Yearly Archives: 2014

Agile Contracts: Another resource

Here is an additional resource from some smart people: http://agilecontracts.org/ More specifically: http://www.agilecontracts.org/agile_contracts_primer.pdf This is from Craig Larman and Bas Vodde’s book, Practices for Scaling Lean and Agile Development. Note: Be careful when studying ‘agile contracts.’  Often different authors or thinkers or speakers have very different goals or situations in mind.  One might think they […]

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Question: The Basics of Agile Contracts

Melinda asks: “How can SCRUM/Agile Methods be effectively leveraged for responding to RFP/proposals for Fixed Price & Fixed Date contracts especially when the Scope (i.e., Product Backlog) is more adaptive to change? When would CRs be required, if at all? How can we help customers understand and be confident that they will receive greater value […]

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6 Myths of Product Development – Take 2

Months ago, I mentioned here a great article. It is the article titled: Six Myths of Product Development, by Stefan Thomke and Donald Reinertsen.  From the Harvard Business Review.  These are mostly lean product development ideas. Strongly recommended.  Especially good for managers and executives. Here are the fallacies or myths it mentions in one list: […]

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Question: How do I implement Scrum?

Question from Denise: “My organization has decided to go from Waterfall to Agile SCRUM. I have experience with SCRUM, but very little experience implementing it. I was wondering if anybody has this experience? If so, what were some of the challenges you faced? Lessons learned? Best practices?” Answer: This is a big question. And no […]

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The Retrospective and uncovering the best impediments

I chuckle when I say ‘best’ impediments.  Because, by its nature, an impediment is something that is slowing the team down.  It is ‘bad.’ But, to get better, the Team must focus on the most important things first.  And this is true for impediments.  We must fix the most important impediment first. It is human […]

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Agile Reading for Executives

A recent email I sent, slightly edited. ____________________________________ Dear Mike and Mark, You asked for something to give the executives and managers. I might send them “The New New Product Development Game” article (see below), with a short explanation. And then, offer these other things to review. Other options: “Software in 30 Days” by Ken […]

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Retrospectives and the role of the SM

A very bright and quick class attendee asked: Why don’t you talk in the class more about Retrospectives? And why so much about the PO? Why do you focus on the basics so much?  I want more advanced materials. *** First, I actually think we do these things, as explained below. We do talk about […]

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Planning Poker Tools

Updated:  9/27/2023 Mike Cohn has the phrase ‘planning poker’ registered.  So, this is acknowledgement of that. And, like Kleenex, that’s what we call the thing itself.  It no longer has a generic name. A more descriptive name is maybe ‘wide-band delphi estimation using the Fibonacci sequence.’  But planning poker and priority poker are faster.  Planning […]

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Impediments – Charlotte Class Jan 2-3

Here are some impediments that were identified. Lack of awareness of other projects Unwillingness to say ‘no’ Clearing plate of current projects Poorly prioritized projects by management Pulled off project Poorly defined reqs Access to stakeholder / SME Reaction to rapid market changes / demands Budget ? People –> Teams In addition, these impediments were […]

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When should we do Agile?

This is a question many have asked, and here is my approach to answering it. Let me refine the question a bit.  For a specific project or set of work, when do we do Agile or should we use something else (waterfall)?  (This might be the first project or the next project that comes to […]

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