The great thing about Wikipedia is that you can make it say anything you want (at least for awhile.) So, I did it. Their definition of Agile Development now matches mine. As I've commented before, given the reach of this page, the content on it was disappointing. I gave the page a pretty good scrub. …
Development Kanban
David Anderson thoughts on Kanban from Agile 2007 summarizes his approach in 4 bullet points for success: Focus on Quality (fourth law of development) Reduce or Limit Work in Progress (what's wrong with pushing) Balance Demand against Throughput (first law of development) Prioritize I think these simple statements help focus on how the principles of …
Defining Agile Development (continued)
As I prepared to discuss Agile with a client recently, I found that I was missing an important element of the definition in my last post. Here is what we settled on: Agile is: A project management process that encourages frequent inspection and adaptation A leadership philosophy that encourages team work, self-organization and accountability A …
Defining ‘Agile Software Development’ on Wikipedia
I started another post and got stuck on this Wikipedia definition. The great insight normally found on Wikipedia, in this case, has left me disappointed: Agile Software Development: refers to a group of software development methodologies that promote development iterations, open collaboration, and adaptability throughout the life-cycle of the project. Are these the three bullet …
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Becoming Agile Without Help?
I was recently asked how successful can organizations be in transitioning to agile on their own. My immediate response was to evoke the response from a team of panelist. When asked what is the most important thing they did to be successful in their transition, four panelists from across industries and organizational sizes all said essentially, …
Fail Early, Learn Often
While moderating a panel discussion recently, one of the first questions after the introductions was asking to explain what was meant by allowing a team to fail. The important understanding that I think was misunderstood is that failure is not meant to allow releases or products to fail, but to generate learning opportunities to ensure …
Cataloging Scrum Problems to Avoid
At the risk of becoming overly link heavy in recent posts, I want to highlight two sources for trouble-shooting scrum implementations. The first is from Mike Griffiths' Introducing Agile methods to Organizations: Mistakes to Avoid” (part 1, part 2, part 3). These meaty articles share plenty of wisdom. The second is from the ScrumAlliance. They …
Product Personality
There is a great post up yesterday from Rohit Bhargava, author of Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back. In it, he talks about Brand Personality. I mentioned in Tell Me a Story, that I think product managers and owners would do good to give their products …
Horizon Line Group 