In this post we explore why a product owner is needed, and how we can ease the burden on the customer as well as the product owner by setting expectations and speaking in language the customer understands.
Agile 2013 – that’s a wrap!
Nick had a grand ‘ole time in Nashville for the Grand Ole Oprey Agile 2013. Take a look at his posts highlighting the sessions he enjoyed most. If you haven’t been already, make sure you grab a ticket for next year, the conversations in the hallways are worth the price of admission alone! Technical Debt… Continue reading Agile 2013 – that’s a wrap!
Roles and Responsibility, Essential to a High Performing Agile Team
There are three key roles for every Agile team: Product Owner, ScrumMaster and the Team. And, of course, we also have the stakeholders – our customers, managers, board of directors, etc. We’ll take a look at these roles and their various responsibilities and then we will explore how these people gel to form a high… Continue reading Roles and Responsibility, Essential to a High Performing Agile Team
Commitments & Conscious Business
Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left? Five, because deciding is different than doing. One of the fellas at Twitter brought this to my attention last week. It is from Conscious Business. It made me sit up and take note. It made me think about a teams… Continue reading Commitments & Conscious Business
Eliminate Free Radicals – A Path to Scaling Agile in the Enterprise
You might remember from chemistry class that a molecule can exist without a paired electron, making them highly reactive. Molecules fitting this description are considered “Free Radicals“. What your professor may not have told you (mine certainly hadn’t) is that Free Radicals (or Radicals as I like to refer to them as) also exist in human form… Continue reading Eliminate Free Radicals – A Path to Scaling Agile in the Enterprise
Why do high performing Scrum teams use story point estimation?
There are two common approaches to estimation in Scrum teams: story points and ideal hours. Ideal hours is taken as ‘given what we know today, how long would this story take to implement?’ if everything went according to plan. It turns out that us humans are pretty terrible at estimating. For example, is this story,… Continue reading Why do high performing Scrum teams use story point estimation?
Why Agile teams want t-shaped people
On Scrum teams we often speak of ideals. While these may not be immediately attainable by the team they are things a team should strive to attain as it will assist them in becoming a high performing team. One of these ideals is a T-shaped person. A t-shaped person is one who has breadth in… Continue reading Why Agile teams want t-shaped people
Is Burnover Preventing your Team from Achieving Consistent Velocity?
Burnover. Another name for Stories or backlog items that are incomplete at the end of the current Sprint and fall into a subsequent Sprint. Call it what you like, but if you want to reach your Agile Nirvana, then you need to develop better recognition, techniques for handling, and methods of prevention. If not, then you… Continue reading Is Burnover Preventing your Team from Achieving Consistent Velocity?
Planking and its Impact on your Agile Team
New Scrum teams may find meeting their sprint commitments hard, it can be awkward at first! In this post Randall explains what planking is and how to avoid it.
Recommended Reading for New Agile Engineering Managers
It’s a common situation. You’re a kick-ass Engineer and you have just been tapped on the shoulder for a promotion to an Engineering Manager, an “EM”. It means your VP has recognised the great work you’ve delivered, the contribution you’ve made. Congratulations! At this stage you are probably a bit overwhelmed with questions from team… Continue reading Recommended Reading for New Agile Engineering Managers