20 Common Logical Fallacies – Don’t Be a Victim!
Faulty thinking is part of life. We’re not perfect, nor do we think perfectly. It is, however, helpful to identify faulty thinking in our own…
Category: Antipattern
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…
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…
Agile antipatterns: Agile burn-down chart roundup post
Do you want to see several different ways agile and scrum burn-down charts can lie? If so, you are in the right place! This month 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 antipattern: Burndown “wall”
Does your team have an iteration burndown chart (giving credit only for completed stories) look like the one to the left? If so there are a…
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. …
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…
Agile antipattern: Working overtime
Ever feel like the guy over there to the left? Yeah, me too. Sorry to offend some people with my language, but working overtime really…
Agile antipattern: Waiting for all the requirements before starting
Time for a short blog entry (I tend to be way too verbose!). I often see teams trying to make sure they have all of…
Agile antipattern: Using email as the primary communication tool
Can I just be short and to the point for this one? I hope so, because that is my intention! Email is LOW BANDWIDTH communication…
Agile antipattern: Insanity! (5 insanity antipatterns)
It is sometimes said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. This definition has…
Agile antipattern: Treating symptoms not causes
Agile teams often get to a point where they have a number of problems which must be addressed. During retrospectives these items keep coming up…
Agile antipattern: Hiding unfortunate truths
“Unfortunate truths” are things which are true – unfortunately! I’ve heard the phrase used by defense lawyers and I have to admit it is pretty…
Agile antipattern: Comparing velocity between teams
I recently saw an excellent blog post about iteration velocity. Good reading in general, but the last paragraph really got my attention and is why…
Agile anti-pattern: Going to longer iterations
This is another common theme among teams just starting with agile. It usually goes something like this: The team has an unsuccessful iteration. They determine…
Agile antipattern: Code freezes during each iteration
Over the past 18 months I’ve encountered a number of teams where it is standard practice to have a code freeze late in the iteration. …
Agile antipattern: Extending an iteration
I had a previous blog post about stopping an iteration and how it was a really bad idea. Another blog post was about moving work…
Never start a sentence “We can’t be agile because…”
I recently started filling out a form which included a question regarding the training I’ve done. As I filled it out I realized that in…