Sometimes ‘Transparency’ Just Means Not Lying
December 03, 2021Victor’s Shell Game Victor, a CTO, was a skilled swindler and played a marvelous shell game with his executive colleagues. Here’s how the…
Articles
I am a Professional Kanban Trainer with ProKanban.org
October 04, 2021As I write this, there are 46 people worldwide authorized by the authors of The Kanban Guide to deliver Professional Kanban courses. I am…
A Story of Release Gates: An Antipattern
July 24, 2021Antipattern: A pattern that may be commonly used but is ineffective and/or counterproductive in practice. A few years ago, I was hired by…
Continuous Deployment Is Now Table Stakes
July 24, 2021Dear software development manager, Excellent software teams can deploy code multiple times per day. Deploying code multiple times per day…
No Longer Tolerate ‘Blocked’ or ‘Waiting’ States
January 24, 20211 Month ago, I shared a thought at LinkedIn and the response was significant. It’s nice to see widespread agreement that this one, simple…
Empowerment Retro
October 06, 2020Foreword The following article was originally published in 2015 by my friend, colleague, and mentor, Mike Caspar . As he’s retired and in…
Agile Team Knowledge Retrospective — “Feeding the Machine for Corporate Review Season”
March 07, 2020Foreword The following article was originally published in 2012 by my friend, colleague, and mentor, Mike Caspar . I have re-published it…
An Agile Not-for-Profit Organization
February 29, 2020Guidelines that Encourage Action If you feel that work needs to be done – it probably does. So, go ahead with it. If you feel responsible…
“Can we use Scrum with ‘remote’ staff?”
September 26, 2019A Common Question I keep hearing from Scrum trainers that Scrum is not for remote teams. Is there any truth to that? The quick answer…
Certification Path for UX Leads
September 13, 2019Starting with APS (Applying Professional Scrum), a crash-course in iterative & incremental product development with self-organizing teams…
Certification Path for Testers
September 13, 2019Starting with APS (Applying Professional Scrum), a crash-course in iterative & incremental product development with self-organizing teams…
Certification Path for Solutions Architects
September 13, 2019What Is a Solutions Architect (SA)? In my experience, Solutions Architect is a job title applied to one of these two roles: A developer who…
Certification Path for Scrum Masters
September 13, 2019Great Scrum Masters have a well-developed interpersonal intelligence (an eye for team dynamics), excellent group-facilitation skills, broad…
Certifications: “If I Were You…”
September 13, 2019Considerations for Individuals — My Advice When individuals approach me with questions about training and certification, the conversation…
Certification & Training Paths for Agile Practitioners
September 13, 2019Context I am a Professional Scrum Trainer, PST, licensed by Scrum.org. I’ll not hide my obvious bias toward our catalogue of courses and…
Does Your Team Produce ‘Bugs’?
September 08, 2019Sub-title: Not Every Defect is a ‘Bug’ “Name It to Tame It.” Dr. Dan Siegal coined that phrase as a way of handling difficult emotional…
Defining Distributed, Remote, Co-located, and Dislocated Teams
July 28, 2019The Problem With so much discussion about teams and their work environments, it’s important we be careful with terminology…
Velocity: Escape this Pitfall!
June 17, 2019The map below illustrates a classic problem with the common use of 'velocity' as a metric. Scenario Your family travels each weekend to a…
I am a Professional Scrum Trainer with Scrum.org
December 27, 2018Approximately 600 people worldwide are authorized, by the authors of Scrum, to teach Scrum. I am honoured to be part of that expert…
The Art of Agile Product Documentation
November 20, 2018A Workshop Facilitation Guide This sense-making workshop helps teach a team how to simplify valuable documentation and reduce wasteful…
Looking for Work as a Scrum Master? Choose Wisely.
August 30, 2018It appears to me there are more jobs available for Scrum Masters than ever before! Why is it so hard for some people to find employment with…
Canada’s “Phoenix Project” is the Reason Scrum Is Important
April 10, 2018This is a story about one of Canada’s most amazing blunders. It's a story about a multi-billion dollar failed project and the reason Scrum…
A Scrum Team Increases Their Velocity by Doing Less Work
October 19, 2017A discussion is raging at LinkedIn about the Iron Triangle because the co-authors of Scrum say that “Scrum breaks the Iron Triangle…
A Week in the Life of a Scrum Team
January 01, 2017A Workshop Facilitation Guide The purposes of this activity are twofold: To illustrate for participants a few of the many real challenges…
If Your Up-Front Planning is Measured in Weeks, Then a Lean Startup is Going to Eat Your Lunch
October 30, 2015One of the most powerful assumptions built in to Agile methods is that we learn by doing — that our learning, our planning, our problem…