2 February 2012
paoloperrotta
,
OlafLewitz
We currently witness the beginning of a new era. It has been given various names, as nobody is yet able to predict its nature. It’s been called the conceptual age, information is not enough anymore. Relationships become more important, where “knowledge stacks are replaced by knowledge flows”. Abundance, connections and choice change the game: “Mass is dead. Here comes weird.”
26 January 2012
OlafLewitz
It is quite interesting to note how little most software developers know about hardware development. Many of us take it for granted that hardware development cannot match the pace of software. While this might be true for the case of the best software teams, able to update a software system every few minutes using continuous integration, for the common pace of biweekly software delivery this is nothing more than a false assumption.
At today’s ScrumTisch, the first chosen topic by the crowd was how to do Agile with non-software teams. We started the discussion with a short list of questions:
- What to show at the end of the timebox?
- How to set the length of the timebox?
Interestingly, these questions, although raised by the audience, apparently were not hot enough to actually get discussed... (the topic Agile Beyond Software is much broader than this post, I’m just covering what was discussed tonight—a touch on the surface...)
Hardware
It turned out, that the person suggesting the topic actually had a ...
12 January 2012
OlafLewitz
Agile might still be a small niche which apparently is not yet recognised by the “serious” business thinkers’ community. There seem to be people out there who are rethinking management and business for the 21st century, and we are not connected to them although collaboration between us could produce great results.
“Happy New Year! 2012 won't know what's hit it”.
Dave Sharrock after the agile42 Internal Coach Camp
We want to make Dave’s prediction a reality with the Agile with a Purpose blast (projects don’t hit, right?). We want you to know why we’re doing it.
Prepare to be astonished!
Some Background
Stephen Parry (@leanvoices) said at the ALE2011 conference that he would like to see agile/lean practitioners joining forces, using their distributed open social network to amplify their knowledge of how Agile works and how it should not be used ("to do the wrong ...
22 December 2011
OlafLewitz
Agile and Lean have a single purpose: to continually challenge the status quo. If you’re not doing that, you’re probably an impediment to it.
Olaf Lewitz
agile42 Coach.
Idea Farmer and Linchpin.
My motto is that of NannyMcPhee: "When you need me, but do not want me, I must stay. When you want me, but no longer need me, then I have to go."
- On
- 22 December 2011
- In
-
agile,
Agile with a Purpose,
Lean Management
- Tags
-
agile,
Kanban,
lean,
management,
Scrum
It’s nearly Christmas: time for wishes. This is how I envision and wish Agile and Lean to be (and I’ve seen it work, multiple times).
Value and Delight, On Time
The two pillars of Lean, as defined by Toyota, are continuous improvement (Kaizen) and respect people. Scrum and Agile are based on the Lean principles and disciplines. Agile and Lean (done right) enable your organisation to create the most value in a given amount of time—and to continuously increase your organisation’s capability to discover that value, shape scope and build awesome solutions.
To achieve predictability and ...
5 December 2011
ralfkruse81
The focus of the 4th lesson was on the product owner side. The preparation and organization of the work on the product is crucial for the success of product development. In small groups the students walked trough the whole process of creating a good vision and preparing & organizing the product backlog.
We started by building a product box to foster the ideas. It brought creativity and fun into this exercise and allowed to establish the foundation for a great vision. Here are some impressions of the product box exercise to build the vision:
From the vision we moved on by highlighting those requirements that represent our product differentiators.
The students then, starting from those requiremetns, created user stories and placed them into the Product Backlog. To structure it we used requirements and Minimal Marketable Features (MMFs). The MMFs are used to build minimal sets of functionality (by grouping together user stories ...
2 December 2011
fivancsich
Embrace to fail fast! Product Owner @riskmanagement Most people are afraid to fail. Shame, is the core of the fear of failure, as psychology research (see Dr. Brené Brown @TED) concluded, which is quite intuitively understandable. Fearing failure is helping you to fail, it does nothing else than that. In ...
Embrace failing fast!
Product Owner @riskmanagement
Most people are afraid to fail. Shame is at the core of the fear of failure, psychologists say (see Dr. Brené Brown @TED). The problem with fearing failure, though, is that it does nothing but help you fail.
In our western culture, shame is a driver to get others to do things. By using shame and guilt as tools, we do not only burden us with an emotional baggage that is wearing us down emotionally, but we also create a lot of dysfunctions as we hide mistakes in order not to be blamed.
Transparency ...
23 November 2011
ralfkruse81
In the second lesson I built awareness among the students that a common goal, good communication and teamwork is crucial for the success of a project. Therefore we played the agile42 Scrum Lego City Game.
We formed three teams, who worked together to build a Scrum Lego City.
In fixed timeboxes and with a clear vision, the teams made 3 sprints in order to build the city. They made a Sprint Planning and an estimation but the first sprint was a disaster. A lot of half done User Stories, there where no real integrated results and a lot of wrong assumptions about what was expected.
Why? Because they only worked together as individuals but not together as a team. Everybody was doing what he thought would be best. No right communication and no common understanding ...
16 November 2011
fivancsich
How long is your backlog? Many Product Owners I coached are obsessed by the length of their Product Backlog. While the fact that I only encountered three female Product Owners in my whole career, might explain parts of this phenomena, there is more to explore about this. A newbie Product ...
How long is your backlog?
Many Product Owners I coached are obsessed by the length of their Product Backlog. While the fact that I only encountered three female Product Owners in my whole career, might explain parts of this phenomena, there is more to explore about this.
A newbie Product Owner is often frightened about his backlog being too short. Having 15-20 User Stories ready for the next Sprint Planning is often hard for a beginner. After a while, it turns into an obsession, as a long Product Backlog gives a feeling of safety.
Guys, and the few Gals out ...
24 October 2011
ralfkruse81
Software is getting more and more complex and a lot of projects fail. The students experienced this problem simple exercise: The marshmallow challenge. The students had to build a tower out of spaghettis, cover-tape, a string and with a marshmallow on top in a fixed timebox of 18 minutes.
Well, the exercise worked out as expected. Three of four teams had no tower at the end. Pretty comparable to real software projects :-)
What happend?:
I gave them a complex environment with fixed circumstances and rules. Instead of trying and failing fast and often, they discussed nearly until the timebox was over or they added the marshmallow in the last second and the tower broke under the weight.
After also some other interactive sessions like the well known ball point game the students got the message and learned:
- Assumptions lead to wrong results - proof them fast and often
- Build your ...
17 October 2011
ralfkruse81
When I studied „Computer Science“, I did not learn much about agile software development, although, according to my curriculum I should have.Now, being an Agile Coach, I like to go back to the roots, helping “Agility” to become a part of the universities topics. My old university, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW), gives me the chance to do so.
As we all know a lot of projects failed in the past for various reason. Agile methods like Scrum seems to help solving that issue and therefore more and more companies start moving in the agile direction. My goal is to give the students an understanding of agile beyond the pure mechanics, so that they are learning the theory as well as real ways to work agile in order to prepare them for the real work environments.
In the lecture we will see and experience well known agile approaches like Scrum and Kanban, get an understanding of their background (Lean ...
