My brand of Agile has a strong business bias, which I suppose is not surprising given my background. My hope that Product Owners increasingly take a business and strategic interest in their products comes out of my experience as well.
Archive for June, 2009
Pick it up at Managing Agile
Posted in agile, management, tagged agile, manager, product owner on June 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Man survives lion attack
Posted in agile, management, tagged agile, bureaucracy, manager on June 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Bureaucracy is the mother-of-all legacy systems. It directs what you do and how you do it. And if you want to overturn it, or simply change it a little, or arrest its operation for just one team, it won’t let you. I’ll bet it’s the single biggest impediment to your agile ambitions. But you’re correct to want to change it, because these days bureaucracy is not the best organizing principle we can think of.
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
Posted in other markets, tagged customer, entrepreneur, extralegal, market, poor, underserved on June 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
We have a long way to go before the social transformation of inequalities around the world will be accomplished. But being a long way from reaching that goal should not be a deterrent to working towards it. Slowing growth and financial crises in overserved markets may mean companies have no other option than to enter these Bottom of the Pyramid markets. When you do, you’ll find it a win:win.
What Are You Doing?
Posted in responding to change, tagged market, product, strategy, vision on June 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It is a good idea for each product to have a product positioning statement. Both you and those on your product team should be able to quote this verbatim. They should revisit this every morning before they start work. Then comapre what you’re doing, or more likely should be doing, to honor this statement.
Been There, Done That
Posted in individuals and interactions, tagged bureaucracy, bureaucratic, time on June 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
You’re in the zone, making real progress, when Outlook reminds you to attend a meeting in the next 10 minutes. Let alone being unprepared, you had forgotten the meeting altogether. And your thoughts are all over the place. “No worries,” you tell yourself, “I’ll find the furthest corner of the room and hope that nobody asks me a question.” What a waste of time and money.
Scrum Tuning: Lessons Learned from Google
Posted in agile, tagged agile, benefit, done, scrum on June 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The IT boom spawned start ups that were used to running small, entrepreneurial teams. But how do you scale this in bigger organizations? Jeff Sutherland, the inventor and co-creator of Scrum uses Google Adwords’ Scrum implementation to describe some of the subtle aspects of Scrum along with suggested next steps that can help in distributing and scaling Scrum in a ‘Googley way’.
Be Wary of Precedent
Posted in responding to change, tagged bureaucratic, introspection, leadership on June 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Much of what we do today is based in precedent. The reason we need to do this, of course, is to keep up with the rate of change, the busyness of our own lives. Our dilemma is that they are mortal enemies: Precedent and change. Part of the daily stress we face is in trying to meet the demands of those who want things as they are, and the hopes of those who want things as they will be.
7 Gripes Business Has Against IT
Posted in individuals and interactions, tagged cio, colleague, organization on June 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Implementing Agile processes in traditional organizations will struggle, if not fail, unless the perceptions Business has of IT’s slow delivery are dealt one by one.
Reduce variation
Posted in working software, tagged agile, benefit, management on June 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Management is responsible for 85% of variation that hampers workers producing quality products. When managing agile projects, increase quality by reducing variation during a sprint. This is the essence of agile.
Scrum in Under 10 Minutes
Posted in agile, tagged scrum on June 5, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Learn the SCRUM software development methodology in less than 10 minutes. By the end of this fast-paced video, you’ll know about burn-down charts, team roles, product backlogs, sprints, daily scrums and more.
