“Self-Selecting Teams” and “Dynamic Reteaming” are a big topic in my timeline thanks to the books by Sandy Mamoli & David Mole and the upcoming book by Heidi Helfand respectively. This made me relize that I’ve written about the composition of our teams over the course of the years but not about how people join …
Continue reading “How teams form and break up when there are no managers”
Maybe it’s because usability was such a strong focus of mine for such a long time but I feel like most good ideas boil down to usability. It’s kind of my “grand unifying theory of good practices”. To me, Agile Software Development is about providing good usability to the customer (not necessarily the user). Clean …
Continue reading “Agile is about usability. So is Clean Code.”
When you let the writing on whiteboards stay on for long enough – say, a couple of month – dry-erase markers stop being “dry-erase” and start being “leave unwipeable shadowy traces behind”. You’re left with an unsightly board, no matter how often you wipe. Water doesn’t help, at least not against dried up German Edding …
Continue reading “How to get a very dirty whiteboard sparkly clean”
From Kat Matfield’s session “User Research in an irrational world”: 1) If at all possible, look at records of what people actually did in the real-world situation, (screen recordings, chat logs, …) instead of putting them into a research situation (in which they will always pay more attention) or asking them to remember (memory is …
Continue reading “5 more things I learned at Agile on the Beach 2016”
As you know, I’m a sucker for a good metaphor be they coconuts or hosting. I’ve got a great new one for you: Baby Elephants! Fantastic, right? Well, yes, it’s promising. Baby elephants – What’s not to like. But what are they a metaphor for, pray tell? Judith Andresen introduced baby elephants as a metaphor …
All my sketchnotes from AotB 2016:
One of the topics in Darci Dutcher’s session “Running Killer Workshops Without Killing Yourself” at Agile on the Beach was promisingly called ‘Sticky note party tricks’. “Don’t really use them at a party. Other people do not get excited about sticky notes.” – Darci Dutcher Well, I’m the kind of person who does get excited …
Do you know this inner debate when you’re facilitating and somebody keeps monologuing: “Is this still relevant? Should I stop him? Do the others look bored? I should cut him off …” That makes me judge and jury about whether something is still relevant to the whole group. I don’t like to make that call. …
Continue reading “Self-Regulating Discussions with Jeff Patton’s Cups”
At the beginning of September I was at Agile on the Beach 2016. It was just as good as I expected, which says a lot given that I had really high expectations! Fantastic talks, learned tons, in beautiful sunny Cornwall – what’s not to like? Well, one thing. It’s a pet peeve of mine: Despite …
[English summary: We wrote a book at work (in German) and it turned out amazing!!! It’s a cross between coffee table and business book. Watch out for “24 Work Hacks“! If you’d be interested in an English version, tell me so that I can make a case for translating it 🙂 ] Endlich, endlich, darf …
