David Morris on Lean Leadership, Change, Governance, and Coaching
Are you attempting a large-scale transformation, taking your organisation on a journey to a leaner, fitter future so you can deliver delightful quality customer experiences responsively, seizing market opportunities or tackling problems even before they appear? If so, then you’ve probably drunk the cool-aid that it’s all about culture, that you have to change the … Continue reading It’s structure, not culture, that kills change
Waterfall projects are more successful than agile projects. Wait! What? For a university paper I am currently writing, I revisited the 2013 Chaos Manifesto. This report marked a watershed moment in the long history of the Standish Group and their biennial Chaos Reports that chart the factors that make projects successful. What stood out for … Continue reading Waterfall projects are more successful than agile projects?
From October 2014, I have finally made the move from article writer and book contributor to becoming a fully-fledged author, working with John Carroll on the next edition of Agile Project Management in easy steps. John is a project management consultant of many years experience, author of several books, the blogger behind The Tao of Project Management, … Continue reading Starting a new chapter, from contributor to author
You know when someone pulls out the packs of planning poker cards that you're about to enter into a parallel universe where the normal rules of working life are temporarily suspended and we use a form of game-play to get us past the awkwardness of not wanting to estimate our backlog items. I will be writing … Continue reading Planning Snap, or how Planning Poker can go wrong
When we start out on a venture, of any kind, we hope things will run smoothly, we expect the 'happy path' / 'sunny day' scenario to be true. In designing our software, though, we know that we need to allow for alternate paths and exceptions. In the same way, when thinking about our projects, we should expect to be hit … Continue reading I want the impossible: Good, Fast, and Cheap
What's the right time to ensure our products are free from defects? Is it before or after you launch, or some other time? I've written recently on the topic of how to handle defects and bugs through feature development and the purpose and value of stabilisation before release. The conversations that this sparked led me to reflect on … Continue reading Assuring against toxic spills – quality assurance in software development
Did you ever play Jenga? It's a challenging game of dexterity, patience, and brinkmanship -- you start with a tower of blocks, 18 stories high, three blocks per story, then each player takes turns at removing a block from a lower level and placing it on top, until the tower becomes so unstable it topples … Continue reading Are we being agile if we have stabilisation sprints?
How do you handle defects in your agile environment? Do you just work on them as you can; do you have a formal Kanban pull system; or do you size them alongside other work?
This article (first published on infoQ) explores why estimating is useful, why we use story points (and what they are), and the latest discussions around #NoEstimates.
Announcing the launch of Sophorum, a business agility service for business analysis, coaching, team leading, new product development, business design, education, etc.