Estimation is a Cruel Mistress
Estimation is a thing of beauty. It’s the crystal ball that every business wants to allow perfect decisions to be made. It’s sort of a yearning, a siren song that calls to us and tells us everything...
View ArticleIdeal Days: Unnecessary Agile Evil?
Agile teams have a valid need for sizing or estimating user stories. Most teams use a dimensionless scale such as story points for estimating. In some quarters “Ideal Days” are often held out as...
View ArticlePlanning Horizons: Decision-making within Agile Frameworks
Organizations need to plan, it’s not a “nice-to-have option”, and they need to do it effectively at multiple levels. In the end, this planning needs to feed an enterprise’s ability to do financial...
View ArticleWhat’s the Right Ratio Between QA Testers and Developers?
I get asked this question all the time. And I think that the answer is both obvious and not at the same time. In any case, it’s not possible to answer what the ratio of developers to QA testers...
View ArticleStay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And Don’t Be Afraid to Say “Our Process Has No...
“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” Many people remember those words as a quote from Steve Jobs made during Jobs’ Stanford commencement address in 2005, where, among other things, he spoke about the Whole...
View ArticleCuriosity as a Leading Indicator of Agile Adoption Success
As I reflect on how engagements go, I’ve come to ask myself, “Why do some teams and organizations take to agile adoption better than others?” It’s a tough question. But one that is important to me as...
View ArticleRandom Issues in the Agile Transformation Bridge
The other day I was thinking about the problems I have been seeing with clients. My thoughts expanded from the current team and organization concerns to more general scope of experiences with other...
View ArticleWhy You Should Limit “Work in Progress”
Why You Should Limit “Work in Progress” Sometimes I sit down at the end of a day or even a week and am dismayed that I don’t seem to have really accomplished anything. I know I was very busy and I know...
View Article“The Wastes are Water”, and Other Advice from the Older Agile Fish.
I am a frequent speaker at conferences. People ask me “why do you go through all of that hardship to prepare and present?” My answer is that every time I put myself out, I gain more insight from...
View ArticleWhat Big User Stories Could be Telling You
User stories are intended to be a high level description of some functionality. It is, however, common to find user stories growing into specs or large use cases that resemble whatever the organization...
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