You’ve probably participated in an Agile-themed Lego game at some point in time. Wouldn’t it be cool to know how Lego, the company, have scaled their Agile initiative? How have they managed programmes and portfolio based dependencies? What people at various tiers have felt about the scaling effort? What’s “mount stupid”, and how to avoid climbing up one? Here’s a tall Henrik Kniberg gave regarding scaling Agile at Lego. (PDF)
Most people will be more effective when they are co-located. But can we say that as a rule, without knowing the dynamics of the remote work in question? Can some people be more effective when in a remote-first model? What are different distribution patterns for teams? What can we learn from communication patterns? How it can help us become more effective even when we are not co-located? Here are some interesting thought from Martin Fowler.
Scrum Masters are responsible for making sure that Agile and Scrum are well understood and enacted. Teaching the team and the Product Owner is one of the key focus area for the Scrum Master. So what do they teach them? How do they focus on teaching different things during different phases of team formation? Who else do they teach? Here are 12 things Scrum Masters should focus on teaching.
How to foster a culture where real creativity thrives for decades? Creativity Inc. is one of the best books I’ve read during last year. It’s the story of how Pixar was founded, how it became a wonderful hit-creating machine, and remained so even after the Disney acquisition. How does physical environment set the tone? How to set a vision? Most importantly – how to provide feedback without spoon-feeding solutions, and without sounding overbearing? Steve Blank provides an excellent summary of the book.
This is the dreaded question. When will you deliver it? How can we change the focus of this conversation? Well, not any time soon, if we keep measuring delivery of the projects. How about changing the focus from what should be done next to what’s the best next investment we can make? What other things we can should refactor? Here’s how we can change the project focussed rhetoric.
User Stories are an excellent tool. But often we see the application of User Stories fail. Why is that? What makes User Stories fail? Have you seen User Stories taken out of context, and used without a meaningful conversation? Should User Stories be used at all to capture technical requirements? Are User Stories enough on their own to create a great user experience? Here are two core reasons why User Stories fail, and how to avoid the pitfalls.
“As much as I would like to think otherwise, I only rarely had some groundbreaking insights”, says former 4 star general McChrystal. How did he make most of his decisions then? Why does he think effective leadership in the new environment as more akin to gardening than [command-and-control] chess? And what can we learn from that? Have a look.
What can you do to make your Retrospective fun? If you haven’t tried yet, you can try the New Year Retrospective technique (start of 2016 would be a good time for that). Or how about getting to know your team members in a fun way. You can try a technique called Job or Joy, and then follow it up with identifying a few actions. Or how about Mute/Self? Explore these and more fun techniques here.
AGILE
Scaling Agile @ LEGO
You’ve probably participated in an Agile-themed Lego game at some point in time. Wouldn’t it be cool to know how Lego, the company, have scaled their Agile initiative? How have they managed programmes and portfolio based dependencies? What people at various tiers have felt about the scaling effort? What’s “mount stupid”, and how to avoid climbing up one? Here’s a tall Henrik Kniberg gave regarding scaling Agile at Lego. (PDF)
blog.crisp.se
Is Co-location Always More Effective?
Most people will be more effective when they are co-located. But can we say that as a rule, without knowing the dynamics of the remote work in question? Can some people be more effective when in a remote-first model? What are different distribution patterns for teams? What can we learn from communication patterns? How it can help us become more effective even when we are not co-located? Here are some interesting thought from Martin Fowler.
martinfowler.com
12 Things Scrum Masters Can Teach Their Team
Scrum Masters are responsible for making sure that Agile and Scrum are well understood and enacted. Teaching the team and the Product Owner is one of the key focus area for the Scrum Master. So what do they teach them? How do they focus on teaching different things during different phases of team formation? Who else do they teach? Here are 12 things Scrum Masters should focus on teaching.
blog.scrum.org
What Can We Learn from Pixar?
How to foster a culture where real creativity thrives for decades? Creativity Inc. is one of the best books I’ve read during last year. It’s the story of how Pixar was founded, how it became a wonderful hit-creating machine, and remained so even after the Disney acquisition. How does physical environment set the tone? How to set a vision? Most importantly – how to provide feedback without spoon-feeding solutions, and without sounding overbearing? Steve Blank provides an excellent summary of the book.
steveblank.com
How to Change Project Focussed Rhetoric
This is the dreaded question. When will you deliver it? How can we change the focus of this conversation? Well, not any time soon, if we keep measuring delivery of the projects. How about changing the focus from what should be done next to what’s the best next investment we can make? What other things we can should refactor? Here’s how we can change the project focussed rhetoric.
blogs.versionone.com
PRODUCT OWNER
Why Some User Stories Fail?
User Stories are an excellent tool. But often we see the application of User Stories fail. Why is that? What makes User Stories fail? Have you seen User Stories taken out of context, and used without a meaningful conversation? Should User Stories be used at all to capture technical requirements? Are User Stories enough on their own to create a great user experience? Here are two core reasons why User Stories fail, and how to avoid the pitfalls.
romanpichler.com
LEADERSHIP
Leadership Complexity – From a 4 Star General
“As much as I would like to think otherwise, I only rarely had some groundbreaking insights”, says former 4 star general McChrystal. How did he make most of his decisions then? Why does he think effective leadership in the new environment as more akin to gardening than [command-and-control] chess? And what can we learn from that? Have a look.
scruminc.com
TEAM
How to Make Your Retrospective Fun?
What can you do to make your Retrospective fun? If you haven’t tried yet, you can try the New Year Retrospective technique (start of 2016 would be a good time for that). Or how about getting to know your team members in a fun way. You can try a technique called Job or Joy, and then follow it up with identifying a few actions. Or how about Mute/Self? Explore these and more fun techniques here.
scrumalliance.org
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