The ability to have ad-hoc spontaneous interactions with co-workers is invaluable. In physical spaces understanding this led to the end of offices and teams being co-located. Just imagine going back to a physical office where everyone had an individual office and you could only talk to co-workers if you had made an appointment in advance. […]
Feedback takes many forms, some is explicit and some can be inferred, even the absence of interaction is a form of feedback. Some if obviously well-intentioned, and some less so, some is invited and some is thrust upon us. When you accidentally cut someone off in traffic, the feedback they give may be in the […]
A question I have been asked a number of times is how do we “Scale Agile”? There has been so much discussion of scaling frameworks such as LeSS, and SaFe, or Nexus or D.A.D. or even the Spotify model, that we have become conditioned to assume that these are the solution to any scaling […]
I feel a little on the defensive recently, I have heard a Product Owner (ex PM) complaining that he could get it done quicker with Waterfall, and I have heard a number of people asking what was wrong with the old way and why Agile? Short-term memories, fear of change – especially for a very large […]
This is a touchy subject and one where I realise I am treading on thin ice by making sweeping generalisations on an emotive topic, however it is a topic that needs addressing. Surveys show that while the professional workforce in the USA is composed of 57% women – yes that’s right men are a minority. […]
The ability to have ad-hoc spontaneous interactions with co-workers is invaluable. In physical spaces understanding this led to the end of offices and teams being co-located. Just imagine going back to a physical office where everyone had an individual office and you could only talk to co-workers if you had made an appointment in advance. […]
These are slides from the Agile Product Ownership Meetup, where we discussed the Discovery Phase of a product. A question came up this week following a discussion on story writing that I think bears further discussion. What really is the Minimum Viable Product? To explain my thoughts I will use the building of a Skyscraper as an […]
Holding another person accountable can be a scary thing, even just saying that sounds a big deal. And whilst it is a big deal, it doesn’t need to be scary. Feedback is a skill, and it one that you get much better at the more you practice. In theory feedback in the context of accountability […]
There is an ongoing debate about whether or not to use Estimates in your software development process, largely fueled by #NoEstimates, but as is often the case the battle has been picked up by many that have become over zealous without fully understanding but with great certainty tell you that you should never estimate. There […]
It may sound overly simplistic but in my experience products generally succeed or fail in correlation to the effectiveness of Product Ownership on the team. Mainly because we under-appreciate the importance and the difficulty of the Product Ownership aspects in the product creation process. In my opinion the choice of this role is far more […]
I have been very fond of Scrum and a strong advocate for it since my first introduction to it about 12 years ago. But in recent years I have not been exposed to it so much, my current organization favors more of a Kanban approach to software delivery. However, this last few months I have […]
Have you ever noticed that late projects only ever seem to get later? Why is it that any gains get absorbed and delays get compounded? Let’s say I have a mini-project where I have a builder adding a kitchen to a house, he will construct the walls and then I’ll have a plumber come in […]
These are slides from the Agile Product Ownership Meetup, where we discussed the Discovery Phase of a product. As a product owner we should be building products to deliver on the Vision and a set of defined objectives or success criteria. But often our plan is not closely mapped to those criteria or it can […]
Recently I have spent a lot of time talking about story writing, but this week the focus has been on Acceptance Criteria and there have been a variety of comments that have caused me to reflect and have caused me some concern. Some examples: Unless stated otherwise a story is assumed to be happy path […]
