Category Archives: Agile / Lean

Hyper-productive teams? Ruthlessly pruned backlog!

Posted on November 8, 2012 by

Most of the agile transitions I’ve had insight into were mandated by management. They were motivated by an ever-growing pile of requests that exceeds the developers’ capacity several times over. The tales of “hyper-productive teams” lead them to think Scrum … Continue reading →

Posted in Agile / Lean, Change, Decision Making, Food for Thought | Leave a comment

While we’re at it…

Posted on October 30, 2012 by

There I am discussing a feature with my colleagues, when one of them says the words of scope creep doom: “While we’re at it, we might as well implement that other feature (that belongs in the same component). It would … Continue reading →

Posted in Agile / Lean, Fairly Good Practice, Software Craftsmanship | Leave a comment

Is Scrum a Shu-Stage of Agile?

Posted on October 23, 2012 by

In my filter bubble there is this trend of teams switching to Kanban after they’ve used Scrum for a while. Typically they had been successful with Scrum and switched to Kanban, when they felt they’d taken Scrum as far as … Continue reading →

Posted in Agile / Lean, Change, Food for Thought, Kanban, Scrum, Scrum Master | 8 Comments

Give feedback to new team members with SaMoLo

Posted on September 30, 2012 by

It’s helpful for new employees to get feedback on how they’re doing in order to adjust to their new workspace. In traditional companies this might be done by a team lead or superior. In Scrum – as so many other … Continue reading →

Posted in Agile / Lean, Fairly Good Practice, Scrum, Scrum Master, Self-Organization | 2 Comments

Quitting as a Scrum Master

Posted on September 10, 2012 by

About a year ago I felt miserable at work. Being a scrum master felt like repeatedly slamming myself face-first into a brick wall. I researched what happens when scrum masters quit and couldn’t find anything anywhere. There are tales of … Continue reading →

Posted in Agile / Lean, Food for Thought, Scrum, Scrum Master | 6 Comments

Four-sides model & the relationship layer

Posted on August 28, 2012 by

I’ve just spend a lovely weekend at FrOSCon, the “Free and Open Source Software Conference”, in Bonn. One of the talks I attended was “Projektstatus: Nachrichten vom anderen Stern” (“Project status: Messages from a different star”) about communication. I wish … Continue reading →

Posted in Communication, Scrum Master | Leave a comment

Kanban in 5 Steps – Visualization

Posted on August 19, 2012 by

Just like the last post with a map of Agile & Lean this one contains material for my upcoming talk at the FrOSCon in St. Augustin, near Bonn – August 25th and 26th, 2012. This one is about the 5 … Continue reading →

Posted in Kanban, Resource, Visualization | Leave a comment

Land of Lean & Agile

Posted on August 5, 2012 by

On Sunday, August 26th (2012), I’ll talk about “Agile & Lean” at the FrOSCon in St. Augustin, near Bonn. I’ve got 45 minutes to give the audience a brief orientation. Ambitious, I know. I’ll base the “slides” (I’m gonna use … Continue reading →

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Get the wheeled flipchart

Posted on July 9, 2012 by

Following up on my ode to whiteboards, here’s some very practical advice for people researching what flipchart to buy: Don’t buy one of the 3-legged ones like shown in the image on the left. Maybe it’s just me, but I … Continue reading →

Posted in Communication, Scrum Master, Visualization | 2 Comments

Visualize it! – An ode to whiteboards

Posted on July 4, 2012 by

Two months ago I started a new job. I left nice old colleagues and got nice new colleagues. The companies are the same size. No big diff there. But there is a very visible difference in the respective offices: Old … Continue reading →

Posted in Agile / Lean, Communication, Decision Making, Fairly Good Practice, Self-Organization, Visualization | 1 Comment