Do you ever get so frustrated you feel like pulling your hair out? I do (although that is NOT a picture of me to the left!). If you look at my pictures you will see that it would be difficult for me to pull my hair out because a) there isn’t a lot of it, and b) what little there is I have cut very short. But, enough about me, back to the issue/craziness at hand.
I last updated my blog on June 14 and here it is July 27. That is way too long between updates, so let me start by apologizing to all of you who look forward to reading entries when I post them. Fortunately, during the time when I haven’t been updating the blog I recognized a problem which I often see on agile teams – CRAZINESS! Yes, sometimes things get a little crazy, or in my case recently, a LOT crazy! [Read more...]
Is success or failure really a choice? I don’t think it is at all. Pretty much no one chooses to fail. Unfortunately, we can’t just choose to be successful either. What we CAN choose is to try to make a success out of a failure! The old saying “Make lemonade out of lemons” really is a good way of looking at things, especially for agile teams.
What’s wrong with the user story on the card? It seems to have everything we need: a) short title, b) a size (in this case 2), and c) a well-written story using the standard “As a … I want … so that …” format. So what’s wrong? Nothing! Well, almost nothing. The user story card is a great STARTING POINT, but it is not sufficient by itself.
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 out! But I still love them 


When dealing with an agile implementation, particularly in the case of a new agile team, we often make things too complex and difficult. We tend to keep putting band-aids on the process until we have something that is overly burdensome and no longer useful. I’ve now seen enough of this to know there needs to be an intervention! So take a deep breath, relax and read how to simplify your life on an agile team. 










