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The ScrumMaster Diaries: #2 – Making the Case to Become a CSM

January 18, 2010

Dear Diary, Tomorrow I am going in to speak to Henry about becoming a Certified Scrum Master.  I’ve done more reading about it and it appears there are more than 60,000 people in the world who have done it before me.  Those kinds of numbers have to help me with my argument.  I also know [...]

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Agile Book Review: Succeeding with Agile by Mike Cohn

January 14, 2010

I’m going to give you the punch line first: this is definitely the best agile book on the market today! If that is all you wanted to know, then you can leave now.  If you want to know why I believe this, then feel free to read on.  In the next few paragraphs I’ll explain [...]

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New to agile? Lean principles can help!

January 13, 2010

Ever see a trash can look like that?  I know I have – plenty of times.  I have 3 kids so I sometimes even see it in my own house!  It is amazing how kids can walk right past a full trash can and decide it is not in their best interest to empty it [...]

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The ScrumMaster Diaries: Chapter 1 – We stink

January 11, 2010

Dear Diary,   This is Nick.  I’ve never been much of a writer before, but I made myself a New Year resolution to try to keep an ongoing diary so I could look back in a few years and see how things have gone.  Right now I’m hoping it will be a happy thing to see.  [...]

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Agile, scrum, lean and kanban blogs to watch in 2010

January 7, 2010

I’m going to be spending a lot of time in 2010 writing blog entries.  Remember, I’ve committed to trying to write 4 blog entries per week, but in order to continue to grow in my abilities as a trainer and coach I need to continue to expand my knowledge.  The internet is great for things [...]

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Agile pondering: Why use an agile approach?

January 6, 2010

The theme of the blog this month is “Getting a Fresh Start.”  In order to get a fresh start it is important to know WHY you want to do it!  I’ve seen many presentations over the years about why agile is something a software development organization should use.  I’ve seen this sort of presentation called [...]

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Agile question of the month contest for January 2010

January 5, 2010

Time for another chance to win a $25 Amazon gift certificate.  This month’s theme is “Getting a Fresh Start” so the question is going to be about starting an agile project.  This question is simple, but has a lot of nuances which make a complete answer imperitive.  Remember, everyone is eligible no matter who they [...]

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The ScrumMaster Diaries: Introduction to the series

January 4, 2010

Back on September 23, 2009, I posted a blog entry titled “New to agile? What does the ScrumMaster do anyway?” The response was amazing. It was easily the most popular blog posting I’ve ever created. It made me realize people are starving for information about the ScrumMaster role and what it entails.  At the time [...]

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Great agile, scrum, lean and kanban online resources from December 2009

January 1, 2010

This will be a monthly feature during 2010 and beyond.  I’m going to give you some blog posts, articles and popular items from right here that I think are interesting enough to share.  There is plenty of good stuff here, so take your time exploring…

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2010 will be exciting for Agile Bob on Making Agile a Reality

December 31, 2009

The new year starts tonight.  I’m extremely excited because I have HUGE plans for this blog during 2010.  I don’t know if I can live up to all of the things I want to do so I decided to make my goals public.  I find when I make my goals public I am more likely to reach them.  I’m [...]

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Recapping 2009 at Agile For All

December 30, 2009

Was 2009 a good year or a bad year for you?  I have to admit it was a good year for Agile For All.  We hit almost every goal we set.  We far exceeded some of them.  On a few we came up short, but like a good agile team we made sure those were [...]

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Agile antipatterns: Agile burn-down chart roundup post

December 29, 2009

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 went on a burn-down chart craze and posted several blog entries about the different ways those charts can lie to us or expose us to team dysfunction.  In order, the [...]

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Agile antipattern: Another burndown chart that lies!

December 28, 2009

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 one day this team completed a tremendous amount of work.  Do you ever see teams really do that?  It certainly could be a symptom of allowing large stories and they [...]

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Merry Christmas!

December 23, 2009

This blog entry is being posted on Wednesday, December 23 at noon MST.  Why?  Because I don’t plan to be on my computer very much, if at all, between then and sometime on December 28th.  Between those two dates I intend to watch my favorite movie a number of times.  Yes, my favorite movie of [...]

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Agile antipattern: Changing the definition of done

December 22, 2009

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 one I just couldn’t resist using it.  This one is a bit different from my previous blog entries here and here.  This burndown chart is a release burndown rather than [...]

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I’ll be speaking in January at the Phoenix Scrum User Group

December 21, 2009

I’m honored to be the featured speaker at the January 28, 2010 meeting of the Phoenix Scrum User Group.  I’ll be making a presentation called “Doing Agile Isn’t the Same as BEING Agile!”  The presentation is loosely based on my blog entry “Agile antipattern: Doing Agile!“  If you are in the Phoenix area please stop by on [...]

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New to agile? Look at some of our presentations

December 17, 2009

My experiment with SlideShare on Tuesday seemed to go well, so I uploaded several more presentations.  You will see the most recent 4 in the sidebar on the blog page, but I also created a new Presentations page on the website.  You can get to it at www.agileforall.com/presentations.  It has all of the presentations available in [...]

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Agile pondering: How does a highly mobile agile team of 1 work?

December 17, 2009

In my last post I gave you insight into how I do my work as an agile team of 1.  What I didn’t mention is I am highly mobile.  I travel a lot to other cities and even when I’m in my normal city I have meetings all over the place.  How do you remain [...]

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Agile pondering: How does agile work with a team of 1?

December 16, 2009

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 missing, right?  Where’s the “team” part of me and my team?  Well, you’re looking at it!  That’s right, I am a team of 1 for almost everything I do.  This [...]

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The 7 Deadly Sins of Almost Being Agile presentation from Agile 2009

December 15, 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 quite doing agile.  In order to do that we gave a presentation helping them understand some of the basic issues.  However, we also recognize every organization is different.  We didn’t [...]

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