Category Archives: Agile
Productive teams, powerful results
Happy, empowered teams are orders of magnitude more impactful than mercenary developers. Developers need: Autonomy Psychological Safety Time to focus Time to innovate For everything you need to know about productive development teams, read Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (Amazon) High-Performing Teams Need Pyschological Safety (HBR Article)
Lean learning machine
Building lean products is the best way to learn and iterate to success. Kanbanize Lean Management The 5 Lean Principles The lean product playbook The Lean Startup Sprint (How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days)
Scaling Scrum: Achieve More with Less
SAFe is built for consultants who bill by the hour. Management likes the perceived empirical benefits of SAFe, but dev teams prefer LeSS. Achieve more with LeSS (Large Scale Scrum). https://less.works/
Fix systems, not symptoms: System Dynamics
Don’t fix symptoms, improve systems https://less.works/less/principles/systems-thinking
Understanding Roadmaps
The following article and book explain roadmaps better than I can, so I’ll be brief. Roadmaps are a tool for communicating direction. They are not a gantt chart, and they are not a rock-solid commitment. Certainty degrades over time, and roadmaps should only be detailed enough to communicate direction over time, without becoming a burden…
Iterate to Innovate
Iterate to innovate Take the Product Design course at UDacity https://classroom.udacity.com/courses/ud509
Accurate Software Estimation
Agile software estimating. PLACEHOLDER DRAFT Accuracy vs Precision Explain Cone of uncertainty Explain Great book on estimation: Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art (Steve McConnell) https://www.amazon.com/Software-Estimation-Demystifying-Developer-Practices/dp/0735605351 Anyone interested improving their agile estimation skills should take: Estimating with story points https://learn.mountaingoatsoftware.com/estimating-with-story-points/ Agile Estimating and Planning https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/training/courses/agile-estimating-planning Additional reading: https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/how-to-estimate-story-points-with-multiple-teams https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/what-are-story-points https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/story-point-estimates-are-best-thought-of-as-ranges