Category Archives: Key problems

Lessons from the trenches (of Scrum)

I was talking to a great person at a firm that will not be named. He is in charge of a large implementation of Agile for a large group within a much larger organization. They start their teams with Agile (Scrum) training and a hands-on workshop, and also provide coaching to each team from a […]

Leadership – 2

“To lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!’” — Lao-Tsu […]

Agile & Religion – 1

I heard recently someone comment: “Well, watch out for those guys who get too religious about Agile. We don’t want that around here.” This general topic gets talked about in the Agile community a lot, and, I think, often ineffectively. But I think it is a difficult topic. It is hard to explain the issues […]

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Just finished “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera. As a start, see this. I drew a few observations from the book about our work. Surprise! In our work, we too feel everything is unbelievably ‘light’ and transient. At least some of us do, some of the time, and, with all of the change, […]

The goal

Elihu Goldratt wrote a book called “The Goal” that I recommend. Theory of Constraints, TOC, is embedded, to some degree, in Scrum. But I wanted to mention “the goal” in a different way. What is the goal of our courses? Being shy and modest by nature (okay, yes, I act differently if the part requires […]

The biggest impediment

To start the New Year, perhaps we should focus on the biggest impediment. Now, of course, we don’t know the biggest impediment at your place of business, but I can tell you what I see at clients, and what makes sense to me, given human nature. In my view, it is human nature to feel, […]

Responsibility

In my last post, I talked about responsibility, or mentioned it. As I was walking my dog today, I was thinking of what I would say.   thought of the famous line from that movie: “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.” (Network) [This is a rather complicated allusion, so apologies […]

Change

Taylor Swift just won the Grammy, I think, for album of the year. Maybe a few other Grammys, too. Taylor Swift has a song out called Change. Maybe “old” now by music industry standards. Watch the video here. In 1988 there was a movie with Uma Thurman called “Dangerous Liasons.” OK, Uma Thurman was not […]

Scrum Success Story

We hear a lot about all the problems of life. People are bad. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. (Help me W. B. Yeats, you’re my only hope.) Today I would like to share an unsolicited note: Jeff Sutherland and I are doing a CSM class next week (Dec. 15 through Dec. 16) in […]

What is Scrum?

I am excited to be giving a Certified ScrumMaster course with Jeff Sutherland next week in Richmond, Virginia. So, I was thinking: What is the essence of Scrum if you would play the game well? (Remember that Scrum is named for the Scrum formation in Rugby. We often show a video of the famous All […]