile?” Summary (For Those Who Do Not Want to Read The Whole Article)

how_do_we_ensure_critical_work_does_not_get_dropped_as_we_kick_off_teams

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:29+00:00

How Do We Ensure Critical Work Does Not Get Dropped as We Kick Off Teams? Premise One of the fears that many organizations have is that, as they “go Agile” and form Teams, important things will get dropped and things will get a lot worse for our customers before they start getting better. This is a well-founded business concern and needs to be addressed. The problem is that many organizations worry about

how_do_we_ensure_features_are_ready_for_a_big_room_pi_planning_event

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-28T18:38:05+00:00

How do we ensure Features are “ready” for a Big Room (PI) Planning event? As we implement Lean Portfolio Management systems or begin quarterly planning, it’s crucial to ensure we have the items we need to work on “ready” for Big Room (PI) Planning event. Often we see a situation where, with the best intention in the world, that teams are struggling to understand the work as we change the process to incorporate portfolio thinking. Whether we have Features as a result of approved Portfolio Manage…

how_do_we_establish_skills_development_in_the_team

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-17T14:56:23+00:00

How Do We Establish Skills Development in the Team? Or “How do we facilitate a skills bingo session?” Or “How do we develop t-shaped people on the Team?” Skills Bingo is a visual tool that helps you to clearly see the skills and competencies of individuals within a Team. It’s a tool for Team skills management (although similar approach can be applied to all levels of an organization). The primary goal of Team skills management is to offer support for understanding, developing, utilizing, and …

how_do_we_forecast_our_plan_with_kanban

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-10T13:29:17+00:00

How Do We Forecast Our Plan With Kanban? I've been at a number of places where people think they should choose Scrum over Kanban simply because they think there is no ability to forecast and plan when a team(s) uses Kanban. While there is a general notion that Scrum is a good approach when you are doing more

how_do_we_get_all_the_work_addressed_when_our_specialists_cannot_be_everywhere.old

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-17T14:55:16+00:00

How Do We Get All the Work Addressed When Our Specialists Cannot Be Everywhere? Work in progress. Basically just a brain dump atm Most organizations, when they move to an agile approach, see a real problem when they understand that agile suggests that teams are stood up to do the work (in fact, the unit of execution becomes the team), that the teams are relatively small (7 people plus or minus 2 - or 5-9 people), they are long lived (so they can get better at delivering value) and they are mea…

how_do_we_get_all_the_work_addressed_when_our_specialists_cannot_be_everywhere

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-11-11T18:25:52+00:00

How Do We Get All the Work Addressed When Our Specialists Cannot Be Everywhere? Or “How do we keep everyone busy on the team when some team members have specialized skills that cannot be used based on the current priority of backlog work?” Work in progress. Basically just a brain dump atm

how_do_we_get_away_from_business_as_usual_thinking_on_teams

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-10T15:04:10+00:00

How Do We Get Away from “Business as Usual” Thinking On Teams? Or “How do we have a proactive (as opposed to reactive) retrospective?” Or “How do we increase the effectiveness of the Retrospective?” Or “How do we stop fluffy retrospectives?

how_do_we_get_more_training_on_user_stories

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:53:50+00:00

How Do We Get More Training on User Stories? User Stories, though simple in concept, are hard to do. The reason is simple - we are not used to thinking in terms of “delivering thin slices of end user value” and so it means we have to retrain our mind from the way we thought about the problem to the approach we want to take now (see

how_do_we_help_executives_and_managers_learn_the_new_mindset

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-07-16T16:01:03+00:00

How Do We Help Executives and Managers Learn the New Mindset? It is often hard to get managers and executives take the time to learn about an agile transformation in a serious way. I am a firm believer in the idea that “the performance of work is the result of the system

how_do_we_improve_how_we_write_requirements_and_goals

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-30T14:22:28+00:00

How Do We Improve How We Write Requirements and Goals? As Lean and Agile thinking takes hold in how we get work done, many people have come to downplay the importance of written requirements and other documentation. This makes sense—iterative and incremental approaches don’t benefit from exhaustive upfront documentation. But that doesn’t mean we stop writing things down, or that clarity in our writing becomes less important.

how_do_we_improve_our_improvement_process

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-01-04T20:40:56+00:00

How Do We Improve Our Improvement Process? One thing we talk about with agile is the idea of continuous or relentless improvement. Most organizations want to improve, but like a lot of things it is sometimes hard to feel good about the improvements you are making. Further it is hard to establish a continuous practice where the whole organization is doing these improvements and feeling good about it.

how_do_we_improve_team_performance

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:50:48+00:00

How Do We Improve Team Performance? The concept of “team” is at the heart of Scrum. We bring work to a team. We say “software = team”. We structure our organization around teams. We focus on the team because you can get so much more value delivered with a team if just have a group of individuals. More than that as the team learns how to deliver value, they accelerate. The impact of this on value delivery is probably bigger than you think.

how_do_we_initially_setup_an_executive_scrum_team

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-15T21:32:58+00:00

How Do We Initially Setup an Executive Scrum Team? I often get a request to facilitation of a planning session to get an Agile Transformation started, supported and eventually sustained in their organization. The question is how to organize these people and start the process.

how_do_we_initially_setup_our_definition_of_done

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-04-28T19:47:05+00:00

How Do We Initially Setup Our Definition of Done? The basic idea to get your initial Definition of Done is to get everyone's perspective on what it means to do complete, quality work from their perspective. Perhaps the analyst has one view, QA another, the architect a third, and the customer another view.

how_do_we_introduce_a_new_techncial_approach

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:56+00:00

How Do We Introduce a New Technical Approach? One of the frustrating aspects of being an architect is knowing that there is a particular approach or technology that will help the Teams but also facing resistance from the teams in actually implementing that idea. Through a collaborative approach you will find there is help in getting some of these ideas to move. This is, in fact, one of those places where there is a significant benefit to having a large scale organization to work with.

how_do_we_know_a_product_owner_is_being_successful

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-16T21:53:14+00:00

How Do We Know a Product Owner is Being Successful? A Product Owner is operating successfully when: * Customers are delighted with the products being delivered * Company is happy with the return they have on the investments made * Teams are increasing their understanding of customer’s requirements

how_do_we_know_a_scrum_master_is_being_successful

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-17T16:08:40+00:00

How Do We Know a Scrum Master is Being Successful? The primary measure that a Scrum Master is being successful is * The Team is continuously improving their performance Thats it: it’s all about the Team. faq diy agile coaching leadership successcriteria scrummaster structure

how_do_we_know_definition_of_ready_is_being_successfully_applied

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:45:03+00:00

How Do We Know Definition of Ready Is Being Successfully Applied? We know the Definition of Ready is being successfully applied when: * There is a smooth flow of top priority (business perspective) Stories to the Teams * For each Team there is enough Ready Backlog for at least 2-3 of Iterations (Sprints) at any given time.

how_do_we_know_we_have_a_good_user_story_the_invest_criteria

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T15:03:25+00:00

How Do We Know We Have a Good User Story? The INVEST Criteria How do we know if we have a “good” User Story? People use the mnemonic to make sure they have good Stories to work with – INVEST. INVEST stands for: * Independant: Work item is modular and can de delivered with no (or at least manageable) dependencies.

how_do_we_know_where_we_are_spending_our_money

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-08-29T16:19:05+00:00

How Do We Know Where We Are Spending Our Money? The closer you get to the board level of (or any executive level) in an organization the more interest there is in answering the question “Where are we spending our money?” Executives are not interested in looking back on a report. Rather they are trying to understand whether the organization is using money wisely when looked at from the different perspectives that they have.

how_do_we_move_away_from_trust_but_verify_approach_to_compliance

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T17:03:01+00:00

How Do We Move Away from “Trust But Verify” Approach to Compliance? TL;DR Move to a “assume (compliance) has drifted and address (correct)”. After all, it was Ronald Reagan talking about the Soviets that made the phrase popular, and you would think that most organizations would like to think they can leverage more inbuilt trust in the organization than that.

how_do_we_move_from_safe_to_an_approach_with_less_overhead

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:05+00:00

How Do We Move From SAFe to an Approach With Less Overhead? Or “how do we create a rolling release plan?” I’ve now seen several situations where, for whatever reason, an group implemented SAFe to align the work of multiple Teams, but then had a general feeling that there was too much overhead for the resultant outcome. For example, one group I worked with structured themselves as a Train to deal with dependencies only to find that they were able to eliminate dependencies between teams, and so …

how_do_we_overcome_i_win_you_lose_type_thinking_to_open_organization_to_learning

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-07-26T16:42:13+00:00

How To Overcome Win-Lose Type Thinking to Open an Organization to Learning? Premise Preparation for Agile Submission based on work I have in place. Meta Data * Title: How to we Overcome Win / Lose Type Thinking to Open an Organization to Learning?

how_do_we_overcome_traditional_project_release_reporting_with_an_agile_approach_focused_on_change

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:33:22+00:00

How Do We Overcome Traditional Project Release Reporting with an Agile Approach Focused on Change? My session on “Overcoming Traditional Project Release Reporting with an Agile Approach Focused on Change” was accepted and I presented this at the conference with good feedback. See paper at faq estimates metrics forecast reporting executive finance agile2011 conference

how_do_we_progress_the_funnel_of_ideas_on_a_portfolio_kanban

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:43:31+00:00

How Do We Progress the Funnel of Ideas on a Portfolio Kanban? Premise When people start to set up a Portfolio Kanban to manage their portfolio, there is often a step where we need to determine how we bring in ideas, and have we then control the flow of those ideas as we evaluate whether we want to do something, or not. We have probably identified a group of people that are the Lean Portfolio Management (LPM, SAFe term, but lets face it there are equivalent groups everywhere). Problem we have i…

how_do_we_put_a_story_point_estimate_on_a_spike_enabler_story

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-06-22T22:21:10+00:00

How do we put a Story Point estimate on a Spike (Enabler) Story? " Short answer: Use the Story Point estimate to specify how much capacity (the budget) you want to allocate to resolving the Spike." In some ways we feel a little strange. After all, we often define a Spike because we don't know the answer to some key questions which will enable us to deliver value. How do we estimate what we don't know?

how_do_we_reduce_the_effect_of_team_churn_on_our_ability_to_deliver_value

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:53:48+00:00

How Do We Reduce the Effect of Team Churn on Our Ability to Deliver Value? We’ve now “admired the problem” that Team churn creates. But the reality is that for many shops there is no appetite to change the situation or it will take some time for the change in approach to occur. For these situations need to work to reduce the impacts as much as we can. For example:

how_do_we_reward_rank_a_development_manager

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:55+00:00

How Do We Reward / Rank a Development Manager? In shops where review and ranking is a requirement, there is an obvious need to also review / rank the Development Manager. What should you look for when ranking a Development Manager: * The most obvious result of the work of a good Development Manager is that the organization (trains, teams) are seeing good development of people in response to the demands being seen.

how_do_we_run_our_first_daily_scrum_or_daily_standup

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-17T17:39:36+00:00

How Do We Run Our First Daily Scrum or Daily Standup? The Daily Stand-up is a (maximum) 15 min daily meeting. Look at your Daily Stand-up as an opportunity to plan for the day, adjust the Iteration plan based on Team progress and review the Team's accomplishments.

how_do_we_run_our_first_iteration_demo_or_sprint_review

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-12-01T17:47:31+00:00

How Do We Run Our First Iteration Demo (Sprint Review)? The Iteration Demo (or Sprint Review or ...) is a event where the Team presents information to the (customer especially) stakeholders about the increment of work that was completed during the last Iteration (Sprint) in order to get feedback about that work.

how_do_we_run_our_first_iteration_planning_or_sprint_planning_event

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-08-10T15:57:01+00:00

How Do We Run Our First Iteration (Sprint) Planning Event? The purpose of Iteration (Sprint) Planning is to allow the Team to commit to what they can deliver in the next Iteration (Sprint) - the committed Iteration (Sprint) Backlog. Iteration (Sprint) Planning occurs at the beginning of the Iteration (Sprint), after you have completed the Iteration Demo (Sprint Review) and Retrospective of the current Iteration (Sprint) (i.e. the Iteration Demo (Sprint Review) and Iteration (Sprint) Retrospect…

how_do_we_run_our_first_sprint_retrospective

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-10-06T20:14:29+00:00

How Do We Run Our First Iteration (Sprint) Retrospective? Premise At the end of a sprint, the Team holds a Iteration (Sprint) Retrospective to review their work process and the way the Team worked together (the “inspect and adapt” cycle for the process and people). This information can help the Team determine how to improve performance in the next Sprint / Iteration. Typically, the Retrospective is held after the Review / Demo.

how_do_we_setup_an_organizational_impediment_removal_system_ssa

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:51:57+00:00

How Do We Setup An Organizational Impediment Removal System? - SSA One of the key roles of the manager or leader is to remove impediments to the flow of value. Impediments are defined as “anything that slows down the delivery of value”. Removing impediments means value is delivered faster to the customer. It also frees up capacity of the organization to work on what is important.

how_do_we_split_user_stories

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-04-28T18:35:27+00:00

How Do We Split a User Story? " Basic answer is “By end user value - ask yourself 'What kind of feedback do you expect from the customer at the Sprint Review.'”" User stories have a life-cycle. When we start into a release planning process, we might only have a

how_do_we_talk_about_sprint_commitments_that_have_not_been_met_in_the_sprint

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-08-09T15:30:11+00:00

How Do We Talk About Iteration (Sprint) Commitments That Have Not Been Met / Done? At the beginning of the Iteration (Sprint) we make a commitment where the individuals and the team commit to producing an increment of work / Iteration (Sprint) goals. The ideal situation is that the team does what it commits to do and demonstrates this at the Iteration (Sprint) Review / Demo. After a few Iterations (Sprints), most teams develop a rhythm and understanding of what they can do and meet the commitme…

how_do_we_talk_to_a_data_architect_about_an_agile_approach

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:37:48+00:00

How Do We Talk To A Data Architect About An Agile Approach? I've found that one place you will see a level of resistance to an agile approach is when you work with the data and data analytics people. It took me a while to understand why. I kept hearing

how_do_we_use_a_definition_of_ready_dor

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:45:26+00:00

How Do We Use a Definition of Ready (DoR)? The Product Owner is responsible for putting the Features and Stories in the Backlog. The Team works with the Product Owner during Backlog Refinement to help Product Owners get the stories into actionable shape.

how_do_we_use_agile_to_reduce_costs

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:17+00:00

How Do We Use Agile to Reduce Costs? Or “Why Hasn't Our Agile Implementation Lead to Cost Savings?” In many IT organizations that I have worked with, there is a focus on controlling and reducing costs. This makes sense as most IT organizations are regarded as cost centers, and so it is thought, a focus on reducing costs should result in improved business outcomes for all concerned.

how_do_we_use_assessments_for_good

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-05-20T13:22:22+00:00

How Do We Use Assessments for Good? SAFe’s Measure and Grow is a set of assessment tools (and recommendations) to help organizational leadership evaluate their progress towards business agility and determine their next improvement steps. (In reality there are a number of assessments out there, but this note is written primarily from the perspective of this tool) Properly used, these are effective tools. Like most tools, there is also a potential negative use of assessments, anti-patterns if you…

how_do_we_use_kanban_at_the_team_level_when_the_art_has_a_cadenced_calendar

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T20:26:10+00:00

How Do We Use Kanban at the Team Level When the ART Has a Cadenced Calendar? - SSA As organizations deploy SAFe we typically see several questions from people wanting to have more information about how Kanban is deployed in a SAFe environment at the team level. People indicate that Kanban may be the more suitable practice for their situation. Others feel that the nature of SAFe makes it difficult to implement Kanban, at least superficially.

how_do_we_use_points_to_estimate_work_ssa

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T14:59:14+00:00

How Do We Use Points to Estimate? - SSA As many organizations move to an agile approach, many coaches recommend an estimation method called “Points” or “Story Points”. This approach differs from traditional approaches, and so causes discomfort to many, especially at the beginning. This note is about capturing the basics so that, if nothing else, we have a baseline of thinking.

how_do_we_use_story_point_estimates_to_forecast

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-11-02T18:54:22+00:00

How Do We Use Story Point Estimates To Forecast? Team Velocity We have Team based Story Point estimates. How can this information be used to forecast work? Let's start with the simplest case first. Have a look at the following picture: On the left you see a prioritized backlog of work in User Stories where the items in that Backlog all have Story Point estimates on them. The Team selects the set of work they think they can deliver in the next, say, 2 week period to form the

how_do_we_work_on_the_big_architectural_initiative

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:50+00:00

How Do We Work on the “Big” Architectural Initiative? The base recommendation is that, where possible, you split large chunks of work into smaller ones but focus on still providing end user value even when you do the split. In other words, as you divide epics / feature / stories up ensure there is some valuable functionality with each as you deliver. This contrasts with the approach a typical technical organization would take when given a large amount of work to do. Traditional organization hav…

how_do_we_work_with_non-functional_requirements_nfrs

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-07-01T17:26:28+00:00

How do we work with Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs)? Non-functional Requirements (NFRs) are effectively constraints on what we are working to deliver. Even if the solution we deliver meets all the acceptance criteria, if solution doesn’t also address the non-functional requirements there will be questions around whether we should deliver the item into production.

how_do_we_work_with_pi_objective_business_values_during_the_program_increment

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-04-15T16:05:09+00:00

How Do We Work with PI Objective Business Values During the Program Increment? At the end of the PI Planning event we have a set of business values. And and the end of this PI we would like to have a set of values that are updated to reflect the value of what was actually delivered so we can improve on our ability to deliver value. In other words the updated values are used to calculate the predictability metric and so is an input into the Inspect and Adapt).

how_do_we_write_good_features

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-29T19:37:16+00:00

How Do We Write Good Features? SAFe describes a hierarchy of artifacts that describe systems behavior: Epics, Features and Stories. A feature is a description of a desired service of behavior of a system that addresses one or more user needs. The development of business features is the responsibility of the Product Manager. Assistance is available from train level business analysts and teams. A feature should be sized such that it could be completed within a Program Increment.

how_do_we_write_good_pi_objectives

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-29T19:37:47+00:00

How Do We Write Great PI Objectives And “What is the Purpose of PI Objectives?” Program Increment (PI) Objectives are an output of the PI Planning event. PI Objectives summarize in business terms what each Team intends to deliver in the upcoming PI. They are therefore used to:

how_do_we_write_user_stories_when_we_cannot_get_all_development_and_testing_done_in_one_sprint

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:35+00:00

How Do We Write User Stories When We Cannot Get All Development and Testing Done in One Sprint? Work in progress What we really want to avoid is water falling Sprints, where we dev in one sprint, and then test in the next. The reason user stories don’t work well when you have this happen is that the purpose of a user story is to help deliver value (user’s perspective). If you split a story based on tasks then you are not delivering business value. The result is that you are increasing risk (as…

how_do_you_become_aware_of_impediments

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-10T13:44:36+00:00

How Do You Become Aware of Impediments? There are lots of potential sources for impediments, depending on the situation you find yourself in. At the most basic level, Teams are encouraged to track things that slow them down. There are two main sources impediments:

how_do_you_work_impediments

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-10T14:37:44+00:00

How Do You Work Impediments? Characteristics There is no one process to work impediments that will work in all cases. There are common characteristics of an impediment removal system: * Single intake system: There is a common way to capture the impediments. There is a good understanding of what kinds of impediments should flow to what parts of the organization. Note that you may have to process a few impediments to figure this out.

how_does_a_manager_need_to_adjust_their_approach_with_agile

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:26+00:00

How Does a Manager Need To Adjust Their Approach With Agile? Even more as we kick off teams and trains, there seem to be a lot of questions about what the “leaders” in the new structure do. In transformations I've worked on I have often seen the pattern where teams are expected to

how_does_a_team_initially_get_control_of_work

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:47:33+00:00

How Does a Team Initially Get Control of Work? Or “Why does it feel like I am doing the same work as I’ve always done?” Premise When we kick-off a Train, we will often kick off the Teams for that Train a little in advance. The problem is not that the people on the Teams don't know where their work is coming from, but rather we need to set up the process so that the process of deciding to do work, the new intake system for the Team, also knows all sources of work and what the Team should typic…

how_does_multi-tiered_product_management_work

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-03-14T20:55:47+00:00

How Does Multi-tiered Product Management Work? Or “What is the difference between a Product Manager and a Product Owner?” When people are working a large scale implementation of agile and they see definitions of the role of Product Owner and the role of a Product Manager (and the various other potential layers of working “content” priorities), they cannot help but feel confused. After all, they also seem to say “there is a backlog that needs to be prioritized” and that they “should work with c…

how_does_project_management_change_with_agile

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:28+00:00

How Does Project Management Change with Agile? Or “What is the impact of Agile on an PMO?” Premise I have seen this type of deck in other places, but cannot find it easily so I’ve created something that can be used to help people understand.

how_does_the_agile_approach_allow_us_to_deliver_early

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:54:12+00:00

How Does the Agile Approach Allow Us to Deliver Early? " Or “How do we deliver to a fixed price contract?” Or “Why do we do delivery in priority order?” Or “What do we mean when we say 'trimming the tail'?”" When you move to an agile approach, a lot of people worry about how we deliver to scope. We are very used to planning all our work upfront and then working to meet that plan. An agile approach seems very strange (and concerning) because we change the plan based on feedback.

how_does_the_architect_interact_with_the_product_management

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-08-24T14:17:29+00:00

How Does the Architect Interact With the Product Management? Traditionally Architects develop an independent understanding of what the customer needs. This is best developed by direct conversation with customers, but in many instances is developed independent of that discussion, and also independent of the overall product strategy.

how_does_the_role_of_architect_change_in_agile_ssa

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-03-16T13:22:47+00:00

How Does The Role of Architect Change in Agile? - SSA The role of “Architect” in an agile transformation sometimes causes confusion. Traditionally there has been a need for someone to not just worry about the current features to be delivered but to also look ahead and understand how they can position the Teams so they can work coming requirements. There has also been a need for consistency in an overall enterprise offering so that customers of that offering feel like the solution could have com…

how_is_work_assigned_during_a_sprint

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-08-15T16:30:13+00:00

How is Work Assigned During an Iteration (Sprint)? " Sometime old habits and thinking die hard." One of the fundamental tenants of Scrum and Agile is that the people who are doing the work are in the best position to make decisions about that work. This differs from a more traditional management approach which says that an outside expert can make better decisions about doing work than the people that are doing the work. The traditional approach is a left over from

how_much_coaching_do_we_really_need

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:41:31+00:00

How Much Coaching Do We Really Need? When I first did an agile transformation (450 people located in 12 countries) the coach we worked with provided the leadership with a couple of days training, helped us put together a plan to transform, trained a couple of teams, trained the leadership team on how to train teams, and then, with the exception of a couple of check-up visits, left us alone to figure out what to do. At the time I did not question this approach. It was just the way things were do…

how_much_productivity_will_we_lose_as_we_transform_to_agile

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-09-09T15:14:17+00:00

How Much Productivity Will We Lose As We Transform to Agile? (Answer: None LOL) One of the natural concerns people have when they embark on an Agile Transformation is that their productivity be dramatically reduced during the change. This is such a large concern that it often becomes the biggest reason not to transform. People will spout phrases like “we have to go slow to go fast.”

how_should_we_initially_track_multiple_teams_progress

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T14:53:08+00:00

How Should We Initially Track Multiple Team's Progress? Sometimes you kick off a couple of teams at the same time, and want to see how the team's are doing over time. I've found [this spreadsheet] will help in those situations. Sample Output The spreadsheet shows a team by team view with a chart showing committed versus actual velocity over time, including an

how_should_we_initially_track_release_progress

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:25:27+00:00

How Should We Initially Track Release Progress? In general the best approach to tracking Release progress when you get started is through a manual big visible chart showing stories moving from a backlog through “To Do”, “In Progress”, and “

how_should_we_initially_track_sprint_progress

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:13:12+00:00

How Should We Initially Track Sprint Progress? In general the best approach to tracking Sprint progress when you get started is through a manual big visible chart showing tasks moving through “To Do”, “In Progress”, and “Done” steps, and a chart showing the Sprint Burn-down, also manual. The reason we do this is so that teams can learn and understand how a Sprint is supposed to work without having to also learn the nuances (and potential changes in behavior) required by a tool.

how_should_we_structure_our_organization_as_we_move_to_agile_ssa

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T15:02:36+00:00

How Should We Structure Our Organization As We Move To Agile (Development Manager)? - SSA Or “What is the role of a Staff Development Manager?” Or “How does the supervisors role change in agile?” Premise When you start working with an agile transformation one recommendation you will often hear is that roles such as Product Owner, Product Manager, Scrum Master, Release Train Engineer etc. should NOT be supervisors as well. There are a couple of reasons for this recommendation:

how_should_we_update_our_estimates

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-08-15T19:28:39+00:00

How Should We Update Our Estimates? Or “When Should We Update Our Estimates?” Old habits dies hard. One of the interesting things that happens when we estimate using Team based Story Point estimates is that once the work is complete, Teams want to update the estimate based on what they know now, and so “improve” the estimate.

how_to_get_your_session_accepted_at_an_agile_conference

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:13+00:00

How To Get Your Session Accepted at the Agile Conference? Premise The bottom line is that for the Agile Alliance Conference there are at least three times more submissions than the number of sessions that could run in the conference week. In addition you will be competing for slots with people that are already

how_to_preempt_team_conflict

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:52:29+00:00

How to Preempt Team Conflict? I thought this article from HBR was pretty useful. It takes the discussion we have about setting up team working agreements one step further, suggesting a series of relatively short meetings to level set people’s views of each other based on how team members react to how people look, act, speak, think and feel. The recommendation in the article is to have a ~20 min conversation with the whole team on each of these areas in order:

how_will_we_know_we_are_making_progress_on_impediment_removal

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-10T15:02:06+00:00

How Will We Know We Are Making Progress on Impediment Removal? The work of impediments is, in many ways, no different to the work involved in delivering solutions. The outcome has a different nature (improvement vs value) but the way it is worked is similar.

how_will_you_make_it_safe_for_people_to_raise_impediments

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-10T13:56:00+00:00

How Will You Make It Safe for People to Raise Impediments? Put yourself in the shoes of your people: * Do you expect them to be open about impediments they having? Are your people concerned that if they bring up a problem that it will reflect poorly on them in the next performance assessment, for example?

how_would_you_describe_kanban_in_a_nutshell

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T19:29:48+00:00

How Would You Describe Kanban in a Nutshell? * Visualize the workflow * Split the work into pieces, write each item on a card and put on the wall * Use named columns to illustrate where each item is in the workflow * Limit WIP (work in progress)

how_would_you_describe_scrum_in_a_nutshell

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T19:27:29+00:00

How Would You Describe Scrum in a Nutshell? * Split your organization * Small, cross-functional, self-organizing teams * Split your work * Small, concrete deliverables * Assign someone to be responsible for the work item list and to sort the list by priority

i_am_going_to_wait_for_the_training_anti-pattern

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:59+00:00

I am Going to Wait For the Training (Anti-pattern) Or “Give It To Me, Baby!” Consumer * Executive leadership * Transformation coaches * Transformation team * Middle management Description As the organization goes through significant change, there is a lot of opportunity to learn. For many people, learning is a passive process in that they:

i_need_to_start_now_as_funding_has_been_approved_anti-pattern

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:27+00:00

I Need to Start Now as Funding Has Been Approved (Anti-pattern) Or “Start my initiative now 'coz I've secured the funding” Consumer * Product Owner * Product Manager * Team Members * Project Managers Description Teams are expected to start work that has not been prioritized in the backlog due to the culture of

ideas_for_future_conference_sessions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-01-06T23:17:59+00:00

Ideas for Future Conference Sessions Premise I've learned a lot as a result of my transformation to agile and coaching which is the direct result of people sharing their ideas, their thoughts, and their learning. As I learn I figure some people will benefit from what I pick up. I see this as

ideas_on_presenting_ideas

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:35+00:00

Ideas on Presenting Ideas To me, a lot of agile is about helping people understand not only what to do but also why things work and provide the thinking tools that allows them to apply agile approaches in their context. I've seen a lot of presentations, training, conference talks and so on and decided to start collecting a few of these over time.

if_it_involves_work_by_the_team_then_it_should_have_a_non-zero_estimate

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:04:06+00:00

If It Involves Work, Then It Should Have a Non-zero Estimate Some teams start using zero point stories to mean the Team “should not get credit for this work.” This is because they are doing something which the Product Owner does not see as valuable. There is a problem here in the Story Points represent how big a job is and, when summed to make a velocity, how much work capacity the team can take on. Zero points means

if_we_doing_agile_at_scale_we_must_adopt_safe_anti-pattern

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-12-10T14:31:36+00:00

If We Are Doing Agile at Scale We Must Adopt SAFe (Anti-pattern) Or “The answer is SAFe; now what was the question?” Or “We Need to Go SAFe Now!” Consumer * Executive leadership * Transformation coaches * Transformation team Description

if_you_are_not_seeing_any_problems_or_impediments_that_is_a_problem_anti-pattern

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-10T15:03:10+00:00

If You Are Not Seeing Any Problems or Impediments, That is a Problem Or “Everything is fine!” Consumer * Change agents * Transformation leadership team * Managers Description People are uncomfortable highlighting and talking about the problems they are struggling with.

if_you_have_to_say_it_s_safe_it_probably_isn_t

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:50:17+00:00

If You Have to Say It’s Safe, It Probably Isn’t We’ve all seen it. You’re leading a meeting. Tensions are high—things aren’t going to plan, and everyone feels it, including you. You ask a question designed to surface the problem, and … silence. No one volunteers a word. In an effort to draw people out, you say, “Hey everyone, this is a safe place — it’s time to speak up!” You may even call on someone directly.

implementing_beyond_budgeting-_unlocking_the_performance_potential_by_bjarte_bogsnes_-_bjarne_bogsnes

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:23:54+00:00

"Implementing Beyond Budgeting: Unlocking the Performance Potential" - Bjarte Bogsnes Review and Notes In general I found this a very useful book as my experience has been that many agile implementations stumble when they start working more corporate or financial issues. Part of the reason is that it is easy for many to say

incomplete_pages_that_require_work

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-01-06T21:06:19+00:00

Incomplete Pages That Require Work There are a number of pages on this site where I've started some work, but have not completed the work to at least “first reasonable draft” level:

introduction_to_micro-services_by_martin_fowler

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:46+00:00

"Introduction to Micro-services" by Martin Fowler Reference Introduction to Micro-services by Martin Fowler Notes Covers definition (or rather characteristics), when they should be used, and relationship to more general SOA discussion. video webinar learning microservices soa review

is_generating_an_estimate_a_waste_of_time

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-04-08T16:41:31+00:00

Is Generating an Estimate a Waste of Time? I often get questions like “Could you please let me know your opinion on 'No Estimates' as we have been hearing about this idea recently and, going through some the literature we are now confused.” So here are some thoughts.

it_s_not_just_the_meeting

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:52:30+00:00

It's Not Just The Meeting As part of a plan for the day, I pull together a list of meetings that will happen today and put an estimate on the meeting based on the scheduled time for that meeting. As I've watch myself work these I've found that this approach grossly underestimates the impact of the meeting on my day for a number of reasons:

james_tamm_-_want_better_collaboration_dont_be_so_defensive

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:50+00:00

James Tamm - Want Better Collaboration Dont Be So Defensive Premise Jim's keynote will challenge you to look at yourself through self-critical eyes. Entitled “Want Better Collaboration? Don't be so Defensive!”, Jim will discuss skills essential for effective collaboration. In particular, he will focus on achieving success even during difficult interactions. He will show how your own defensiveness is a key factor in resolving conflicts and building collaboration. He will share practical tools d…

jeff_sutherland_-_stalwarts

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:48+00:00

Jeff Sutherland - Stalwarts Premise Jeff Sutherland started the first Scrum team in 1993 and formalized the Scrum process with Ken Schwaber in 1995. As CEO, CTO, or VP of Engineering he has evolved Scrum in 11 of his own companies and co-authored the Agile Manifesto in 2001. Currently, as CEO of Scruminc.com he leads agile transformations worldwide while serving as Senior Advisor to Open View Venture Partners with almost a billion dollars invested in dozens of Scrum companies. The goal is to m…

jessie_shternshus_-_individuals_and_interactions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:11+00:00

Jessie Shternshus - Individuals And Interactions Premise As Agile Practitioners, we strive to make ourselves, our team and our delivery better. We can do this by being open to learning new ideas from other disciplines. Jessie's keynote, “Individuals, Interactions and Improvisation

jim_mccarthy_-_freedom_culture_design_and_our_possible_destiny

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:42+00:00

Jim McCarthy - Freedom Culture Design And Our Possible Destiny Premise A culture is the set of shared attributes, values, goals, and practices that both describes and shapes a group. Our era is increasingly characterized by an emergent “software culture.

joe_justice_-_scrum_for_full_scale_manufacturing

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:27+00:00

Joe Justice - Scrum For Full Scale Manufacturing Premise Summary: Scrum for full-scaling manufacturing: a groundbreaking agile discipline that combines Scrum with modular architecture and Lean/XP practices. Learning Objectives: -Top reasons companies say they can't embrace agility outside software. -Solutions for those reasons. -How Scrum and Lean enable each other. -How much of the company needs to change, and how, to enable incremental releases each sprint in hardware, and combined hardware…

johanna_rothman_-_agile_program_management

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:16:34+00:00

Johanna Rothman - Agile Program Management Do you have measurement dysfunction on your program? Are you trying to measure teams and extrapolate each team’s status to the program? That doesn’t work. Teams have personal status, and you can’t add them together to understand the program state. You can use a handful of program measurements that help everyone understand where the program is and where it’s headed.

johanna_rothman_-_growing_your_servant_leadership

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:10:29+00:00

Johanna Rothman - Growing Your Servant Leadership Your management wants your team to commit to dates or deliverables. Your team wants adaptability so they can provide the best product at all times. You feel torn between your management and your team, stuck in the middle. You can manage your situation by growing your adaptability and servant leadership.

johanna_rothman_-_scaling_agile_projects_to_programs

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:38+00:00

Johanna Rothman - Scaling Agile Projects to Programs Premise Are you trying to scale your agile project to a program, a collection of projects with one strategic objective? If you do what you’ve done with one small project, you’ll get bloat. Instead of bloat or large frameworks, you can use agile and lean approaches to manage your program with small-world networks. Small world networks help each team to remain autonomous, and still collaborate and explore across the program.

joshua_kerievsky_-_modern_agile

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:14:27+00:00

Joshua Kerievsky - Modern Agile Over the past decade, innovative companies, software industry thought leaders and lean/agile pioneers have discovered simpler, sturdier, and more streamlined ways to be agile. While there is timeless wisdom in agile, today's practitioners would do well to bypass outmoded agile practices in favor of modern approaches.

jurgen_appelo_-_managing_for_happiness

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:59:51+00:00

Jurgen Appelo - Managing For Happiness The research is clear: happy workers are more productive workers. And it?s best when managers enjoy their jobs as well. Managing for Happiness is about concrete management advice for all workers. Practical things that people can do next Monday morning in order to change the organization?s culture, and make it a happier place to work. This is not only relevant for managers, but for everyone who is concerned about the organization. We create a happier enviro…

kanban_values_and_principles

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:43+00:00

Kanban Values and Principles The original is at and is best read there. Following list is maintained for my convenience. Remember that kanban is aimed at process improvement and usually has a wider view than the team view (unless the organization is small).

kylie_castellaw_-_fortune-teller_to_scientist

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:27:00+00:00

Kylie Castellaw - Fortune-teller To Scientist Telling the future is hard but telling the past is easy. As they say, hindsight is 20/20. We all have stories of products that we should have known would fail. It usually goes this way: Your company invests a lot of money to get the A-team together to create a critical piece of software. The team has impressive iterations and delivers high quality software with smooth, on-time releases. But then it doesn’t perform well in the marketplace, the inves…

larry_maccherone_-_how_long_will_it_take

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:14+00:00

Larry Maccherone - How Long Will It Take Premise You know “collaboration over contract negotiation”, right? Metrics often drive a wedge between management/stakeholders and the team, none more so than forecasting metrics. However, when you give a probability distribution as the answer to the question,

leadership_delegates_the_transformation_to_others_anti-pattern

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:02+00:00

Leadership Delegates the Transformation to Others (Anti-pattern) Or “I Delegate This Transformation To You ...” Consumer In general there are a couple of consumers of this anti-pattern: * Transformation leads and agile coaches. For transformation leads this is something seen when people first decided they need to

lean_architecture_-_for_agile_software_development_-_james_o._coplien_and_gertrud_bjornvig

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-03T21:44:38+00:00

"Lean Architecture: for Agile Software Development" - James O. Coplien and Gertrud Bjørnvig Want to Know More? * "Lean Architecture: for Agile Software Development" book learning improvement architecture lean review

lean_values_and_principles

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T14:57:01+00:00

Lean Values and Principles The original is at and is best read there. Following list is maintained for my convenience. Values The Lean Systems Society published its credo at the 2012 Lean Software & Systems Conference. This was based on a set of values published a year earlier. Those values include:

learning_agile-_understanding_scrum_xp_lean_and_kanban_-_andrew_stellman_jennifer_greene

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:26:27+00:00

"Learning Agile: Understanding Scrum, XP, Lean, and Kanban" - Andrew Stellman, Jennifer Greene Review and Notes Excellent book if you are just starting out down the path of agile. Provides an excellent overview of not only base practices of Scrum, XP, Lean and Kanban, but also offers up the values and principles behind the approaches, and how you can use these tools to address your specific issues.

learning_consortium_webcast_-_large-scale_agile_at_ericsson_by_steve_denning

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:34:32+00:00

"Learning Consortium Webcast - Large-scale Agile at Ericsson" -- Steve Denning Scrum Alliance sponsored presentation with Steve Denning and Paul Madden from Ericsson. Our speaker for the January 20, 2016, Learning Consortium webinar was Paul Madden, head of Ericsson Product Development,

llewellyn_falco_and_maaret_pyhajarvi_-_strong-style_pairing

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-10-12T18:17:42+00:00

Llewellyn Falco and Maaret Pyhajarvi - Strong-Style Pairing Pair programming is one of the most controversial of 12 core extreme programming practices. One of the reasons for this is that many of the styles of pair programming have troublesome traps for people. This is especially true when a pair has significant differences in skill or knowledge. Strong-style pair programming is a method of pairing designed to avoid these traps. In strong-style, “for an idea to go from your head to the computer…

luke_hohmann_-_awesome_super_problems

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:33+00:00

Luke Hohmann - Awesome Super Problems Premise The agile values and practices we all hold dear give us more than the ability to tackle problems associated with software development. They give us the ability to tackle Awesome Superproblems. These are problems that are bigger than a

luke_hohmann_-_how_to_conduct_large_distributed_team_retrospectives

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:27+00:00

Luke Hohmann - How To Conduct Large Distributed Team Retrospectives Premise Summary: This session presents a new approach to conducting enterprise retrospectives that overcomes the limitations of traditional models Learning Objectives: Understand why traditional retrospectives fail to meet the needs of large teams

lynn_winterboer_and_cher_fox_-_test_automation_-_agile_enablement_for_data_warehousing_and_business

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:51:01+00:00

Lynn Winterboer and Cher Fox - Test Automation - Agile Enablement for Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence Teams Regardless of whether your data warehousing (DW)/business intelligence (BI) team is dedicated to Scrum, a fan of Kanban, or focused on XP, “Agile” in any form calls for small increments of potentially deployable results – which means that QA is essential on a regular, frequent basis. As we develop these small increments, we need to not only test the new development, but also re…

manage_your_project_portfolio_-_increase_your_capacity_and_finish_more_projects_-_johanna_rothman

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:06:10+00:00

"Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects" - Johanna Rothman Review and Notes There is some excellent advice in this book, in simple form, on how to start getting control of your project portfolio. If you are in the mode of saying

management_will_assess_me_badly_if_i_bring_bad_news_anti-pattern

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:03+00:00

Management Will Assess Me Badly if I Bring Bad News (Anti-pattern) Or “I Can't Say That … It's Ranking Time!” Consumer General awareness from all levels of supervisor. Coaches also need to flag this when they see it. Description When ranking systems are in place great care needs to be taken to ensure that there is a free flow of information. The problem is that people will want to be seen in a good light by the person ranking them This becomes particularly an issue when it is time to rank f…

materials_developed

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-10T13:29:17+00:00

Materials Developed Just a convenient place for me to be able to find materials I have developed over time. Feel free to use, with appropriate attribution. * [ How To Deal with Personality Issues Without Sounding Like a Marriage Guidance Counsellor] - see Hans Samios - How to Work Personality Issues Without Sounding Like a Marriage Guidance Counsellor? for more information. * [ Agile Testing Workshop] * [Agile Project Management] - see How Does Project Management Change with Agile? for m…

matthew_hodgson_-_dealing_with_dysfunction_using_couples_counselling_patterns_to_manage_conflict

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:21:11+00:00

Matthew Hodgson - Dealing with Dysfunction – Using couples counselling patterns to manage conflict Wanted to see this one as it related to mine but session was full. Worked on my session instead. teamperformance team conflict personalities agile 2016 conference

michael_spayd_-_agile_assessment_prior_to_scaling

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:51+00:00

Michael Spayd - Agile Assessment Prior To Scaling Premise We all want to scale the benefits of Agile up from the team level to the wider organization. Our leaders pine for the holy grail of “enterprise agility.” Before beginning such a monumental endeavor, it is wise to take stock of the territory. Scaling a process may now be doable, but how do you scale leadership? Or culture? Leveraging learning from the field of Organization Development (OD), as well as Integral Theory, this session will w…

middle_management_struggling_with_the_change_anti-pattern

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:33+00:00

Middle Management Struggle with Change (Anti-Pattern) Or “Permafrost” Consumer * Change agents * Transformation leadership team * Managers Description Permafrost is a metaphor for the middle management layer that struggles with change, transformation, and adopting new ways of working. Upper management says they are fully committed to transform the organization, the front line is already well on the way or there is pent up demand for changing the way things are, but the middle layers o…

mike_cohn_-_let_go_of_knowing

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:41+00:00

Mike Cohn - Let Go Of Knowing Premise You undoubtedly have a firmly held set of convictions about what is necessary to do agile well. These convictions have served you well—your teams have delivered better products more quickly and more economically than before they were agile. But could some of your firmly held convictions be holding you back? And have you ever wondered why some of your most agile friends are similarly firm in their own opinions—even ones that are the exact opposite of your o…

mike_cottmeyer_-_the_executives_step-by-step_guide_to_leading_large-scale_agile_transformation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:18:44+00:00

Mike Cottmeyer - The Executives Step-by-Step Guide to Leading Large-Scale Agile Transformation A few years ago everyone wanted to know how to convince their executives to go agile. Today's executives are asking their teams how they'll get them there. While we have made significant progress changing the hearts and minds of senior leadership, executives have a fiduciary responsibility to the performance of their organizations. They demand a greater level of assurance that what you plan to do is a…

mobbing

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:35+00:00

Mobbing or Mob-Programming Pair Programming is often seen as a waste of time as it intuitively seems obvious that two people working on one computer must be slower than each person working on their own computers. But there is evidence that for knowledge work the approach makes sense.

navigating_conflict_on_agile_teams_or_why_resolving_conflict_won_t_work_by_lyssa_adkins

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:25+00:00

"Navigating Conflict on Agile Teams: Why 'Resolving' Conflict Won't Work" by Lyssa Adkins Premise Navigating Conflict on Agile Teams: Why “Resolving” Conflict Won't Work by Lyssa Adkins. On great agile teams, conflict is constant and welcomed by all as a catapult to higher performance. It is about human beings working together, day after day, in the maelstrom of constant collaboration and change.

only_use_fibonacci_sequence_numbers

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:12:56+00:00

Only Use Fibonacci Sequence Numbers A number of teams have created additional numbers to be used in estimates because they do not think that the set that are provided are enough. Remember that what we are doing is relative size estimates and so the numbers from 1 to 100 represent 2 orders of magnitude in size and so should be enough to determine how much will fit into a sprint.

other_seminars_and_meetings

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:45+00:00

Other Seminars and Meetings * "DevOps for the Agile Enterprise" - Dan James (Icon) * "Essential SAFe" - Dean Leffingwell * "Enterprise Lean-Agile Coach Course" - Alex Yakyma See also: * Conferences * Webinars

our_estimates_are_terrible

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:55:10+00:00

Our Estimates are Terrible! I’ve had a number of conversations with teams recently where people start by saying that they have a problem with their estimates, that the estimates are terrible and causing all kinds of planning problems. But do we really have a problem?

pages_where_there_is_work_todo

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:06+00:00

Pages Where There is Work To Do Otherwise known as “work-in-progress” A number of pages that I create are the result of answering a question, or doing some level of work on something as a result of a situation. I capture these as pages in this Wiki irrespective of whether it is complete or not mainly so I can come back and fix it up at a later data. You will sometimes see things here that are a little too specific to a situation, or a set of words that don't quite seem logical (since I am work…

pair_programming_research

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:12+00:00

Pair Programming Research Related Tags research practices pairprogramming

people_not_asking_for_help_when_trying_a_new_agile_practice_anti-pattern

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:58+00:00

People Not Asking for Help When Trying a New Agile Practice (Anti-pattern) Or “I've Got This!” Consumer * Pretty much anyone working in or associated with EMIT. * People who are relatively new to the EMIT culture are usually the first to see this anti-pattern and ask questions about it.

pithy_slogans

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-06-19T15:59:33+00:00

Pithy Slogans Sometimes you just need a couple of slogans to catch on in an organization to really drive an idea. Here are some slogans that have worked in various transformations. * Start with 'why' * Go and see * No demo, no numbers * Ship it, dont' WIP it

portfolio_management_faq

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-23T20:06:18+00:00

Portfolio Management FAQ As I work with people I find there are often situations where the same kind of questions come up. Rather than invent answers every time, here are some standard ideas, based on experience that has worked in the past, to get you started.

powerful_facilitation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:34+00:00

Powerful Facilitation As part of coaching you often run exercises that help you get to a specific outcome. Many of these use specific (or combinations) of facilitation techniques to get that result. This page simply collects some of the these techniques so they become a

powerful_pictures

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:47:32+00:00

Powerful Pictures Premise Sometimes seeing a picture really does help in understand. This page collects a number of pictures, graphs and charts that are scattered over the blog with links that help understand information about what they present. The Economic Benefit of Doing One Thing at a Time

powerful_stories

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:05:10+00:00

Powerful Stories I am a collector of stories, mainly because I find it useful to tell stories to get ideas across. Stories engage emotions. This is a collection of story ideas. Stories consultant story tools

prateek_singh_-_retrospective_moving_from_a_subjective_to_objective_world

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:43+00:00

Prateek Singh - Retrospective: Moving From a Subjective to Objective World Premise Traditionally Agile teams run retrospectives to facilitate learning, development, collaboration and improvement of the team. Teams have tried multiple different formats to get the right outcomes. Issues of all sorts seem to pop up many times - lack of participation, finger pointing, irrelevant topics, lack of prioritization of issues. Are these or similar problems hindering the effectiveness of your retrospectiv…

presented_at_agile_2016

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:52:31+00:00

Presented at Agile 2016 I finally got around to publishing the presentation I did at the Agile 2016 Conference this year. Title for my session was “How to Work Personality Issues Without Sounding Like a Marriage Guidance Counsellor?” It was basically a presentation on approaches you can take to deal with conflict without coming across as disingenuous.

principles_and_values

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T17:37:33+00:00

Values and Principles Most agile thinking, while it has a lot of specific practices you can use, is based on values and principles. This is good because, as Jim Highsmith says “Without concrete practices, principles are sterile; but without principles, practices have no life, no character, no heart. Great products arise from great teams — teams who are principled, who have character, who have heart, who have persistence, and who have courage.

prioritization_techniques

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:52+00:00

Prioritization Techniques Generally when people move to agile they need to rethink their approach to scheduling / prioritization of work. Traditional approaches are either very heavy weight, requiring a lot of upfront analysis where assumptions build on top of assumptions, or they use a more HiPPO (highest paid persons opinion) approach.

qa_and_testing_references

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-09-14T19:16:11+00:00

QA and Testing References Description

quotable_quotes_a9

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-09-15T20:08:46+00:00

* “You can't scale what you don't have” - Lee Cunningham * “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.” - Philip K Dick * “It is very difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it.

quotable_quotes_aa

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-08-29T15:36:28+00:00

* “Reorganizations that ignore Conway's Law, team cognitive load, and related dynamics risk acting like open heart surgery performed by a child: highly destructive.” -- Matthew Skelton, Manual Pais in “Team Topologies” * “Keep the Product Backlog clean. Backlog items age like milk, not like wine

quotable_quotes_ab

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T17:32:50+00:00

* “Expect resentment – and eventual trouble – if you micromanage remote workers. You provoke resistance when you demonstrate that you don’t trust your distant workers and monitor everything they do.” — Lisette Sutherland and Kirsten Janene-Nelson in “Work Together Anywhere”

quotable_quotes_ac

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T17:32:50+00:00

* “Don’t preach and hope for ownership; implement mechanisms that actually give ownership ... Eliminating top-down monitoring systems will do it for you.” -- David Marquet * “Trust is purely a characteristic of the human relationship.” -- David Marquet * “Don’t move information to authority, move authority to the information.

quotable_quotes_ad

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T17:32:50+00:00

* “Someone who achieves a high level of personal mastery lives in a continual learning mode with no end state. They never 'arrive.'” – Dantar P. Oosterwal in "The Lean Machine" * “You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success - or are they holding you back?

quotable_quotes_ae

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T17:32:49+00:00

* “A performance evaluation can never be entirely objective. There will always be subjectivity.” – Bjarte Bogsnes * “I believe that economists put decimal points in their forecasts to show they have a sense of humor” – William Gilmore Simms * “

quotable_quotes_af

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T17:32:49+00:00

* “It is intentionally not too technical or suited only for programmers, because agile acceptance testing is not a programming technique: it is a communication technique that brings people involved in a software project closer.” – Gojko Adzic in

quotable_quotes_ag

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T17:32:49+00:00

* “Leading as a gardener meant that I kept the Task Force focused on clearly articulated priorities by explicitly talking about them and by leading by example.” – General Stanley McChrystal in “Team of Teams” * “The role of the senior leader was no longer that of controlling puppet master, but rather that of an empathetic crafter of culture.

quotable_quotes_ah

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T17:32:49+00:00

* “Why doesn’t every company use ESDs effectively? Because ESDs drive bureaucrats nuts, for two main reasons: 1. ESDs trust their own judgment and love their own vision, and when these get off track, they can be disastrous. 2. ESDs won’t play the game; good bureaucrats do. Bureaucrats are properly deferential to authority. They mingle well at parties.

quotable_quotes_ai

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T17:32:48+00:00

* “Weinberg-Brooks’ Law: More software projects have gone awry from management’s taking action based on incorrect system models than for all other causes combined. Causation Fallacy: Every effect has a cause ... and we can tell which is which.

quotable_quotes_aj

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T17:32:48+00:00

* “A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it’s not open” – Frank Zappa * “Study after study shows that we have little-to-no skill in when it comes to making predictions — but that sure doesn't keep us from trying.” * “

quotable_quotes_ak

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T17:32:48+00:00

* “The key, though, is not to manage by metrics but to use the metrics to understand where to have conversations about what is not getting done.” Gary Gruver et al, “The Practical Approach to Large–scale Agile Development.” * “Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

quotable_quotes_al

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T17:32:48+00:00

* “No matter what, the cost of addressing technical debt increases with time.” – Chris Sterling * “We're more likely to get it 'right' the third time.” – Chris Sterling * “Software and cathedrals are much the same – first we build them, then we pray.

quotable_quotes_am

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T17:32:47+00:00

* “A mess is not technical debt. A mess is just a mess.” – “Uncle” Bob Martin * “To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable but to be certain is to be ridiculous.” – Chinese proverb * “Remember the law of accumulation: the sum of many little collaboration efforts isn't little

quotable_quotes_list.old

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-07-18T22:15:28+00:00

Quotable Quotes List * “Working costs money, delivering makes money.” - Klaus Leopold from “Rethinking Agile: Why Agile Teams Have Nothing To Do With Business Agility” * “Quality has to be caused, not controlled” — Philip Crosby *

quotable_quotes_list

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-08-29T15:39:34+00:00

Quotable Quotes List * “You can't scale what you don't have” - Lee Cunningham * “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.” - Philip K Dick * “It is very difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it.

rationale_-_or_why_do_i_have_this_set_of_pages

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-04-21T15:21:53+00:00

Rationale, Or "Why do I have this set of pages?" I've been working on Agile transformations since 2007, mostly in large organizations. It is natural in these organizations that you capture documentation, the knowledge, about the new ways of working, the new events, roles, processes and practices, as you transform. Making this information available to all helps everyone both in terms of overall understanding, in terms of overall standardization of the approach taken by the organization, and make…

reading_list

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:40+00:00

Reading List Books to Read On-going continuous learning :-). Once you start on Agile there is no end of learning! See Webinars and Videos for video version of this. "Thinking in Bets" - Annie Duke Current * "Lean Architecture: for Agile Software Development" - James O. Coplien and Gertrud Bjørnvig Hopper * "More Agile Tesing: Learning Journeys for the Whole Team" - Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory * "Badass Making Users Awesome" - Kathy Sierra * "Driving Fear Out of the Workplace: C…

recent_changes

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:48+00:00

Recent Changes

recommended_reading

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-30T18:43:36+00:00

Recommended Reading List of books that I have found useful as I work with people and try to understand how to improve both my effectiveness and those I work with: Title

reference_useful_in_training_situations

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-07-22T15:46:43+00:00

References Useful in Training Note: to download when you cannot get to YouTube online, put “ss” in front of YouTube in the address. Games * Simulating Agile Execution with the Ball Point Game * Simulating WIP Effects with Balls and a Banana Useful Videos A list of videos I've come across over the years that help get concepts across.

research_to_help_understanding

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:28+00:00

Research to Help Understanding Some practices and ideas seem in Agile seem counter-intuitive. There is a lot of information out there on many practices. This page is about collecting some of these ideas together. Ideas * Pair Programming Research and Mobbing * Self-Forming Teams * Prioritization Techniques * Day-to-day With People *

review_the_5_s_to_make_sure_they_are_the_same_relative_size

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T14:59:40+00:00

Review all the 5s to see that the represent the same relative size of work Review all the 5's for example to see that the represent the same relative size of work. Do this for each Story Point size in your Product Backlog. Make sure that different types of work line up so that, for example, a 2 sized defect is about the same relative size as a 2 sized enhancement.

rolling_rocks_downhill_-_the_agile_business_novel_-_clarks_ching

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:50:19+00:00

"Rolling Rocks Downhill: The Agile Business Novel" - Clarks Ching Notes and Review Simple introduction to lean thinking which has been a starting point for many people done in the “business novel” format where the a story is told to illustrate a business concept (ala The Goal). This is the story around the world of software development; its challenges and its solutions. The good news is that you will be very tempted to implement new approaches based on an understanding of this book. While the …

safe_-_past_present_and_future_by_dean_leffingwell

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-03T21:55:27+00:00

"SAFe - Past, Present and Future" by Dean Leffingwell Current state of play and view of materials Presenter Dean Leffingwell Summary * Content rating (0-no new ideas, 5 - a new ideas/approach, 9-new ideas): 6 * Style rating (0-average presentstion, 5 - my level, 9-I learned something about presenting): 4

safe_4.5_updates_by_safe

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:12:07+00:00

SAFe 4.5 Update by SAFe Listen to update pitch of SAFe 4.5 Action * What are we setting up in terms of telemetry for the AtC * See implementing SAFe for training for ART * Read compliance article Reference Started at 5 Reasons to Update Notes Configurability

safe_specific_questions

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-15T17:38:22+00:00

SAFe Specific Questions Most of the discussion in this knowledge base is generic in nature and can be applied to all lean-agile implementations. Over my past few engagements I have been working in SAFe implementations and so some of the information here is more specific to SAFe implementations. This page captures those questions for easy reference.

safe_summit_2016

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T14:57:34+00:00

SAFe Summit 2016 Did not attend but went back to the videos to understand message etc. Notes from these sessions. Sessions * "The State of SAFe" by Chris James * "SAFe - Past, Present and Future" by Dean Leffingwell safesummit2016 conference

safe_training_videos

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-21T16:35:33+00:00

SAFe Training Videos Leading SAFe * Formula 1 Pit Stops - investing in transaction cost - wheels designed (architected) to come off easily, jack lifts entire car, etc. * Greatness by David Marquet * Calculating WSJF * SAFe at Travelport * What is DevOps? SAFe for Teams * Penny Large Batch * Penny Small Batch * Penny Small Batch Overview * Principle 4 Building Incrementally * Designing Your Team’s Kanban System SAFe SM * Scrum Master Stories: Madison Fisher on Vimeo - …

safe_values_and_principles

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:49:17+00:00

SAFe Values and Principles The original is at and and is best read there. Following list is maintained for my convenience. Note that SAFe was developed to aid with agile at scale. The values and principles that you see here are valid no mater what scale of implementation you are doing.

scrum_at_scale_-_the_end_of_one-size-fits-all_approach_to_scaling_by_alex_brown

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:30:09+00:00

"Scrum at Scale - The End of One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Scaling" -- Alex Brown Scrum Alliance® invites you to join us on August 19 for a dynamic live webinar with Scrum expert Alex Brown, as he offers viewers practical approaches to growing and scaling the use of Scrum in their organization.

scrum_at_scale_by_jeff_sutherland

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:37:11+00:00

"Scrum at Scale" by Jeff Sutherland Jeff Sutherland on Scrum at Scale at GOTO Conference in Amsterdam in 2015. While this has the same title as other Webinars, this one was pretty useful in that it described a lot more what management needed to do and how to organize.

scrum_gathering_2015_ignite_talks

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:55+00:00

Title: IgniteTalks Timestamp: 2015-05-05 23:56:15 +0000 Created: 2015-05-05 14:38:27 +0000 Last Accessed: 2015-05-05 14:38:27 +0000 Times Accessed: 0 Tags: Metadata: gpslongitude=-111.868991,gpslatitude=33.541433 # Presenter * Varied - see below Premise

scrum_gathering_2015_pechakucha

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:51+00:00

Scrum Gathering 2015 Pechakucha Premise Summary * Content rating (0-no new ideas, 5 - a new ideas/approach, 9-new ideas): * Style rating (0-average presentstion, 5 - my level, 9-I learned something about presenting): Action / Learning * Presentation

scrum_gathering_2015

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:49+00:00

Scrum Gathering 2015 In Phoenix Presentations Monday * Mike Cohn - Let Go of Knowing * Dhaval Panchal - Estimating is Not Planning * Arthur Richards - Distributed Agile * Alexander Brown - Free Yourself from the Myth of One-size-fits-all Scaling * Alan Dayley - Freedom to Align Tuesday * Scrum Gathering 2015 Pechakucha * Luke Hohmann - How to Conduct Large Distributed Team Retrospectives * Joe Justice - Scrum for Full Scale Manufacturing * Bob Galen - Stuff Bad Scrum Coach…

scrum_guide_-_ken_schwaber_and_jeff_sutherland

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T14:38:34+00:00

Scrum Guide - Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber Reference Scrum Guide Notes The definitive source of information on Scrum. Frequently revised and updated based on feedback. The last update included an expanded view of the Scrum Values. Bottom line if you are saying that you do Scrum, and haven't recently read the Scrum Guide then you are probably 1) misinformed 2) out of date. The guide does not go into a lot of detail on the specific practices to used - it is assumed ideas for these can be …

scrum_master_or_arm-chair_psychologist_by_angela_johnson

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:14:23+00:00

"Scrum Master or Arm-chair Psychologist" By Angela Johnson New ScrumMasters tend to focus on the perceived administration they see in Scrum: facilitating a sprint planning ceremony or a retrospective, for instance. But what tends to get overlooked is the

scrum_values_and_principles

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:22:47+00:00

Scrum Values and Principles The original is at and is best read there. Following list is maintained for my convenience. Values * Commitment * Courage * Focus * Openness * Respect Pillars * Transparency * Inspection * Adaptation

second_generation_lean_product_development_by_don_reinertsen

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:46:38+00:00

"Second Generation Lean Product Development" -- Don Reinertsen AWA Meetup London England September 2015 Notes and Review As usual a very “dense” pitch with a lot of information. If you want to understand impacts of things like queuing theory, lean, and why variability should be preserved for new product development (hint: Black Scholes option pricing model) then this is the video for you.

self_forming_teams

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:33+00:00

Self-Forming Teams Generally organizations take a top-down view of team formation with managers laying out the design of teams. See What Should We Consider When Forming a New Team? for this approach. An alternative approach is really embrace the idea that the people who do the work should make the decisions and to have the people figure it out for themselves. This is a summary of some of these ideas:

should_we_do_wip_limits_even_though_we_are_doing_scrum

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-10T13:29:16+00:00

Should We Do WIP Limits Even Though We Are Doing Scrum? Or “What is the benefit of using WIP limits in Scrum?” I am often asked about using WIP limits in Scrum. It seems like when we do this we will set people up to be idle, that we won't fully utilize the capacity of the Team. Bottom line is that you cannot help feeling that there is something wrong with this WIP idea, when you apply it to Scrum. And I completely understand that as I had the same problem myself.

sidebar.old

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-04-03T18:26:56+00:00

Lean-Agile * Frequently Asked Questions * Subject Specific Article * Typical Transformation Problems * Conferences * Other Seminars and Meetings * Recommended Reading * useful_videos * Webinars and Videos * Quotable Quotes List * Pithy Slogans * Useful References * Research to Help Understanding Coaching and Training * Your First Sprint * References Useful in Training * Ideas on Presenting Ideas * Powerful Pictures * Powerful Stories * Powerful Facilitat…

sidebar

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-23T18:31:18+00:00

Lean-Agile * Portfolio Management FAQ * General (Much Bigger) FAQ * Subject Specific Articles (SSA) * SAFe Specific Questions * Typical Transformation Problems * Quotable Quotes List * Pithy Slogans Coaching and Training * Your First Sprint * Recommended Reading * Webinars and Videos * Ideas on Presenting Ideas * Powerful Pictures * Powerful Stories * Powerful Facilitation * References Useful in Training * Useful Videos * Useful References * Rese…

simulating_agile_execution_with_the_ball_point_game

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T19:01:56+00:00

Simulating Agile Execution with the Ball Point Game I have no idea where the “Ball Point” game came from but I learned about it from Bob Schatz. Since learning about it I have found a great game to help people understand (by doing) what it means to execute in an agile (Scrum) way.

simulating_wip_effects_with_balls_and_a_banana

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:01:45+00:00

Simulating WIP Effects with Balls and a Banana WIP is the silent productivity killer of many organizations. Too much WIP leads to many “bad things”: * Increases overall lead time * Reduces throughput * Increases context switching (and so reduces capacity to apply to work)

so_you_want_to_setup_a_business_as_an_agile_coach

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:31+00:00

So You Want Set Up a Business as an Agile Coach? You’ve been coaching for a few years, and have decided that you want to set up a business as an independent Agile Coach. A small business of one person - you. You start looking around to see what it takes to get a small business started and find that you will probably spend more time trying to understand accounting, legal and government regulations than you would do consulting. There is a lot of advice out there, often conflicting. You want to ge…

some_basic_site_statistics

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-04-04T16:35:22+00:00

Some Basic Site Statistics I discovered recently (2021-08) that there are people who have stumbled across this site and have referenced it. Who knew? Prompted me to see what kind of usage is out there. Total hits since we started recording: 2025-04 Data

split_every_story_until_it_represents_a_small_common_size

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T14:48:54+00:00

Split Every Story Until It Represents a Small Common Size In other words, split everything so that it is a 3 sized piece of work, for example. It is probably not practical to get everything to one size, but you might be able to get things to 2 or 3 buckets of sizes by working more on splitting. If you do this and the story size is pretty small, then there are other benefits to the team. For example, by having smaller chunks of work to deliver value, you will probably improve the production of …

start

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-29T19:40:59+00:00

Welcome to My Personal Lean-Agile Knowledge Base! This is not a blog, but rather a constantly evolving, incrementally growing library of information I've used to help transform organizations to increased effectiveness. It is not a web site of services I offer. If you are interested in service offerings please visit

story_-_the_wright_brothers

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:02:49+00:00

Story - The Wright Brothers The Wright brothers fully recognized the severe consequences of their development endeavor. Failure surely meant death. Initially they did not set out to invent the airplane because they deemed the problems to be too difficult. Instead they resolved to undertake a study to contribute and help advance the knowledge of flight. This mindset of creating reusable knowledge rather than designing an airplane laid the foundation of their development process-a process that co…

strategize_-_product_strategy_and_product_roadmap_practices_for_the_digital_age_-_roman_pichler

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T17:59:00+00:00

"Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age" - Roman Pichler Notes and Review I've been following Roman for some time. In general I've found his approach to be useful and practical when it comes to the real world of the Product Owner / Product Management. This latest book adds to the knowledge base with a view of product roadmaps and portfolio management in general. The ideas, as always are useful. And they are structured in this book in such a way as to lea…

subject_specific_article

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-10T13:24:13+00:00

Subject Specific Articles Premise As I work Frequently Asked Questions I find that sometimes the discussion involves a series of interrelated concepts, and so would benefit from creating a subject specific article. This page collects those articles. how_do_we_setup_an_organizational_impediment_removal_system_ssa Subject Specific Articles

superforecasting_-_the_art_and_science_of_prediction_-_philip_e._tetlock_and_dan_gardner

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:31:43+00:00

"Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction" - Philip E. Tetlock, Dan Gardner Notes and Review I loved this book! To me the main message is that we all understand that prediction is hard but we don't do a lot to improve our ability to predict or to calibrate our predictions. In other words, when we make a prediction we treat is as a static item - we don't update it based on new knowledge and we hardly ever do a reasonable analysis to determine whether we have made a good prediction or…

table_view_of_faq

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:27+00:00

Table View of FAQ

tag_cloud

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T17:44:30+00:00

tags_used

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-09-10T20:10:03+00:00

team_has_right_to_reject_stories_for_estimation_that_are_not_ready

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:44:08+00:00

Team Has Right to Reject Stories for Estimation That are Not READY If you provide garbage User Stories you can expect garbage estimates not to mention garbage implementation. To improve this you let the Team have the option to reject a User Story during the estimation or planning meeting if they do not understand the requirement or if the requirement is poorly formed.

team_of_teams_-_new_rules_of_engagement_for_a_complex_world_-_general_stanley_mcchrystal

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T14:58:40+00:00

"Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World" - General Stanley McChrystal Review and Notes Really good book on the change in management approach that we need to put in place to become a more resilient and agile organization - beyond team agility to organization agility. Or to quote General McChrystal “Teams can bring a measure of adaptability to previously rigid organizations. But these performance improvements have a ceiling as long as adaptable traits are limited to the team …

template_-_anti-pattern_or_smell

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:33+00:00

Template - Anti-Pattern or Smell Title (Short, perhaps funny, descriptive name of the anti-pattern) Consumer (Role of person who should be able to recognize the anti-pattern when it occurs in the organization and/or should be able work the issues around the anti-pattern to improve outcomes.)

template_-_facilitation_technique

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:21+00:00

Facilitation - Template Premise Background and thinking on the approach Context Any context that should be in place Technique A description of the technique Want to Know More? * Additional information template consultant facilitationtechnique tools

the_end_of_enterprise_it

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:53:45+00:00

The End of Enterprise IT I came across this article by Mary Poppendieck recently called "The End of Enterprise IT". Mary is truly a thought leader - I find that she is able to cover topics that I am thinking about with tremendous transparency and focus. Mary tells the story of an agile transformation at ING Bank. ING Bank went to Agile in their IT organization and while they saw benefits, they did not feel like they were getting the transformative results they really needed. In particular, they…

the_five_dysfunctions_of_a_team_-_patrick_lencioni

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:15:33+00:00

"The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" - Patrick Lencioni Notes and Review One of those business “fable” books. Easy read; good lessons. Starts with understanding that high-performance teams are built on trust. It turns out that members of truly cohesive teams behave in common ways:

the_lean_machine-_how_harley-davidson_drove_top-line_growth_and_profitability_with_revolutionary_lean_product_development_-_dantar_p._oosterwal

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:45:19+00:00

“The Lean Machine: How Harley-Davidson Drove Top-Line Growth and Profitability with Revolutionary Lean Product Development” -- Dantar P. Oosterwal Notes and Review Summary Brilliant book, just brilliant, if you are trying to understand how to implement

the_principles_of_clean_architecture_by_uncle_bob_martin

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:59+00:00

"The Principles of Clean Architecture" by Uncle Bob Martin Reference The Principles of Clean Architecture by Uncle Bob Martin. Notes Good general advice on base architecture of an application. Message is that the architecture of an application should “scream” its intent. It should say

the_principles_of_product_development_flow_second_generation_lean_product_development_-_don_reinertsen

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:04:21+00:00

"The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development" - Don Reinertsen Review and Notes Probably the greatest book ever written on how to improve the creation of products. Also probably the most information packed so the recommended approach to this one is to skim read it the first time for basic content, and then re-read sections as you need it. If you want to understand how to manage risk, how to make decisions of what work to schedule first, on why you sho…

the_rollout_a_novel_about_leadership_and_building_a_lean-agile_enterprise_with_safe_by_alex_yakyma

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-03T21:40:55+00:00

"The Rollout: A Novel about Leadership and Building a Lean-Agile Enterprise with SAFe" by Alex Yakyma If you ever wanted to understand why people talk about scaling in a different way that to traditional agile thinking, this is the book for you. This is a business novel format book that brings home the basics of SAFe to people.

the_state_of_safe_by_chris_james

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:15:06+00:00

"The State of SAFe" by Chris James Current state of play and view of materials Presenter Chris James - President Scaled Agile Summary * Content rating (0-no new ideas, 5 - a new ideas/approach, 9-new ideas): 5 * Style rating (0-average presentstion, 5 - my level, 9-I learned something about presenting): 3

thinking_in_bets_-_annie_duke

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:10+00:00

"Thinking in Bets" - Annie Duke Over time, those world-class poker players taught me to understand what a bet really is: a decision about an uncertain future. The implications of treating decisions as bets made it possible for me to find learning opportunities in uncertain environments. Treating decisions as bets, I discovered, helped me avoid common decision traps, learn from results in a more rational way, and keep emotions out of the process as much as possible.

this_is_lean_-_resolving_the_efficiency_paradox_-_niklas_modig

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-03T18:09:13+00:00

"This is Lean: Resolving the Efficiency Paradox" - Niklas Modig Review and Notes I thought this was a great book, a fabulous introduction to help you understand what lean is all about and, just as importantly, what it is not. It helps in understanding of Little's Law, Theory of Constraints, and why Flow Efficiency (and therefore

tim_ottinger_-_agile_productivity

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:06+00:00

Tim Ottinger - Agile Productivity Premise More, faster: everybody wants that. Low productivity makes products late and expensive, frustrating both teams and customers. But what is productivity? Why is it so hard to measure? Organizations want higher productivity, but use industrial-age models better-suited to assembling widgets than developing software. We’ll explore a model that works for software teams. Learn several ways to boost - or drag down - productivity in your projects. You’ll walk o…

tldr_summary_-_establish_agile_establish_the_role_of_product_owner_and_scrum_master

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-03-08T00:47:06+00:00

TL;DR Summary - Establish Agile Establish the Role of Product Owner and Scrum Master And for those that don't want to read the whole article ... The simplest (and most proven) way to address the of coaching to high performance, and ensuring the right stuff is being worked on is through the assignment of a Scrum Master and a Product Owner. When backed by proper training and support these roles will allow you to establish high performing teams which are focused on doing the most important work n…

todd_little_and_andrew_tuttle_-_performance_reviews_that_don_t_suck

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:25+00:00

Todd Little and Andrew Tuttle - Performance Reviews That Don’t Suck Premise Many in the agile community suggest abandoning performance reviews, but few offer suggestions for alternatives. A large percentage of software developers work in an enterprise environment where performance reviews are mandated. What if you could do performance reviews that will honor agile values and not only suck less, but actually provide value to the individual and the organization? We have rolled out such a system …

track_accuracy_of_commit_metric

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:35:08+00:00

Track "Accuracy of Commit" Metric And review in the retrospective. The goal of the metric is to determine if actual velocity got within 20% of committed velocity, Sprint over Sprint. Teams that track and talk about this metric find that they can improve their stabilize the commitments. When a team does this the Product Owner can trust information such as the Story Points and the Velocity and that means they can use the data for improved planning. In other words we would to establish a

track_accuracy_of_estimate_metric

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-08-14T18:45:56+00:00

Track Accuracy of Estimate Metric Estimates are not perfect and cannot be made perfect. Depending on who you believe, more time spent on a estimate will either not improve the estimate, or reduce the accuracy of the estimate. The point of estimating is to provide data to the Product Owner, but everyone should understand that the data is just that, an estimate.

track_adopted_work_metric

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:05:09+00:00

Track "Adopted Work" Metric Adopted work is a User Story that was not known at the beginning of the sprint that came in from an external source as something that needed to be done now. Most Teams have established a buffer to manage these kinds of issues. However since this is an interruption and potentially disruptive to the Team it increases the risk on delivery of the Sprint Commitment.

track_found_work_metric

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:21:39+00:00

Track "Found Work" Metric Found work is work associated with a User Story the Team committed to but, as they have done the work, they have discovered that the work was harder than they originally thought it was. If it happens a lot the Team should work to understand what is missing from the information they are building their plan with and determine how this can be mitigated.

troy_magennis_-_data_driven_coaching_safely_turning_team_data_into_coaching_insights

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T17:59:50+00:00

Troy Magennis - Data Driven Coaching Team data and dashboards can be misused and cause more pain than results. Having the team run blind to its historical data though is often worse, with solely opinions and gut-feel driving process change. Helping your teams see and understand a holistic balance of their data will give your coaching advice context and encourage team constant improvement through experiments and reflection. Coaching dashboards are about balancing trade-offs. Trading something yo…

troy_magennis_-_forecasting_using_data_-_quickly_answering_how_big_how_long_and_how_likely

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:54:09+00:00

Troy Magennis - Forecasting Using Data - Quickly answering how big, how long and how likely This workshops teaches you how to capture data and use it for reliable project forecasting. Much has been written about what is possible to estimate and what is waste. This workshop shows a practical and simple (we are doing it with pen and paper) approach to forecasting without item effort estimation that can be used by anybody needing to answer the questions: How big? How long? and How likely? Three es…

troy_magennis_-_risk_the_final_enterprise_frontier

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:40+00:00

Troy Magennis - Risk The Final Enterprise Frontier Premise When exploring new ideas we often encounter new risks. This session looks at how Agile risk management needs to be lightweight, but responsive to known risks as well as previously unknown sources of risk. Building new things means encountering new things that go wrong. This session gives techniques that help identify risks early through faciltated estimation, survey crowdsourcing and historical data analysis. We then discuss how to pri…

troy_magennis_-_solving_the_hairy_problem_of_team_dependencies

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:39+00:00

Troy Magennis - Solving the Hairy Problem of Team Dependencies Premise When portfolio and program managers undertake quarterly (or annual) feature and portfolio planning, understanding team dependencies is made necessary to identify constraints and avoid overburdening one team. Complexity quickly grows beyond intuition after two or three team dependencies are identified, rendering current forecasting techniques unsatisfactory. This session will discuss the inadequacies of current tools and fra…

turn_the_ship_around_-_a_true_story_of_turning_followers_into_leaders_-_david_marquet

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-03T21:43:28+00:00

"Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders" - David Marquet Notes Highly recommended especially if you want to understand some practical things that you can do to establish an environment where everyone is a leader. Very useful and practical book aimed at helping managers understand and implement a more

under_what_conditions_is_full-time_equivalent_fte_resource_planning_effective

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:43:52+00:00

Under what conditions is Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) resource planning effective? Traditionally when we plan work for Portfolios of Projects we will pull together a detailed resource plan of our people with the idea being that we can predict how people will work to deliver Projects. We use this information to:

use_ranges_to_understand_risk

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:32:41+00:00

Use Ranges to Understand Risk The idea is to use Planning poker showing range by using “likely” and “worst case” estimates. As Steve McConnell says “A single-point estimate is usually a target masquerading as an estimate.” Further he says “There is a limit to how well a project can go but no limit to how many problems can occur.

useful_kanban_references

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-08-23T20:18:05+00:00

Useful Kanban References Description Link Level Agile Alliance Kanban Overview Introductory One day in Kanbanland – short visual introduction of a team using Kanban in their daily work Introductory David Anderson - The Principles and Practices of the Kanban Method

useful_markup_syntax_in_the_wiki

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-04-21T18:58:45+00:00

Useful Markup Syntax in the Wiki Just a store of some useful syntax that I seem to use a lot, but not enough to remember immediately. General Dokuwiki syntax is at Wiki Syntax Others: * For {{page>}} include, to make a clean include, use:&noindent¬ags&noeditbutton&nouser&nomdate&nodate

useful_references

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-09-14T19:32:48+00:00

Useful References Idea here is to maintain a list of references I find useful in helping my understanding of all things Agile. Canonical References on Scaling Description

useful_tools

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-02-13T20:53:20+00:00

Agile and Facilitation Tools * Trello: Kanban board for all kinds of purposes * Slack: Discussion tool for Teams * Zoom: Video conference tool * Mural: Remote whiteboard tool. Operates like a super whiteboard. Very useful in for remote training and other facilitation.

useful_videos

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-09-10T16:26:07+00:00

Useful Videos A list of videos I've come across over the years that help get concepts across. Tags Video Link Comments Lean, Product Don Reinertsen - Second Generation Lean Product Development Flow Talks about some of the content of his book. As usual a very “dense” pitch with a lot of information. If you want to understand impacts of things like queuing theory, lean, and why variability should be preserved for new product development (hint: Black Scholes option pricing model) then this i…

value_stream_mapping

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:08+00:00

Value Stream Mapping Related Tags research practices valuestreammapping

we_need_more_people._or_do_we

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-06-23T18:43:48+00:00

We Need More People ... Or Do We? One of the main things I hear when I am asked to assist an organization improving their portfolio operations is that everyone thinks the solution to their “problem” is to get more people. The feeling is that there is simply too much work that needs to be done. Organizations in this situation will decide that “something needs to be done” and so start looking to quantify how many more people would be needed to get all the currently approved work done. Organizatio…

webinars_and_videos

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:38+00:00

Webinars and Videos Premise On-going continuous learning :-). Once you start on Agile there is no end of learning! See Reading List for books. Webinar List video learning webinars improvement

what_alternative_estimation_approaches_are_there

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:53:48+00:00

What Alternative Estimation Approaches Are There? The traditional approach to estimation is based on team relative size estimates is backed by research. The approach has proven to improve outcomes associated with estimation, but that does not mean this is the only estimation approach we can use.

what_alternatives_to_the_creation_of_product_owner_and_scrum_master_roles_could_we_try

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-03-08T00:49:09+00:00

What Alternatives to the Creation of Product Owner and Scrum Master Roles Could We Try? The role of Product Owner and Scrum Master were established to deal with specific issues. This means that if you decide not to use these roles, or if you decide that those assigned to these roles are working part time, then you still potentially have these problems and will need to work to overcome them.

what_anti-patterns_do_you_see_with_the_system_demo

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-11-22T16:49:39+00:00

What Anti-patterns Do You See with the System Demo? * Not having a System Demo * A System Demo that is just the Team Review as a combined meeting * No feedback from participants in the System Demo * The content of the System Demo “surprises

what_are_some_good_quick_fire_round_questions_we_can_ask_to_assess_agile_knowledge

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:35+00:00

What Are Some Good "Quick Fire" Round Questions We Can Ask to Assess Agile Knowledge? Premise There are many situations where you want to understand what level of knowledge a person has about agile, but also don't want to spend a lot of time working through a detailed set of questions. We have found that a

what_are_the_benefits_of_a_collaborative_approach_to_architecture

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:31+00:00

What Are the Benefits of a Collaborative Approach to Architecture? From the above, and to paraphrase Scott Ambler, the benefits of a collaborative approach to architecture can be summed up using these three words: * Better. An agile architecture enables agile teams to produce better quality solutions for their stakeholders by providing a more reliable ecosystem with which to work.

what_are_the_benefits_of_an_impediment_removal_system

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-10T13:35:00+00:00

What Are the Benefits of an Impediment Removal System? There are a number of benefits to having an impediment removal system. The first, and most obvious, benefit is that you should see the faster delivery of value to customers as a result of removing impediments. This is the direct result of the focus on improving process efficiency, resulting in reduced lead time for the customer and faster cycle time. These benefits typically compound; improve by 5% today, another 5% tomorrow and the effec…

what_are_the_benefits_of_establishing_the_role_of_development_manager

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:22+00:00

What are the Benefits of Establishing the Role of Development Manager? The following benefits are typically seen using this approach: * It means that POs SMs etc are not supervisors and so we reduce chance of a number of anti-patterns (eg P.O. bossing team) and ensure there is enough capacity for these roles to actually do the job.

what_are_the_changes_in_culture_that_need_to_happen_with_agile

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-08-14T18:45:56+00:00

What Are The Changes in Culture That Need To Happen with Agile? Work in progress The “inability to change the organization culture” is listed by most people as the biggest obstacle to implementing a Agile approach. Some wit once said “if you think agile is simple, just try it

what_are_the_changes_in_management_approach_that_need_to_happen_with_agile

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:47:31+00:00

What Are The Changes in Management Approach That Need To Happen with Agile? Note: this discussion is closely related to What Are The Changes in Culture That Need To Happen with Agile? One problem that is often encountered when going to an agile approach is that management believes the transformation is “about development

what_are_the_characteristics_of_a_good_estimate

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-11-02T18:50:49+00:00

What Are the Characteristics of a Good Estimate? Estimates need to reflect reality. Some basic characteristics of what we need from estimates include: * The estimates consistently reflect the capacity of the Team to deliver. * The estimates consistently reflect the size of the work no matter what kind of work it is. For example, it should not matter that we are estimating a new feature or defects.

what_are_the_characteristics_of_a_great_coach

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-05-02T16:15:55+00:00

What Are The Characteristics of a Great Agile Coach? There are three basic ideas that should be considered when thinking about the characteristics that makes a great Agile Coach: * They are the embodiment of Agile Values and Principles. The Agile Coach has to be seen to living the

what_are_the_characteristics_of_a_great_development_manager

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T19:09:23+00:00

What are the Characteristics of a Great Development Manager? Clearly selecting the right people to be a Development Manager is critical. What kinds of people should we look for? Great Development Managers exhibit the following characteristics. They are:

what_are_the_characteristics_of_a_great_manager

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T19:10:05+00:00

What Are The Characteristics of a Great Manager? The 10 Oxygen behaviors of Google's best managers (behaviors 3 and 6 have been updated and behaviors 9 and 10 are new): * Is a good coach * Empowers team and does not micromanage * Creates an inclusive team environment, showing concern for success and well-being

what_are_the_characteristics_of_a_great_product_owner

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-17T15:54:34+00:00

What Are The Characteristics of a Great Product Owner? The basic answer is that the person is Business oriented person that can provide leadership for the team(s). Characteristics include: * Communication and Negotiation: The Product Owner is charged with stakeholder management and communication. The Product Owner must straddle two worlds: The Team world and the customer world. He / she must prioritize the customer’s interests and represent them within the Team. Similarly, he has to represen…

what_are_the_characteristics_of_a_great_scrum_master

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-05-24T19:20:23+00:00

What Are The Characteristics of a Great Scrum Master? " “Ah well! I am their leader, I really ought to follow them!” - Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin" The basic answer is that the person is a person who likes working with people and that can provide leadership for the team(s). Characteristics include:

what_are_the_differences_between_scrum_and_kanban

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T19:35:54+00:00

What Are the Differences Between Scrum and Kanban? For folks that are into the details of these two methods. They clearly come at the problem of managing knowledge work from different perspectives. The following table provides a clear breakdown of these differences:

what_are_the_guidelines_for_kanban_teams_operating_in_a_safe_environment

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T20:02:06+00:00

What Are the Guidelines for Kanban Teams Operating in a SAFe Environment? A Kanban team within an ART needs to adapt to some of the requirements prescribed by SAFe to ensure alignment to the ART while still maintaining the benefits of the Kanban flow. The following guidelines address some of those conditions to maintain alignment and allow Kanban teams to contribute effectively within an ART.

what_are_the_potential_problems_implementing_okrs_in_an_organization

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-17T17:52:57+00:00

What are the Potential Problems of Implementing OKRs in an Organization? Or “What are the problems with implementing metrics in an organization?” OKRs are another form of the use of metrics in an organization with the aim of improving results delivered to the business. Metrics fall under the general category of “bureaucracy” that an organization uses in order to ensure the expected outcomes of an organization are routinely achieved.

what_are_the_problems_with_estimation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-11-02T18:47:06+00:00

What Are The Problems with Estimation? For many organizations, we need to be able to forecast. But, as Ron Jeffries says: " “Yes, estimation is fraught. It is inaccurate, and politically dangerous. But we do have some knowledge and the project deserves to have it.”

what_are_the_pros_and_cons_of_assigning_business_value_to_pi_objectives

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-25T15:54:07+00:00

What are the Pros and Cons of Assigning Business Value to PI Objectives? Or “To BV or not to BV?” Every now an again you start a discussion with fellow agile coaches and find that there are widely different opinions about what makes sense. This happened to me recently.

what_are_the_responsibilities_of_a_product_owner

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-16T21:23:35+00:00

What Are the Responsibilities of a Product Owner? The main responsibilities of a Product Owner are: * Responsible for maximizing the value delivered by the Team * Content Authority for the Team * Owns Team Backlog * Prioritizes the Team Backlog

what_are_the_responsibilities_of_a_scrum_master

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-08-21T16:39:33+00:00

What Are the Responsibilities of a Scrum Master? The main responsibilities of a Scrum Master are: * Process improvements * Ensures that the Team is fully functional and productive * Improve the lives of the Team by facilitating creativity and empowerment

what_are_the_roles_in_an_agile_or_scrum_team

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T15:05:33+00:00

What Are The Roles in an Agile (Scrum) Team? While some approaches to Agile are pretty specific about the roles, others are not so. Scrum is specific and, since it also very widely adopted, the Scrum roles have pretty much become the de-facto way of setting up a Team. In a Scrum Team, the roles are:

what_are_the_similarities_between_scrum_and_kanban

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T19:31:45+00:00

What Are the Similarities Between Kanban and Scrum? * Both are Lean and Agile * Both use pull scheduling * Both limit Work-in-progress (WIP) * Both use transparency to drive process improvement * Both focus on delivering releasable solutions early and often

what_are_the_steps_in_a_value_steam_mapping_workshop

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-08T15:49:41+00:00

What are the Steps in a Value Steam Mapping Workshop? Value Stream Mapping usually involves people that are part of a particular Solution or Product that is being delivered. In general each Solution or Product goes through stages such as define, build, validate, and release, and so the Value Stream mapping will involve people representing those areas for a Solution or Product: product owners, UX, development, architects, release management, QA, operations, and so on.

what_are_the_steps_in_a_value_stream_identification_workshop

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-04-04T14:30:59+00:00

What are the Steps in a Value Stream Identification Workshop? The purpose the Value Stream Identification workshop is to identify the operational (customers view of how we deliver value) and development value streams (the systems and people supporting the operational value stream) of our organization so we can identify the ARTs we need to set up to optimize the delivery of value. The Value Stream Identification usually involves senior people in an organization such as the VP of development, the…

what_are_the_steps_involved_in_an_initial_agile_assessment

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T19:02:48+00:00

What Are The Steps Involved in an Initial Agile Assessment? Before you start going down an agile implementation path it is worth the effort to capture and document why you are doing this change, what problems you expect to see, and how you will know you are successful. These need to expressed in terms of business drivers, not in terms of agile, so everyone is aligned on the objective.

what_are_the_steps_to_establish_a_development_manager

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:14+00:00

What are the Steps to Establish a Development Manager? If you don’t have the role of a Development Manager in your organization already, or there is not common understanding of the role, you need to do more than identify the Development Manager and announce the new reporting structure.

what_are_the_steps_we_can_take_to_restructure_a_train

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-04-04T17:58:55+00:00

What are the steps we can take to restructure a Train? Note: This page is written from the perspective of structuring or restructuring an ART (Train, Program-level) organization. The ideas discussed here can be applied total re-organizations etc. but there will be additional considerations as the discussion scales.

what_can_we_do_to_improve_our_point_based_estimates

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T14:59:15+00:00

What Can We Do To Improve Our Point Based Estimates? Or “How do we improve our point based estimates and resultant velocity?” Backgound For many organizations, we focus on making Story Points a true measure of the relative size of the work, and velocity as the true capacity of the team to complete requirements to done.

what_can_we_do_to_improve_our_retrospectives

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-02-21T15:25:39+00:00

What Can We Do To Improve Our Retrospectives? When you get started, Retrospectives seem like a great idea. Many organizations use the basic “what went well, what didn’t go well, what ideas do we have” but, let’s face it, this is not a great format for a retrospective and so it is not surprising that it doesn’t produce results. As time goes on questions arise as to why we should bother with Retrospectives at all. After all, nothing really changes

what_content_should_be_considered_to_start_a_team_page

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:09:40+00:00

What Content Should Be Considered To Start a Team Page? In the interests of maximizing transparency, scrum teams display information about who they are and their work so that anyone with an interest can find out about the work of the team. This page is in response to the question

what_do_they_mean_when_they_says_simplicity

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T17:53:57+00:00

XP (eXtreme Programming) extolls the virtues of “simple design” but I always felt that the concept, while something that we should strive for, was not exactly clearly defined. The agile principles call for “simplicity, the art of maximizing the amount of work that is not done

what_do_we_do_if_we_don_t_have_budget_for_product_owners_and_scrum_masters

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-03-08T00:53:10+00:00

What Do We Do If We Don’t Have Budget for Product Owners and Scrum Masters? - SSA Or “Doesn’t having a full-time SM or PO result in a significant reduction in capacity?” Or “What happens if we are unable to assign a PO or SM to each team?” Or “What do we do if no one wants to be the Scrum Master or Product Owner?”

what_do_we_do_with_stories_that_are_not_done_at_the_end_of_an_iteration

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-06-22T19:45:54+00:00

What do we do with Stories that are not "Done" at the end of an Iteration? Or “Do we split Stories that are not Done at the end of an Iteration? We refer to the Agile principle “Working software is the primary measure of progress” to decide what makes sense. In this context, this means that at the end of an Iteration a story can only be in one of two states: it is either

what_do_we_mean_by_smart_goals_or_objectives

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-17T20:57:54+00:00

What Do We Mean By SMART Goals or Objectives? As we define Goals or Objectives we need to make sure they are concrete, and that you can easily answer whether you hit the goal or not. SMART is a simple mnemonic to help you ensure that your Goals or Objectives have the characteristics that make them concrete:

what_do_we_need_to_have_in_place_prior_to_initial_scrum_team_training

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T17:40:13+00:00

What Do We Need to Have in Place Prior to "Starting a Scrum / Agile Team" Training? One approach you can take when going through initial Scrum / agile team training is to set yourself up for real work so that the very next day after you have gone through the training, you are operating in a Scrum / agile mode, actually doing it. There are huge benefits in doing it this way in that the training becomes a whole lot less theoretical, and a bunch more practical, so it is an approach I like to use w…

what_do_we_need_to_think_about_when_we_go_from_a_pi_planning_approach_to_a_more_continuous_planning_approach

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-10-27T20:50:28+00:00

What Do We Need to Think About When We Go From a PI Planning Approach to a More Continuous Planning Approach? Or “How do we go to release planning?” I’ve been in a number of organizations where a set of Teams, after setting up to make things work through SAFe PI Planning events with all the trappings, they decide that this is not the best approach from them. Reasons include:

what_do_we_not_want_to_see_in_a_product_owner

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-16T21:55:08+00:00

What Do We Not Want to See in a Product Owner? A Product Owner is not operating successful we when they: * Are a glorified order taker: The Product Owner works against a concept of where the Product is going to. They do not just accept requirements because someone important asked for it.

what_do_we_not_want_to_see_when_applying_definition_of_ready

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:45:52+00:00

What Do We Not Want To See When Applying Definition of Ready? The Definition of Ready is not being used well when: * The Product Owner is expected to come up independently with Definition of Ready stories. * The Team is required to accept Stories for work that do not meet Definition of Ready.

what_do_you_mean_when_you_say

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-11-19T16:55:34+00:00

What Do You Mean When You Say ...? Or “Do you have a cheat sheet for all this new terminology? Often as we start out moving to Agile and to SAFe, there is confusion caused by the fact that there is a lot of new terminology. The fact that there is new terminology is not a surprise - all sub-cultures have their own terminology - but it can make things difficult when you are trying to work with a group that is changing.

what_does_a_development_manager_do_all_day

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:59+00:00

What does a Development Manager Do All Day? When this role is first discussed, many will ask “what does a Development Manager do all day”. The thinking here is that the traditional role of management has been to assign work to people and hold them accountable for that work. If they are not doing this, what does the Development Manager do? The reality is that if you think about what a manager should be doing (career development, solving problems, working with people toward results, etc) then the…

what_does_a_scrum_master_do_all_day

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T15:05:32+00:00

What Does a Scrum Master Do All Day? Or the related question “why do we need a Scrum Master?” To me this question results from the approach to people that feels that “if you are not busy coding then you are not adding value”. To many being a Scrum Master is seen as a pretty simple role - they setup and facilitate some meetings, and do other busy work like that (eg update the tool where the team status and burn-down information is).

what_does_it_mean_to_be_done

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-04-28T19:45:40+00:00

What Does It Mean To Be Done? Or what is the “Definition of Done”? One of the key ideas in Scrum and Agile is to focus delivering valuable work (or more basically, running, tested features.) There are two key tools in understanding when something is complete:

what_events_should_we_put_in_place_for_iterations_or_sprints

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T15:03:22+00:00

What Events Should We Put in Place For Iterations (Sprints)? One the key tools that we use when we work an Lean Agile (Scrum) implementation is the notion of a “cadence”. See What is the Benefit of Having a Cadence of Meetings Etc? for more on why this is important. The following notes gives you some ideas of what your calendar looks like for a Team would look doing a

what_guidance_do_you_have_for_good_conference_calls

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:08:44+00:00

What Guidance Do You Have For Good Conference Calls? Apart from the basics of running a good meeting, there are additional considerations when you are working with remote people on a conference call. The most important thing to remember is the basic rule -

what_happens_when_we_do_the_role_of_product_owner_and_scrum_master_well

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-03-08T00:50:13+00:00

What Happens When We Do These Roles Well? There are two effects on our ability to deliver value when we have these roles in place, and the people doing these roles operate as intended: * With a great Scrum Master, the team is able to deliver more: The team operates at a higher capacity than what each of the individuals on the team represents. For example, it is not uncommon to see improvements of 2X, 3X, even 5X over what the individual capacity of team members would indicate. If we have tea…

what_happens_when_we_have_partial_assignments_for_product_owners_and_scrum_masters

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-03-08T00:49:35+00:00

What Happens When We Have Partial Assignments for Product Owners and Scrum Masters? It might seem obvious, and it is, that if we don’t set up the role of Product Owner and Scrum Master for success then you can expect the problems the roles was intended to address will remain:

what_ideas_do_you_have_that_will_help_us_keep_retrospectives_fresh

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-07-07T19:34:08+00:00

What Ideas Do You Have That Will Help Us Keep Retrospectives Fresh? For most people, as they continue to work in an agile fashion, it becomes increasingly clear just how important running retrospectives at various levels is. We all start to feel for Gene Kim when he says “Improving daily work is more important than doing daily work.

what_inbuilt_biases_do_we_have_that_impede_good_decision_making

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-01-06T20:54:20+00:00

What Inbuilt Biases Do We Have That Impede Good Decision Making? Most of us are aware, or have at least heard of the idea that sometimes our brains operate in such a way that we make poor decisions which in turn means that we are a poorer manager / knowledge worker. Our work shouldn't be so hard: it is all about figuring out what the customer wants, and then figuring out how to get it to them in the fastest possible time, preferably without killing ourselves in the process. Or if you are a

what_insights_do_we_get_from_tracking_investment_horizon

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:50:51+00:00

What insights do we get from tracking Investment Horizon? How do ensure that we are not just providing solutions for today, but are also positioning ourselves for the future with new expansion opportunities? We guide investments by horizon data on Initiatives. Typically a balance is required so we are continuously developing solutions for now but also have a pipeline for the future expansion. Portfolio Management set targets for how much of our capacity is applied to each level, and then review…

what_is_a_definition_of_ready_dor_ssa

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:46:17+00:00

What is a Definition of Ready (DoR)? - SSA The Definition of Ready (DoR) is part of a working agreement that specifies the conditions that need to be met for a Story before it can be accepted into an Iteration or Sprint. The DoR is typically based on the INVEST criteria for a Story.

what_is_a_frequently_asked_question_faq_site

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-07-28T15:15:23+00:00

What is a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) Site? A frequently asked questions (FAQ) list is often used in articles, websites, email lists , and online forums where common questions tend to recur, for example through posts or queries by new users related to common knowledge gaps. The purpose of a

what_is_a_user_story_ssa

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T15:04:07+00:00

What is a User Story? - SSA Work in progress And “why do we use them?” And “what makes a 'good' user story?” And “how do we create a user story?” And “who creates a user story?” Premise User stories are a foundational aspect of an agile implementation.

what_is_a_wiki

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-07-28T15:13:16+00:00

What is a Wiki? A wiki is a web based publication or content system that is collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience directly. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project. Probably the best known example of a Wiki is Wikipedia. Wikis are enabled by wiki software such as Wikimedia (in the case of Wikipedia) or, closer to home, Confluence for many corporate situations. This wiki uses

what_is_pair_programming

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-04-01T21:02:14+00:00

What is Pair Programming? " Or “what are the benefits of pair programming?” Or “how should I get started with pair programming?”" I've recently has a number of discussions about the benefits of pair programming. Some of the thinking was that the main use of pair programming was as a learning tool, to help break down our specializations. This is the result of the emphasis we made in answering the question of breaking down specialization on a team (see

what_is_session_based_testing

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:23:49+00:00

What is Session Based Testing? Testing people have mentioned the concept of “session based testing” as a radical new approach to testing called “session based testing”. The main purpose of this page is to collect a set of links aimed at helping me understand what this is.

what_is_the_basis_of_our_estimating_process

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-11-02T18:49:31+00:00

What is the Basis of Our Estimating Process? The basis of the estimating process is “Team based relative size estimates” or “Story Point estimation” to estimate User Stories (the need). This means: * We do relative size estimates (how big something is in relation to something else), not duration estimates (how long something takes).

what_is_the_benefit_of_having_a_cadence_of_meetings_etc

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:06+00:00

Why Do We Establish a Cadence of Events? Or “What is the Benefit of Having a Cadence of Meetings?” Or “Should We Establish a Common Cadence for Planning for Our Organization?” Background As we transform organizations to execute in an agile way people often resist the notion of regularly scheduled events such as Iterations / Sprints, Program Increment (in a SAFe implementation), quarterly Portfolio Planning, and so on.

what_is_the_best_approach_to_making_decisions_in_our_context

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:51:26+00:00

What is the Best Approach to Making Decisions in Our Context? Or “Why Doesn't Traditional Project Management Work For Software Projects?” When faced with making Portfolio and Program decisions there is a human bias at work which actually drives us to use inappropriate tools for decision making. That bias is (sometimes) called an “Information Bias”. The Information Bias is a type of cognitive bias that refers to the idea that amassing more information will aid in better decision-making (and, at…

what_is_the_difference_between_emergent_and_intentional_architecture

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-07-21T15:52:55+00:00

What is the Difference Between Emergent and Intentional Design? Early implementations of agile often seem to hide the need for good design. Most of the time the assumption was that “if you have good people, with a good understanding of design principles then good design will follow.” The Agile Manifesto argued that

what_is_the_difference_between_value_stream_identification_and_value_stream_mapping

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-08T14:58:16+00:00

What Is The Difference Between Value Stream Identification (VSID) and Value Stream Mapping (VSM)? Or “Why do we need to do value stream mapping of the delivery pipeline when we have already done value stream mapping to understand our operational and development value streams?”

what_is_the_effect_of_batch_size_on_how_long_something_takes_to_get_done

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:00:28+00:00

What Is The Effect of Batch Size On How Long It Takes to Get Something Done? I've been working in the software and IT industry for a lot of years. One thing we'd do is that we would work a yearly plan for budgeting purposes. September would be the start of the process. There would be big meetings to get everything figured out, and final approval would happen a couple of months in the new year. We would them be held accountable for meeting these plans. Of course these plans would need to change …

what_is_the_effect_of_changing_team_members_on_velocity

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-04-11T19:26:20+00:00

What Is The Effect of Changing Team Members on Velocity? When an organization transforms to a Scrum / Agile one of the key things we change is the way we determine who does work. Previously we would have mangers decide which people would do what work. If projects were large we’d build extensive systems to track the allocation of “full time equivalents (FTE)” to projects. In other words we brought people (or in fact parts of people) to work. With Scrum the unit of execution is not an FTE but a t…

what_is_the_elevator_pitch_for_agile_and_scrum

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:56:26+00:00

What is the Elevator Pitch for Agile and Scrum? Geoffrey Moore in "Crossing the Chasm" talks about an “elevator pitch” for what you are selling. The idea is that you get in the elevator with the CEO of the company and you have the length of that trip in the elevator to explain to him / her what you are doing and why it is important. A classic elevator pitch has the following components:

what_is_the_impact_of_a_reorg_on_an_agile_transformation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:52:24+00:00

What is the Impact of a Reorg on an Agile Transformation? Over my past few engagements I’ve noticed that the days of greenfield agile transformations are gone. I am increasingly seeing organizations where this is not the first or even second move to agile. But, for whatever reason, the results have not been what the organization expected and so the next round of “Agile transformation” is created.

what_is_the_impact_of_context_switching_on_the_ability_to_deliver

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-04-03T18:26:56+00:00

What is the Impact of Context Switching on the Ability to Deliver? Many people think that they can multi-task, or rather that they can be just as effective switching between multiple tasks on a regular basis rather than concentrate on one task at a time. While I am certain that there are people that can do this effectively, for knowledge work in particular most people are not good at context switching. The effect of context switching is pretty high. Consider the diagram:

what_is_the_mapping_between_features_and_pi_objectives

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-08-17T19:50:51+00:00

What is the Mapping Between Features and PI Objectives? It often seems that when we go through a PI Planning event, that there is confusion as a result of developing PI Objectives and, in particular, how resultant PI Objectives relate to incoming Features. There are a number of standard patterns that you will see:

what_is_the_purpose_of_a_daily_standup_or_daily_scrum_event

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-17T17:38:55+00:00

What is the Purpose of a Daily Standup (Daily Scrum) Event? Many times, people will complain that their Daily Standup (Daily Scrum) meeting has turned into a status meeting for the Scrum Master, Product Owner or management. They are aware this is a problem since they remember from training that the primary purpose of the Daily Standup (Daily Scrum) is to

what_is_the_purpose_of_a_system_demo

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-11-21T18:27:04+00:00

What is the Purpose of a System Demo in SAFe? The main purpose of the System Demo in SAFe is to: * Provide a train-level, objective view of the progress of work during a Program Increment by showcasing real, working systems (this supports SAFe principle “Base milestones on objective valuation of working systems”)

what_is_the_purpose_of_estimation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:52:32+00:00

What is the Purpose of Estimation? We need to remind ourselves why it is we estimate. Let's face it, estimation is mostly about planning and forecasting. There is a huge amount of baggage in most organizations associated with the process of estimation. There are also legitimate questions the business has:

what_is_the_purpose_of_iteration_or_sprint_goals

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-18T18:27:25+00:00

What is the Purpose of Iteration (Sprint) Goals? Or “Why don't we just say the Iteration (Sprint) Goals the list of stories that we commit to?” Or “What is the difference between establishing the Iteration (Sprint) Goals and committing to a list of Stories?

what_is_the_role_of_the_development_manager

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:45+00:00

What is the Reporting Structure for the Development Manager? For many organizations, the need for a Development Manager starts as they identify Agile Release Trains (team of teams) as part of a transformation to agile. Trains are structures with up to 125 people, so we need to make sure that we have defined reporting structure in place. The Train will affect people that are in supervisor roles and so we must be careful because a poor implementation will create a number of impediments to a succe…

what_is_the_role_of_the_product_owner_ssa

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-03-08T00:54:09+00:00

What is the Role of a Product Owner? - SSA The Product Owner (PO) is a member of the Agile Team. He / she is the representative of all stakeholders. His / her focus is the business side of the product. He / she carries the product vision to the team. He / she formalizes a specific, measurable and reasonable Team (Product) Backlog and prioritizes it by business value.

what_is_the_role_of_the_scrum_master_ssa

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-03-08T00:54:50+00:00

What is the Role of the Scrum Master? - SSA The Scrum Master (SM) is a member of the Agile Team. The Scrum Master is the coach and facilitator of the team. He / she works to improves the productivity of the Team. He / she always has a training plan for the Team. The Scrum Master controls the continuous improvement cycles of Lean-Agile. The Scrum Master protects the Team and works with the Product Owner to maximize the return on investment. He / she ensures that the Lean-Agile ideals are underst…

what_is_the_role_of_the_stakeholder

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:55:34+00:00

What is the Role of a Stakeholders? The role of Stakeholders is to provide feedback on the product being developed. Stakeholders are people who have an interest in the product but are not actually producing it. Some potential examples of stakeholders include:

what_is_the_role_of_the_team

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:58:42+00:00

What is the Role of a (Development) Team? The Team does everything to win the game within the project boundaries – to deliver the project. The Team is cross-functional, which means the full know-how to realize the product is located in the Team. The Team needs to understand the project and sprint vision, goals, etc. of the Product Owner in order to deliver potentially shippable product increments.

what_is_the_structure_of_a_leadership_program_in_an_agile_transformation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-08-26T17:53:15+00:00

What is the Structure of a Leadership Program in an Agile Transformation? The success or failure of a Lean-Agile transformations is directly related to the level of active engagement from Leadership. To be blunt, the 2020 “14th Annual State of Agile Survey” reports that 46% of organizations struggle with “not enough leadership participation.”

what_is_the_typical_agenda_for_a_system_demo

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T13:11:03+00:00

What is the typical agenda for a System Demo? In general, you want to time-box a System Demo to be about an hour long. Again, the purpose is to establish an objective milestone of progress toward PI Objectives, and to generate feedback on key items. It is not to showcase how busy the train has been.

what_is_typically_captured_as_a_ready_user_story_on_the_story_card

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:46:51+00:00

What Is Typically Captured as a "Ready" User Story on the Story Card? The way to think about the information on a card is that, while you do not list out all the details you have, you use the card to capture the basics, to act as a reminder and to provide information on where to find more details if required. One way to think about the level of information is to think about an old library system to find books - an index card would allow you to find the information you need. And don't forget, I …

what_is_wrong_with_100_utilization_thinking

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:54:40+00:00

What Is Wrong With 100% Utilization Thinking? As a person who has spent way too many years managing many projects, working with a lot of financial people, and who has worked to improve the results of a lot of organizations, one thing I was expected to focus on was

what_kind_of_questions_should_we_ask_if_we_are_hiring_a_coach

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-10-10T19:59:31+00:00

What Kind of Questions Should We Ask if We Are Hiring a Coach? Premise A lot of organizations I work with have a need to hire coaches to support their transformation. Generally I find this is a two-stage process where the first interview is basically a first pass filter aimed at just determining basic skills while the second interview is a more evaluative discussion. The question is

what_kind_of_responsibilities_does_a_development_manager_have

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:11+00:00

What Kind of Responsibilities Does a Development Manager Have? There are a number of variations that organizations can set up when thinking about the role of the Development Manager. The absolute basics are related to the development of people and their role in the success of teams:

what_kind_of_working_agreements_should_we_set_up_for_the_team

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T15:03:23+00:00

What Kind of Working Agreements Should We Set Up for the Team? Or “Why should we set up working agreements for my (Agile-, Program-, Leadership-, etc.) Team?” Agile approaches often talk about “working agreements” for Teams especially, but for any group of folks getting together. In case you think this type of discussion sounds a bit “touchy / feely” there are a number of benefits to discussing and establishing working agreements early in the Team’s life:

what_kinds_of_problems_do_you_see_when_agile_teams_churn_team_members_a_lot

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-09-16T15:38:10+00:00

What Kinds of Problems Do You See When Agile Teams Churn Team Members a Lot? A while ago I did some analysis that talked about both the positive and negative impacts of churning Team members. Since that analysis I’ve seen that: * The data generated there about the negative impact of velocity has been confirmed in other organizations and is surprisingly consistent. For example, last analysis showed that

what_kinds_of_problems_do_you_typically_see_as_the_organization_transforms_to_agile_lean

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-09-14T19:41:08+00:00

What Kinds of Problems Do you Typically See As The Organization Transforms to Agile / Lean? Or “What kinds of anti-patterns do you see in a transformation to Agile / Lean?” Or, more colloquially “What kinds of smells do you see in a transformation?

what_kinds_of_questions_should_we_ask_to_understand_how_our_team_is_doing

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:18:37+00:00

What Kind of Questions Should We Ask to Understand How Our Team is Doing? Often it is useful to step back from the day-to-day work and to ask ourselves in a more global sense “how are we doing?” This is useful not only at the team level, but also in order for the organization to understand the progress of the implementation. I've found that developing simple surveys, aimed at the gathering data on our criteria for success is a useful way to:

what_other_kind_of_structural_approaches_have_you_seen

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:36+00:00

What Other Kind of Structural Approaches Have You Seen? Some organizations try to structure the Development Manager role by function. So, for example, if you have developers, they report up a development tree, QA up the QA tree, operations up the operations tree. For some organizations this is less of an impact to put in place because it already basically exists. The pros of this approach is that the Development Manager might have a better handle how to develop the skills in a particular discip…

what_problems_have_you_seen_with_the_business_value_assignment_process

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:41+00:00

What Problems Have You Seen With the Business Value Assignment Process? The general literature calls for the Business Owner to go from team to team during a PI Planning event, and assign values in the range of 10 (high value) to 1 (low value) on all the team's PI Objectives on a relative scale.

what_question_are_we_voting_on_when_we_do_a_confidence_vote_in_pi_planning

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-25T20:05:56+00:00

What Question are we Voting on When we do a Confidence Vote in PI Planning? Premise At the end of the PI Planning event, after we have seen what each of the teams can do, we have a confidence vote which is aimed at understanding how we are feeling in an overall sense about the plan we have seen and commit to that work. Since it is phrased as a

what_should_our_sprint_goals_look_like

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-17T20:06:57+00:00

What Should Our Iteration Goals (Sprint Goals) Look Like? The basic idea behind Iteration Goals (Sprint Goals) is that they represent a stepping stone in achieving the overall release / program objectives of the team. They are not just a list of stories committed. The way to think about this is to ask “at the end of the Iteration (Sprint) we will have X”. X is the goal. X, in most cases, contributes toward the release / program objectives committed by the Team. X allows to understand that “this…

what_should_we_consider_when_forming_a_new_team

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T15:05:31+00:00

What Should We Consider When Forming a New Team? When you first bring Scrum, agile or Kanban into an organization you need to set up teams (see Why Do We Form Teams When We Transition To Agile? to understand why). Sounds easy, doesn't it until you starting thinking through the problem. That's when you start to understand that this may not be as easy as you thought.

what_subjects_should_we_cover_at_a_team_kickoff_or_re-baseline_event

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T20:23:46+00:00

What Subjects Should We Cover at a Team Kickoff or Re-Baseline Event? It is often useful to have a Team kick-off session for the Team. The Team Kick-off Session is a half to full day event, potentially spread over a couple of days, with all Team members in attendance. While it helps that some people involved have at least some background in Agile roles, events, and practices, this is not a requirement for the meeting. The Team can learn as it goes.

what_team_events_is_a_scrum_master_typically_involved_in

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-17T17:29:17+00:00

What Team Events Is A Scrum Master Typically Involved In? The Scrum Master is involved in the following events: * Leads: * Stand-Ups * Iteration Retrospective * Facilitates: * Iteration Planning * Backlog Refining * Iteration Review

what_team_events_is_the_product_owner_involved_in

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-17T17:29:44+00:00

What Team Events is the Product Owner Involved In? The Product Owner is involved in the following events: * Leads * Team Planning * Backlog Refinement * Team Demonstration * Prioritization meetings (if used) * Participates In * All Team events

what_tips_and_tricks_do_you_have_to_make_a_good_system_demo

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-11-21T20:24:16+00:00

What tips and tricks do you have to make a good System Demo? Here are a couple of ideas on how to have a great System Demo: * As you work a Feature make sure you are constantly asking yourself about the System Demo. For example, during feature analysis and PI Planning yourself “how will we demonstrate this feature to get feedback?” And as the team works on stories associated with the feature they should reference the feature to ensure they understand expectations, including how the feature i…

what_tips_do_you_have_for_a_product_owner

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-16T21:50:52+00:00

What Tips Do You Have for a Product Owner? Here are some tips and tricks to help you become a successful Product Owner: * Focus on feedback. For anything thing you deliver to the customer, make sure you understand how you will determine whether you are heading in the right direction, or not.

what_tips_do_you_have_for_a_scrum_master

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-08-21T16:51:41+00:00

What Tips Do You Have for a Scrum Master? Here are some tips and tricks to help you become a successful Scrum Master: * Really understand the the values and principles behind Lean and Agile. Leverage this understanding to help the Team address the issues they are facing. Lead by example by using the values and principles in both your own work (“personal agility”) and when helping the work of others.

what_tips_do_you_have_to_help_develop_the_definition_of_ready

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:47:16+00:00

What Tips Do You Have To Help Develop the Definition of Ready? Here are some tips and tricks to help you develop your Definition of Ready practice: * The Product Owner should work with the Agile Team to establish their initial Definition of Ready. This should be a collaborative effort.

what_types_of_benefits_do_people_see_when_they_go_agile

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-03T21:53:48+00:00

What Kinds of Benefits Do People See When They Go Agile? VersionOne's "State of Agile" Survey (9th Edition) lists a number of benefits as a result of a transition to Agile including the ability to manage changing priorities, increased team productivity, improved project visibility, increased team morale/motivation, better delivery predictability, enhanced software quality, faster time to market, reduced project risk, and the ability to manage remote teams.

what_types_of_problems_do_people_see_when_they_go_agile

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:52+00:00

What Kinds of Problems Do People See When They Go Agile? By far the biggest problem recorded by organization attempting to become more agile is the problem of changing the culture from a traditional “waterfall” oriented shop to one focused on an agile approach. This is because, more than anything else, a move to agile represents a different way of thinking about how to be successful with software development projects. More information can be found at:

what_we_don_t_want_to_see_in_a_scrum_master

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-17T16:12:53+00:00

What We Don't Want to See in a Scrum Master? A Scrum Master is not operating successfully when they: * Operate as the manager of the Team: The Scrum Master is a coach, facilitator and protector. About the only power the Scrum Master has is to enforce the process - expect Daily Scrum meetings, Iteration Reviews, etc. are going to be held and the standard to which they operate.

whats_the_difference_between_kanban_and_scrum_ssa

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-10T15:08:38+00:00

What's The Difference Between Kanban and Scrum? - SSA Or “When Should We Use Kanban Instead of Scrum?” Or “When Should We Use Scrum Instead of Kanban?” The two most popular Team practices are Scrum and Kanban. People often wonder whether one is better than the other, or whether one should be applied over another. This page will help you think through the ideas.

when_should_the_system_demo_be_scheduled

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-11-21T20:11:20+00:00

When should the System Demo be scheduled? As noted, the general pattern for System Demos is “team Iteration Review, the train System Demo”. Systems Demos are usually set up on a cadence just like team Iteration Reviews. So, for example, you might set up a System Demo “one week after the Iteration Review”. The use of a cadence here is a forcing function to ensure that we build an integrated solution and so can truly understand the progress of the solution we are delivering; we see a working syst…

where_did_this_estimation_approach_come_from

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-12-08T21:51:23+00:00

Where Did This Estimation Approach Come From? Ever wondered where the story point / relative sizing based estimating approach came from. A lot of the thinking is based on the “Wideband Delphi” estimation method, a consensus-based technique for estimating effort. This, in turn, was derived from the Delphi method which was developed in the 1950-1960s at the RAND Corporation as a forecasting tool. It has since been adapted across many industries to estimate many kinds of tasks, ranging from statis…

where_do_we_find_product_owners

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-16T21:40:21+00:00

Where Do We Find Product Owners? The Product Owner is typically sourced from a discipline that has a level of domain expertise for the Product they are working. Potential sources include: * Someone directly from the industry * Senior support person

where_do_we_find_scrum_masters

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-08-21T16:35:46+00:00

Where Do We Find Scrum Masters? The Scrum Master is typically sourced from a leadership positions in the organization they are working in. This doesn’t have to be a management position, and in fact that is often a detriment since people sourced this way will often user their command and control power instead of influencing the Team.

which_is_best_for_my_team

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-07T19:43:59+00:00

Which is Best for My Team? Kanban, Scrum or ...? If you treat Kanban and Scrum as if they are competing approaches, or adopt a textbook approach to their implementation, then the advice to choose one approach over the other usually breaks down as follows:

who_is_invited_to_the_system_demo

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-11-21T20:03:33+00:00

Who is invited to the System Demo? The following groups of people are typically invited to the System Demo: * Customers. Especially those who have an interest in the specific items being demonstrated. We want to get immediate feedback to ensure we are heading in the right direction.

who_is_responsible_for_orchestrating_and_facilitating_the_system_demo

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-11-21T19:05:13+00:00

Who is responsible for orchestrating and facilitating the System Demo? The System Demo is scheduled on a cadence. The typical pattern for Systems Demos (and the guidance from SAFe) is: * “All the team demos, then system demo”. The System Demo is expected to be complete before the next set of Iteration (Team) Reviews (for the next iteration).

why_a_plan_based_on_average_velocity_will_fail

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:55:11+00:00

Why a Plan Based on Average Velocity Will Fail? ... on average and what should we do differently. We've all seen the behavior. We learned that we should provide “ranges” of velocities when trying to forecast what is happening in the next Release. For a while we start out with good intentions. We use an average, and we use a

why_do_people_overcommit

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-04-11T16:35:49+00:00

Why Do People Overcommit? And why is over committing a problem? One of the base Agile Principles is that we try to set things up so that Teams operate at a sustainable pace. When Teams hear about this there is general excitement that it might be possible, that they might be able to restore some kind of work / life balance.

why_do_we_assign_business_values_to_pi_objectives

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-23T15:37:40+00:00

Why Do We Assign Business Values to PI Objectives? When people start with SAFe there is a lot of confusion around the need to assign a Business Value to the PI Objective. The thinking goes “we already understand the business value because we have the features - why not just use that?

why_do_we_do_a_system_demo_in_safe_ssa

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-23T15:06:03+00:00

Why Do We Do a System Demo in SAFe? - SSA One of the base practices in SAFe is the System Demo practice. What I find interesting is that there is also a lot of confusion around this practice, and a lot of questions that seem to come up. This article is aimed at addressing some of these questions.

why_do_we_form_teams_when_we_transition_to_agile

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-03T21:38:24+00:00

Why Do We Form Teams When We Transition To Agile? One of the fundamental ideas in an agile transformation to ensure success is the concept of a forming a true, stable team. Today in organizations just about any group of people is called a “team”. So we have “the management team”, the “devops team”, the “tiger team” and so on. In reality these are not true teams - or at least not what a psychologist would call a team. Rather they behave like a working group which is defined as “a group of people…

why_do_we_have_a_definition_of_ready

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:47:38+00:00

Why Do We Have a Definition of Ready? " “The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes” - Benjamin Disraeli" Simply getting your stories ready will have an immediate and dramatic impact on the Team’s productivity; the data indicates at least a 2X improvement in Team performance. The reason for this improvement is:

why_do_we_have_the_product_owner_and_scrum_master_roles

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-03-08T00:48:13+00:00

Why Do We Have the Product Owner and Scrum Master Roles? Agile implementations, and Scrum in particular, created these roles for a reason; they are there to address specific problems that arise from more traditional approaches to delivering value:

why_do_we_have_the_role_of_product_owner

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-16T21:49:28+00:00

Why Do We Have the Role of Product Owner? The Product Owner role was created to address challenges that (development) Teams had with multiple, conflicting directions, or no direction at all with respect to what to build. This single source of “the need, in priority order” keeps the Team focused and reduces churn which is the result of waiting for answers, or conflicting priorities.

why_do_we_have_the_scrum_master_role

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-12-17T15:47:52+00:00

Why Do We Have the Scrum Master Role? The Scrum Master role was created to address challenges that Agile Teams had when working in Products and Projects where the urgent always overcame the important. Traditionally Teams are on a relentless drive to deliver the next Feature resulting in an inability to improve the way they work. Further Teams often have to respond to the current crisis-de-jour resulting in an inability to meet planned commitments. The Scrum Master role is thus:

why_do_we_run_a_system_demo_when_we_ve_just_done_a_sprint_review_or_iteration_team_review

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-11-21T18:58:36+00:00

Why do we run a System Demo when we’ve just done a Sprint Review or Iteration (Team) Review? For many people it seems like we are doing double duty when we run both an Iteration (Team) Review and a System Demo; aren’t they showing the same things? While there is clearly a relationship between is what being demonstrated at these events, the focus for the Iteration (Team) Review and the System Demo is different; Iteration (Team) Reviews demonstrate “done” user stories while System Demos demonstra…

why_do_we_start_and_end_iterations_sprints_mid-week

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-10-11T19:09:10+00:00

Why Do We Start and End Iterations (Sprints) Mid-week? Or “Why Don’t We Just End the Iteration of Friday, and start again on Monday?” For many, it would be logical start and end an Iteration (Sprint) around week boundaries. In general this should be discouraged as:

why_do_we_use_story_points_instead_of_hours

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-07-13T13:51:13+00:00

Why Do We Use Story Points Instead of Hours or Days? Story Points should be used instead of absolute hours because people are naturally better at relative estimation. Relative estimation with story points: * Take less time, * Provide enough accuracy and precision for organizations and Teams to forecast and plan,

why_does_a_lean-agile_approach_encourage_collaborative_decision_making

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T18:52:35+00:00

Why Does a Lean-Agile Approach Encourage Collaborative Decision Making? " “Diversity trumps ability” - Scott Page John Seely Brown Distinguished University Professor of Complexity, Social Science, and Management" In general, lean and agile thinking moves us away from the traditional approach to making important business decisions - “the leader decides” - to a more collaborative approach.

why_does_a_lean-agile_approach_focus_on_the_completion_of_work_running_tested_features

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-09-27T19:27:56+00:00

Why does a Lean-Agile approach focus on the completion of work (running, tested features)? Or “Why is it a problem when Stories slip to the next Iteration?” Successful lean-agile implementations have a number of common patterns that ensure we improve our ability to deliver value in comparison to more traditional approaches. One of the most underestimated ideas is the focus on delivering running, tested features on a cadence (iteration, sprint), which are then demonstrated to stakeholders for f…

why_does_high_a_utilization_rate_make_it_impossible_to_create_good_estimates

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:55:16+00:00

Why Does a High Utilization Rate Make It Impossible to Create Good Estimates? Or “Why do we have to match capacity with demand in order to have predictable results?” People often wonder why we are so poor at estimating knowledge work. There are many reasons, but one effect that is often neglected is the effect of high utilization rates. Many product development organizations and IT shops pride themselves on their high utilization rate, thinking that the more busy people are the more we are get…

why_don_t_agile_tools_automatically_change_status_when_related_items_change_status

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:24:10+00:00

Why Don't Agile Tools Automatically Change Status When a Related Item Changes? While this seems counter-intuitive you will see that in general we generally don't want to do automatic status changes between items lower and higher in the hierarchy. Lets start with a simple example. Say we have a simple feature

why_don_t_we_burn-down_stories_instead_of_hours_for_a_sprint

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:18:05+00:00

Why Don't We Burn-down Stories Instead of Hours for a Sprint? If you have worked with agile for a while, or have worked with a coach that has worked with mature teams, you will sometimes hear the question “why don't we burn-down story points instead of tasks?

why_don_t_we_use_gantt_charts_in_agile

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-08-14T18:45:55+00:00

Why Don't We Use Gantt Charts in Agile? Most of the time when we go down the path of an agile implementation Gantt charts do not help much. I've seen them used to describe high level plan, almost like a roadmap more as a result of a need to meet a governance standard but not really useful as a tool for managing a project (or dependencies).

why_don_t_we_use_written_english_to_communicate_requirements

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-01-05T20:09:37+00:00

Why Don’t We Use Written English to Communicate Requirements? A base assumption of Agile is that understanding of requirements is best achieved by: * Going to the “gemba”: In other words, actually seeing what people are doing * Talking about the need: In other words, asking questions and working through examples and assumptions

why_have_an_organizational_impediment_removal_system

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-03-10T13:23:21+00:00

Why Have an Organizational Impediment Removal System? " “Work smarter; not harder”" But how exactly do you do this? It turns out there are a lot of ways to do this, but one of the best ways is to focus on removing things that slow the delivery of value down - impediments - across all the entire organization.

why_is_agile_so_hard

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:53:46+00:00

Why Is Agile So Hard - The Backward Bicycle? One of my favorite quotes about an agile transformation is “If you think Scrum (/ Agile / SAFe) is easy, just try it”. I have no idea who said it first, but it captures a lot. Done right, the move to agile will make visible all the problems you currently have, and then gives you a couple of weeks to make progress on them. While this is all going on there are subtle shifts in the thinking process that you have, which adds to the confusion (for more se…

why_not_just_track_hours_like_we_traditionally_do

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T16:04:42+00:00

Why Not Just Track Hours Like We Traditionally Do? So what are the problems associated with using tracking hours? Some of the problems are: * With agile we only plan to 5 or 6 hours a day (or some other amount depending on what people end up doing). We could ask teams to record “everything” but that is an overhead (tasks for everything like doing email). This is the purview of a “time tracking” system. We could just multiple all numbers by 8/5 to get to something more real, but is this any b…

why_should_an_architect_collaborate_with_teams

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2021-11-16T16:40:18+00:00

Why Should an Architect Collaborate with Teams? One role of the Architect is is help the Team get features out the door, better, faster, and cheaper. Another role is the work to improve the Enterprise Asset. The Enterprise Asset I first came across the concept of the Enterprise Asset while reading “A Seat at the Table” by Mark Schwartz. The idea is that our IT infrastructure is pretty much the embodiment of how work gets done in an organization. “When we add all of our current IT capabilitie…

why_should_we_consider_moving_to_agile

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:35:46+00:00

Why Should We Consider Moving to Agile? For organizations that are not happy with the delivery of their software projects, Scrum / Agile is an approach made up of values, principles and specific practices that can help you deal with the constant need to change direction while still maintaining control, to dramatically decrease your time-to-market, to reduce the risk of working with complex projects, to improve the quality of delivery so your customers see fewer defects, while also increasing th…

why_should_we_focus_on_doing_one_thing_to_completion_at_a_time

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:53:30+00:00

Why Should We Focus on Doing One Thing To Completion at a Time? Or “Why should we sequence our work to improve focus?” One of the base ideas of lean and agile is to: " Stop starting and start finishing!" However, this is one of those things that are easier said than done. We typically face a number of pressures:

why_should_we_name_our_team

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-02-16T17:40:16+00:00

Why Should We Name Our Team? When we establish Agile Teams we ask that Teams create a name, and that name reflects something meaningful to the Team Members. Why do we do this? Often management will object to this process. They ask “Wouldn't it be easier if we just called the Team based on what they do? What's wrong with 'the Database server team'

why_should_we_start_without_doing_a_complete_analysis

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-10T19:50:01+00:00

Why Should We Start Without Doing a Complete Analysis? " Or “Why shouldn't we do a traditional phase gate approach to projects?” Or “How can we start working and still deliver 'on time'?”" When you move to agile, there is a tendency to say

why_should_we_work_harder_to_eliminate_the_effect_of_dependencies

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-07-03T15:55:45+00:00

Why Should We Work Harder to Eliminate the Effect of Dependencies? We all know that when you are trying to get a software product delivered, that dependencies are “bad”, but we also know that we will have them. I think, however, that we underestimate just how big an impact can have on the successful delivery of a project, with the implication that we should be doing a lot more eliminate, or at lease reduce, dependencies that are built into the way we deliver value.

why_shouldn_t_we_set_up_dedicated_defect_teams

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T18:20:14+00:00

Why Shouldn't We Set Up Dedicated Defect Teams? " Or “What are the benefits of having value production teams work on defects?”" Came across "Bug teams - Well Meaning Foolishness by Tim Ottinger" recently. Discussion is well-thought description of the downside of setting up a bug team but I thought it had a wider message than that - the idea that we need to treat production of bugs as something that you can analyze, run experiments to reduce, and increasingly create a team

workshops_training_and_other_events

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-01-24T20:29:03+00:00

Workshops Training and Other Events A list of events I have worked. Events are things that have been prepared for, and worked. They do not count normal day-to-day activities. Stopped recording this - didn't feel I needed to track the meetings any more as my notes covered the learning I needed.

xp_values_and_principles

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-04T15:11:12+00:00

XP Values and Principles The original is at and is best read there. Following list is maintained for my convenience. Values * Communication: Everyone is part of the team and we communicate face to face daily. * Simplicity: We will do what is needed and asked for, but no more.

you_can_enhance_employee_motivation_in_10_minutes_by_friday_-_gregg_lederman

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:22:02+00:00

“You Can Enhance Employee Motivation in 10 Minutes by Friday” - Gregg Lederman Give people what they CRAVE and good things happen. Overwhelming evidence supports this. In fact, more than eighty years of research proves the idea that humans have three primary cravings at work that, once fulfilled, make them happier and more productive. Yet, despite billions of dollars spent to improve employee motivation, most businesses still suffer from a lack of engagement.

your_first_sprint

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-06-02T21:21:57+00:00

Your First Sprint / Iteration You are just starting with you first Scrum / agile team. Perhaps it is the pilot team for an organization. Your consultant / trainer is gone, or perhaps you didn't have one. Irrespective, this is a collection of information focussed on helping you to success on that first critical Sprint.