Interesting: The Business Value Game. If you have tried it out with clients or with a team, please let us know in the comments!
Link: Business Value Game
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Category Archives: Links to Agile Info
Scrum Gathering – Orlando Florida – Day 1 Summary
The first day of the Scrum Gathering in Orlando is finished. I had a great day all-in-all. I went to 3 and a half sessions, took a nice sun break in the afternoon, and then mingled at the evening reception.
Some observations:
More People Using Agile and Scrum for Non-Software
This was interesting. When I actually spent time talking with people I heard several times that people were using agile approaches in non-software environments. One person is working with an oil company to apply agile methods to all project work. Another two people are extending agile / Scrum into marketing departments. And one other person was applying agile into the whole organization.
Of course, with OpenAgile, I’m very interested in all this. I’m hoping that I can organize some sort of group / institute / organization for people using agile methods outside of software development. If you’re interested, please contact me on LinkedIn or Facebook or any other method you wish. People seemed to be in general agreement that this is still new stuff, and that they are having to make adaptations to make agile work in these other environments. After all, not all work is purely creative or problem-solving!
Economic and Recession Fears
Gregory Balestrero gave a talk about the relationship between the PMI and the Scrum Alliance. I felt that his talk was much more 30000 foot level and that it probably wasn’t quite right for the audience. The questions people asked at the end seemed much more appropriate for someone who was an author of the PMBoK rather than the CEO of the PMI. There was a mis-match between presenter and audience. At any rate, Gregory spoke quite a bit about the economy and the fears people have about it. He emphasized that this time actually represents a real opportunity for organizations to get better at doing projects by focusing on value. I couldn’t agree more!
As well, in my discussions with several other individuals who are coaches or run agile coaching businesses, I heard quite frequently that the past few months have been hard on business here in the United States. One company has actually laid off some coaches. This is in line with our experience at Berteig Consulting… up to a point. December and January were slow, and in fact slower than “normal”, but we still did very well in the Dec. to Feb. quarter. Clearly the Canadian market is still moving well, and there is a recognition that agile and Scrum are a means to help organizations get through these tough times.
One a related note, the resort we are staying in and in which the conference is being held is the Gaylord Palms. Apparently, bookings are way down at the hotel to the point where they have temporarily closed some of the restaurants in the resort. Likewise, when my family went to a water park during the day today, some of the rides were closed because there were so few people. Please remember: this is Spring Break!!! Clearly tourism is _way_ down.
Reconnecting with Friends and Collegues
I’ve met up with (in no particular order): Tobias Mayer, Alistair Cockburn, Catherine Louis (from Nortel), Sanjiv Augustine, Mike Vizdos, Carole Marks, Mitch Lacey, Jim Cundiff, Gabby Benefield, and probably others that I can’t remember.
I also met for the first time several people. I hope I can keep in touch with everyone!
Highlight of the Day
Mike Cohn gave a presentation on Leading Self-Organizing Teams. It was fantastic. My favorite part of it was his introducing the CDE (Containers, Differences and transforming Exchanges) model. In this model, self-organization is positively influenced by appropriate constraints on the containers, differences and transforming exchanges among the people who are asked to self-organize. To explain: containers define in-ness vs. out-ness for participation, scope of work, environment of the group that is self-organizing. Differences are the variations in the skills, qualities, attitudes, knowledge etc. of group members. And transforming exchanges are the interactions between group members both amongst each other and with outside groups, where such interactions cause a transformation of some sort: creation of value, sharing of knowledge, new activities, etc.
By using the CDE model, we can diagnose challenges facing an agile team. Mike Cohn included a number of scenarios for us to use to practice the application of this model.
Looking Forward to Day 2
Hopefully Day 2, which is primarily and Open Space event, will be even more interesting that Day 1. I will continue to post frequent articles about the events of the day! Please feel free to ask for more details in the comments… or to suggest that I connect with someone, or to bring up a topic for the Open Space portion.
Agile Management – Two Quick Links
First, I did a conference telecast today. You can download the recording of the talk “Recession Proof Your Business with Agile Management“.
Second, Esther Derby has written a good article about what management needs to do to have a successful agile implementation.
The Atomic Rules of Kaizen
Neat little article: The Atomic Rules of Kaizen. From the article:
Systems that are internally consistent and externally pragmatic stem from just a few rules. Systems with exceedingly many rules typically fail or will not endure….
In Kaizen, it is important to have fidelity to just a few atomic rules, from which a range of behavior will originate. Below are the rules that I subscribe to:
- Spend no Money
- Add no People
- Add no Space
- Add no Steps (Touches)
I like the idea of having simple rules like this. The short list is memorable.
Agile Group for Twitter
Gerry Kirk introduced me to an agile group for Twitter that he set up, and has a page on his site with instructions about how to use the group.
Agile Guidance Engineering – Applying Agile to Writing Projects
Thanks to Christian Gruber of Geek in a Suite for pointing me to this fascinating use of agile on writing projects: Agile Guidance Engineering.
Agile Productivity Measures
Scott Ambler has written a couple good articles about measuring productivity with velocity. Acceleration: An Agile Productivity Measure. and Examining Acceleration.
From what I understand, this is a measure of the effect of agile on the relative improvement over time of a team. I would beg to differ that it is a measure of productivity. Productivity is value delivered over time. If team A is delivering $5/week and team B is delivering $5000/week, then knowing that team A is accelerating faster than team B isn’t terribly important, particularly if the market can’t bear to absorb $6/week of whatever team A is producing.
Measuring productivity is hard. I would love to hear from people who have tried various means to measure productivity. I measure productivity in our business, but I can do that because we are small and everything we do has a direct effect on the bottom line. Does your business run with that transparency? If not, why not?
Stixy.com – For Flexible Online Creation Collaboration and Sharing
Wow: stixy.com
Two Cool Case Studies
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/28/ge.html – GE Jet Engine Factory with self-organizing teams.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html – super rigorous software development… the complete opposite of agile!
The Decline and Fall of Agile and How Scrum Makes it Hurt More
James Shore wrote a great post about the problems he is seeing with agile adoptions that start with Scrum called the Decline and Fall of Agile. Please please please (pretty please) read it before you read what I am about to write here! I agree with what James is saying 100%.
Now, let’s hear the truth:
Scrum is really really hard! Doing Scrum well is like quitting a heavy, long addiction (I think). Don’t ever make the mistake that because Scrum is simple (lack of complexity) that it is somehow therefore easy (lack of effort).
Doing Scrum properly takes:
sacrifice – sacrifice of our ways of thinking, our habits, our comfort
wisdom – wisdom to see the small improvements while struggling with the humongeous ones
and most importantly,
truthfulness – honesty to see and say the truth, integrity to act on the truth, detachment to avoid believing in what you want instead of what is real, courage to continue even when things aren’t perfect or easy
Scrum depends heavily on commitment both at the small scale of an individual committing to a small piece of work, and at the large scale of an organization committing to real deep cultural change. Without that entire spectrum of commitment, it is unlikely that adopting Scrum will be anything but the latest fad imposed by management or done stealthily by staff.
But Scrum isn’t the only “agile” method. As James points out, the engineering practices of Extreme Programming such as pair programming, test driven development, continuous integration, evolutionary design and refactoring are all critical. Do they have to be done and perfected first? No. But eventually, if you are using Scrum to build software (not everyone is), they do have to be done.
As a Certified Scrum Trainer, I have always emphasized how Scrum is hard, and how being a ScrumMaster is very very very hard. This is why my training class is three days instead of two. This is why I don’t encourage anyone to come to it, only people who will be ScrumMasters. This is why after the first day of my course, most students are actually feeling quite discouraged!!! It takes three days minimum for people to understand and process the incredible shift in mental model. And of course, even after three days, it is oh so easy to revert back to our normal thinking habits.
So what should people do? Do Scrum by the book. Yes that means putting a whole team in a single room. Yes it means that you have to really remove obstacles, and fast! Yes that means that your teams actually have to be cross functional (and not just in the weak sense of multi-skilled developers). Yes that means that it – will – take – a – long – time – to – get – it – right!!!!
And please, it is so worth getting help beyond just the training! If you think that I’m just trying to promote my own coaching services, please go check out:
They all have great coaches and I would absolutely way rather see you succeed than believe that I am just trying to promote my own business.
Agile in Ottawa – Meetup on the 24th
Glenn Waters whom I have worked with in the past, is getting the Agile community in Ottawa up and running again. Check out the details on his blog: Agile Ottawa.
Journal of Agile/Scrum Failures
Here is the link, check it out:
http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2008/07/journal-of-agilescrum-failure.html
Extremely Short Iterations – Agile 2008 Experience Report
Infoq published the video recording of my talk at Agile 2008 titled “Extremely Short Iterations as a Catalyst for Effective Prioritization of Work“.
Command Scrum – Productivity at What Cost?
I highly recommend reading two articles about the possibility of imposing Scrum on a team and what the results are of doing so. The first, an article titled “Shock Therapy” by Jeff Sutherland with an extensive report from Scott Downey of MySpace. The second article, “Shock Therapy or Compassion” by Tobias Mayer, provides a thought-provoking alternative view. The only addition I would like to make is just to ask a simple question: is everyone motivated by the same thing? I suspect that the knee-jerk reaction is a big resounding “no”, but I ask you, my gentle reader, to consider more deeply. Does anyone really get satisfaction out of purposeless work, no matter the other rewards? There is a strong case to be made that in fact humans thrive on solving meaningful problems… problems that are meaningful to themselves, their community and to humanity in general.
I would also like to point out some coaching models that often start with short term pain, discomfort and even a strong desire to rebel: a personal trainer at a gym, a business coach, a life coach, an executive coach, etc. etc. The trick is, of course, that you get into the coaching voluntarily in the first place. You put yourself in the coach’s hands and trust / suspend disbelief for just a short time while the coach helps you go through the discomfort.
It takes a good coach to make this work.
The benefits are huge. Anyone who has made it to the other side of that discomfort knows this. Anyone who hasn’t made it to the other side is going to be understandably skeptical.
So is what Jeff and Scott are describing really “command-and-control” Scrum? Is it breaking the principles of Self-Organizing teams? I don’t think so, but how about you? What do you think? Do you think you would be better off or worse off with this sort of “help” with starting Scrum?
Great Blog: Lean Software Engineering
Christian Gruber pointed out a great blog to me today: Lean Software Engineering. I’ve read a few of the articles and I like them. I don’t agree with every detail, but I’m pretty happy with what I see there. In particular, I really liked the article on using a Priority Filter. The idea of a priority filter is a great operational technique but it makes it difficult to clearly justify the cost-benefit of doing the work. Picking the highest priority item from a set of items that all have a negative return is still a bad way of working. The technique could easily be combined with an analytical assessment of the value of a piece of work relative to the cost of the team (and any capital costs).