Being in my ninth year of applying the processes and technical practices of Agile and Lean software development, people are sometimes surprised to hear me say that Scrum is still my preferred process. Let me explain. Scrum was designed to enable empirical process control for… Read More »Empirical Process Control: Why Scrum Works
I consult with all sorts of companies looking to adopt elements of process and practice from the Agile/Lean offerings. Whether it’s Scrum, Test-Driven Development, User Stories, Test Automation, Continuous Integration, Agile Estimation and Planning, Sprint Planning, or Sprint Retrospective facilitation, one challenge pervades across most… Read More »The Discipline Deficit
I was recently catching up on episodes of The Java Posse, and came to the one that features an Open Spaces topic I convened at last year’s Java Posse Roundup, Should We Shoot Agile in the Head? It was a vibrant conversation with plenty of… Read More »Is Agile/Lean as good as it gets?
There is one question I can guarantee someone will ask as I begin an engagement with a new client. It usually comes in the second half of the first major session I have, called the Agile Orientation. By that point in the initial training, we… Read More »Agile: Your Mileage *Will* Vary
This installation of the Agile with External Clients series shows the relationship between how an engagement is sold and how that affects a group’s attempt to execute the project using an Agile approach. Let’s start with a maxim for every member of a professional services… Read More »Agile with External Clients: To Run It Agile, Sell It Agile
I speak at conferences around the country each year, most often on the topic of real-world, full-blown application of Agile Software Development using Scrum. I always appreciate when folks come to me after the end of a conference talk to ask questions about the topic… Read More »Agile with External Clients