Agile Practitioners Aren’t Supposed to Use Flamethrowers – Are They?
Have you ever been in a flamethrower war? I sincerely hope you have never been in one like the picture, but if you have been…
Category: Agile Ideas
Your Agile isn’t my Agile!
Have you ever had the feeling someone REALLY didn’t get it? I had that feeling recently when reading this article about the supposed weaknesses of…
New to agile? Learn how to fail well
Is success or failure really a choice? I don’t think it is at all. Pretty much no one chooses to fail. Unfortunately, we can’t just…
Agile antipattern: Target fixation
Have you ever been so focused on something that the rest of the world seemed to disappear for a while? This can be great under…
I’m a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) – so what?
This is a companion post to last year’s “I’m a Certified Scrum Coach (CSC) – so what?” post. In that post I spoke about the…
Agile antipattern: Sizing or estimating bug fixes
Is the bug to the left a large bug or a small bug? It looks HUGE to me! Well, in reality it is probably between…
New to agile? Remember a user story is more than a card!
What’s wrong with the user story on the card? It seems to have everything we need: a) short title, b) a size (in this case…
What style of agile training works best?
Have you ever been in a class or training session which is so boring you felt like you might fall asleep? Or maybe you are…
New to agile? Watch an Intro to Scrum video in about 8 minutes
My friend, Arif Gangji, and I created this video to help his customers understand why his company uses Scrum as their software development framework. I…
Agile antipattern: Another burndown chart that lies!
That burndown chart looks sweet doesn’t it? The team finished the iteration on time. What could possibly be wrong. Well, a lot actually. Notice that…
Agile antipattern: Changing the definition of done
Ever see a burndown chart like the one to the left? I’ve been on a big burndown chart kick lately and when I saw this…
Agile pondering: How does agile work with a team of 1?
See that picture off to the left? That is me and my agile team! It’s not a bad picture, but there appears to be something…
The 7 Deadly Sins of Almost Being Agile presentation from Agile 2009
This presentation was originally given at Agile 2009 in Chicago. Richard Lawrence and I wanted to give teams a bit of hope if they weren’t…
Agile antipattern: Taking on large stories
Earlier this week I posted a blog entry “Agile antipattern: Burndown charts that hide the truth” which dealt with one way a burndown chart could…
Agile antipattern: Burndown charts that hide the truth
See that burndown chart over there to the left? It looks beautiful doesn’t it? It is an actual burndown chart with no made up data. …
New to agile? Remember the power of automation
As this blog entry is published I am teaching an agile/scrum course to a client in Flanders, New Jersey. You might want to ask “Bob,…
New to agile? Give thanks!
Here in the United States we will be celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, November 26. If you are currently on an agile team you…
Agile antipattern: Doing Agile!
I spent the past week in Orlando, Florida at the Agile Development Practices conference and I heard a number of people say “We do agile…
New to agile? Remember to respect people
One of the Lean Principles is “Respect People.” I think it may be the most important lean principle. When I teach a course and get…
Patterns for Splitting User Stories
Update, October 2020: Richard’s latest story splitting resources are available at Humanizing Work. Good user stories follow Bill Wake’s INVEST model. They’re Independent, Negotiable, Valuable,…
