Coaching: the sometimes forgotten element in Agile coaching
As Agile coaches, we can sometimes get caught up in the process of changing a company’s software development culture and we can forget the most important aspect of bringing about that change: the people. Without the people, there is no corporate culture and nothing to change. In more than half …
Agile nightmare – The attractive trap of local optimization
“Is Agility really supposed to work like that?!” Vicky, a former project manager passionate about Agility who became Scrum Master during the Agile transformation of her big organization, feels like she is living a nightmare worse than what she remembers of the traditional mode. Her team’s sprint planning is at …
Measuring success – How do you verify the success of your projects?
Being always on the lookout for new ways of reaching the objectives fixed for projects, I was affected by this article: Informatisation à la justice: une dépense inutile de 75M$ (Computerization of Justice: unnecessary expenses of $75M). Not so much because it is a public project, but rather because I …
Black Gold and Agility
Scrum proposes an empirical approach to software development and invites us to focus first on delivered value instead of delivered quantity. Despite that, we notice that even after several years of practice, few teams succeed in actually applying this empirical approach. They stay well anchored in linear thinking that guides …
5 personal challenges when building Agile organizations
This article was initialy published on jesusmendez.ca #5. Be the coach and fight back old habits My ego feels great when I am invited to join crucial conversations at every level (strategic, tactic or operational), given my privileged position when starting continuous improvement transformations. The thing is, it doesn’t matter how …
Scrum turns 21 and it is not done yet
Special Collaboration Dave West, Product Owner of Scrum.org Dave West is the Product Owner at Scrum.org. He is a frequent keynote speaker and is a widely published author of articles, along with his acclaimed book: Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design. He led the development of the Rational Unified Process …
The Everyday Agilist ponders Agile Culture
When I awoke this morning, even before I had had a chance to pour my morning coffee, I had this burning question on my mind: “Why do we have to work so hard to get an Agile culture to take root in the work place when it grows naturally in …
Why a Scrum Master?
Nowadays, Scrum is the most used Agile framework for the majority of organizations wanting to adopt an Agile approach. More and more, I find out that several aspects of Agility are poorly understood or even not at all. A little while ago, I wrote a blog post named Why Scrum? …
Is there a PO in the room?
Within the context of product development, the fact that Agile planning is based on business value emphasizes the essentiality of the role of the Product Owner (PO). In this regard, we wish to present considerations that can be useful when choosing the person who will play this key role. …
Being Agile beyond Scrum
Like many of us, I started my Agile journey by looking at the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. With my team, we decided we’d try our hands at Scrum. The guide seemed quite clear, it made sense, and furthermore it seemed pretty lightweight compared to our usual project management methodologies. …