Don’t Let Governance Threaten Your Agile Transformation
Mar 23,
2017
Governance seems to be one of those frightening words that threatens to stop an Agile transformation effort dead in its tracks. I’ve been hearing it whispered, and even screamed once or twice, quite a lot recently. There’s no big surprise here. As the big corporations and Government agencies get increasingly fascinated by frameworks like Scrum, […]
How Do You Conquer Just-In-Time Requirements?
Feb 16,
2017
“What is the difference between an up-front requirements document and a fish?” said Gollum, hoping to catch the Hobbit out with his riddle. But Bilbo Baggins, though a Halfling, was an experienced Agilist. He knew the answer. “A fish rots from the head down, “ he said, “but a requirements documents rots from the bottom […]
Scrum Guide Update: The 5 Values of Scrum
Feb 9,
2017
You might not have noticed, but The Scrum Guide was updated last year (July 2016) for the first time in three years. The changes aren’t big in terms of word count, but they are significant. So I decided I needed to update my own description (part 1, part 2) of the Guide’s evolution. Cumulative Flow Diagrams […]
How to Use Scenarios to Avoid Project Surprises
Dec 22,
2016
To quote the Danish politician Karl Kristian Steincke “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” But predicting the future is what project management is all about. When things go wrong, scenarios can help you have a plan in place to recover. Project management is hard — you’re predicting when milestones will be met, how much money will […]
What is Pair Programming?
Dec 6,
2016
Back in the 1980s, a big part of my job at a defense contractor was writing software. Sometimes I worked by myself and sometimes I worked with another programmer – generally one who was a friend. Sometimes we worked on separate devices, and sometimes we sat together at the same keyboard and screen and worked […]