Chances are that you heard any of these claims or similar at some point of your career especially if you work in IT and Software Development:– “We used Agile in a previous project and it wasn’t good“– “I have worked in Agile before and it didn’t work“– “Agile doesn’t work for us“– “Agile doesn’t work“ […]
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Category: Agile
Does Agile work? And who should answer the question?
Before revealing the answer to these million dollar questions, in this article I will try to clean up some misconceptions and cover some basis on the role of an Agile coach (Scrum Master). As explained by Lyssa Adkins (co-author of the Agile coaching competency framework) there is no hierarchy or substantial difference between Agile coach […]
Kanban – the garden, the restaurant and the dump
In this article I am going to describe some conditions under which a team adopting Kanban can be set up for success or failure. Historically used in the manufacturing industry, Kanban has been incorporated in the successful Toyota Production System (TPS). Kanban is one of the most known Agile frameworks and often over-simplified with the […]
Ways of eating, working, evolving in a bitesize
Whatever food we eat, the size of our mouth doesn’t change. Whatever food you eat, no matter the portion, whether at a fast food or a gigantic wedding banquet, the size of your mouth doesn’t change.It grows proportionally with your age but it doesn’t depend on the meal presented to you. Whether you eat using […]
No time for agile meetings
One of the most recurring topics in many organizations is time spent on meetings. If you are a Scrum Master, you may find yourself rolling your eyes like in a Robert Downey Jr meme and you wish you would get a euro for every time you hear someone saying in agile there are too many meetings. […]
How a strong team culture helps the team heal
Making errors is part of the job. We don’t know what and when but we know that will happen. It can happen many times a day or a week, at work as well as in our everyday lives. Someone says that the only way to avoid mistakes is doing nothing. I disagree. Sometimes, not taking action is […]
Changes are Welcome
There are different levels of understanding Agile.The first one is where you care about rules. You take every best practice, guide, book, training suggestion and you make a strict process out of context and without interpreting the reality. That’s not Agile. That’s you using Agile to cover your need of implementing bureaucratic policies.That’s you not willing […]
Simple Agile Metrics
Once your team starts work, the most recurring question your stakeholders ask is likely to be “When will it be done?”Agile and its frameworks do not strictly prescribe any specific set of metrics. Values, techniques, practices and definitions can help organizations navigate different strategies and identify the best approach for each situation. Here I would […]
Happiness as an organisational performance metric
Are “happy” workforces more productive?You would be surprised to know that the problem on how to quantify happiness is well known and solved from decades. You can measure your “employee turnover” or attrition rate and infer happiness. You can use a more direct approach, similarly to the way you quantify your customer’s satisfaction with a Net Promoter […]
The Importance of trust in organisations
Trust is a pillar for many organizations nowadays.I remember seeing on the tv displays at the office many times a day the ubiquitous message “Microsoft is built on trust” when I worked there.Many organizations following the trend come up with similar mottos, insert the trust narrative into their vision, mission, or values. Every company claims to be […]