Trust
Esther Derby has a good post this morning about how trust is embedded in a context. She writes, “The sort of trust that you need…
Year: 2008
Are Agile Lifecycle Management tools worth it?
There are many well known agile pundits, practitioners and trainers that very specifically believe teams do not need to use any sort of tool to…
Bob-ism #1 – the good developer
Have you ever considered how requirements can be routinely misinterpreted by developers? I’ve spent considerable time analyzing this phenomenon. It is obvious to even casual…
Kill the Office, or Fix It?
A recent essay in Wired says, “The traditional office, meanwhile, remains a black hole of interruptions, procrastination, and soul-crushing politics. According to Gloria Mark, an…
Are you agile – the Nokia test
I’ve been helping lots of clients start new agile initiatives recently. This has led to me seeing up close and personal some consistent startup issues…
Agile thoughts at 37,000 feet
I don’t mind travel except for the part where you aren’t home! I especially hate traveling through Chicago’s O’Hare airport. Yet here I am at…
Surviving Rewrites
It seems like fully half the projects I come across are rewrites in one form or another. It ought to be common knowledge by now…
Fishing in Montana is agile!
I know you think the title of this post is absolutely crazy, but maybe not. Read on if you are interested in a bit of…
What do you want next?
The software industry today is plagued by long release cycles for important products. That is one of the many reasons why companies are going to…
The Power of Small Experiments
Change can be scary. Change at work is particularly threatening. After all, most of us spend more time working that doing any other single thing.…
Changing the perception of “manager”
In agile it is often counterproductive to use the title of “manager” for any role. Manager tends to imply command and control which is just…
A new blog is born!
Welcome to the “Making Agile a Reality™” blog! I’m hoping to use this blog at least weekly to accomplish several things: Capture my thoughts about…
How Multitasking Guarantees Low Customer Satisfaction
Two Hours of Waiting, an Hour and a Half of Waste, and a Burrito One day last week, I took what was supposed to be…
Tech work is messed up…and we can fix it
Kathy Sierra tweeted: “The big Q: how much does the *perception* of working in tech need to change, and how much does the *reality* need…
One Word Can Change Your Daily Scrum
In my experience, the daily Scrum serves two purposes: for team members to make and follow up on commitments to one another, and for team…
Benjamin Zander at TED
He says, “…I suddenly realized, the conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound. My picture appears on the front of the CD. But the…
Why TDD Works
Martin Fowler nails it (as he so often does): My point is that we can’t look at testing mechanistically. Unit testing does not improve quality…