Sherlock Holmes was a master of deductive reasoning and problem solving, rarely was a problem beyond his capability. However, every once in a while he encountered problems that required a greater level of consideration, it would stretch his mind to it’s limits and required him not to be disturbed for an extended period, he described […]

For this blog post I’d like to make a change from my usual style and share a personal experience. For the last few months I have taken on the role of Product Owner for a new product our company is developing. It is a bit of a change for the company as they have limited […]

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 […]

Many of us are relatively familiar with the notion that stories should be expressed in terms of value delivered (Why) and how important the “Why” is for being able to maximize the outcome for the customer– Who: As a … What: I want to : Why: So that … When we talk of good stories […]

It seems like there is a very personal level to what Agile Software Development means, as far as I can tell there is no consistent common understanding of what agility means. Some see it as a framework, others as a mindset. For me it means two things. We have agility in our planning. We expect […]

I recently saw an article where someone said that all leadership, sales and politics can be simplified to just two types of influencing motivations. Inspiration or Manipulation. Essentially you can be stimulated to act or you can be persuaded to act. (Push or Pull) The manipulation aspect is fairly easy to understand. In leadership this […]

A question I have been hearing a lot lately is how do you know whether an employee is putting in their hours, or not slacking off. This question seems to be particularly concerning for people in the context of working from home where the perception is that it is more prevalent. The irony here of […]

There are two ships traveling a busy shipping route, each ship has a complex engine and the engineering team has a chief engineer. Both ships are a similar age and size. The first ship has a very busy chief engineer running this way and that, fixing any and every problem that comes up, he knows […]

I am a very lucky person, I have my dream job. I work for a huge Solutions Provider as a member of their software consultancy group. The consultancy group has multiple physical offices in the St Louis area, and offices in Denver, New York and London. we have now decided to expand into the virtual […]

One of the most common reasons we reject people interviewing for coaching or product ownership related roles is an inability to grasp the purpose and value in splitting stories effectively, especially lacking an understanding of vertical slicing. This is also a commonly requested topic for me at the meetup or speaking engagements. Yet it is […]

In the context of Lean manufacturing there have been numerous studies that estimate that the proportion of value adding time in a production cycle is around 5%. The other 95% is deemed to be waste.  These studies also conclude that by far the biggest waste is overproduction. Anecdotally I think it is a very similar […]

“Coaching is unlocking people’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.” ― John Whitmore Coaching is an interesting and confusing notion, as an Agile coach in my current role we must be explicitly invited by a team or an individual to coach, usually this is driven […]

Yesterday I had two people both of whom I have a lot of respect for, independently say that having a single person in charge of a team ‘works‘. I was taken aback by this, partly the surprise that two people would say the same thing on the same day, but mostly because this goes against […]

When it comes to leadership it seems that a lot of problems and a great many solutions come down to either a lack of communication or lack of trust, often both. But why are those two skills so difficult to master? How much time and effort gets wasted simply because we don’t trust our employees, […]