Agile

10
Jan

Agile Transformation Smells – No Clear Vision

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.” ~ Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland) ————————————————————————————————————————— In Stephen Covey’s best selling book ‘The

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3
Jan

The ‘copy & paste’ approach to agile transformation

I recently came across this picture. It made me laugh. Then I remembered the number of organisations approaching agile transformations in the same way… and the laughing stopped. Immediately. Typically characterized by statements such as… “We’re going to take what they did at my last company and do it here.” or “Spotify…” (need I say more?) … the ‘copy &

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22
Jun

Why the Agile enterprise must be an innovation network…

As an agile coach, I find that organisations often have a narrow and constrained view of where agility ought to be practiced. They frequently see it as an IT thing, where development teams must optimise their way-of-working to deliver value more quickly and cheaply. In truth of course, if agility is to be attained then it must be enterprise-wide and

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25
Mar

Scrum Day London, May 2016

Scrum Day London is the first event of its kind to be held in the United Kingdom. It will explore the need and demand for Agility across the private and public sector.   Theme: Business Agility Through Professional Scrum Scrum Day London 2016 will be the inaugural conference organised by Akaditi.com in partnership with Advanced Product Development Ltd & Scrum.Org

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17
Jun

The Subtle Difference Between ‘Doing’ and ‘Being’ Agile

I recently caught up with an old friend for a quick drink. A quick drink turned into a quick few more — then a quick few more, more! But who’s counting? I digress — back to the story. After a couple of drinks my friend started opening up about some personal stuff happening in his life. He was unhappy at

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2
Feb

Fail Often So You Can Succeed Sooner!

Many people live in fear of failure. But what they fail to realise is that failure comes before learning; even in the dictionary. That’s because learning tends to happen when we step outside our current comfort zone and move from the known to the unknown. And in the process, we’re likely to get things wrong before we get them right. Accepting this as part of life

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27
Jan

Is Value More Important Than Velocity?

We’ve all heard the ‘promise’ that Agile done properly can result in reduced costs, higher quality and quicker times to market. But what exactly does it take to realise those benefits? And should managers/teams be focusing on velocity or business value delivered? In this video, Agile coach Jeff “Cheezy” Morgan shares a number of effective practices and strategies for cutting costs and delivering high

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20
Jan

Never Put Off Until Tomorrow What You Can Do The Day After

A fundamental truth in life is that there’ll always be more to do than we’ll have time or money to do. Always! And although projects are (arguably) a part of life, some Project Managers/Customers/Clients still believe they can defy this fundamental truth by introducing Agile – and then using it as an excuse to make unrealistic demands from delivery teams/suppliers. However, the goal of Agile is not to

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14
Jan

Epistemic Arrogance on Agile Projects

In the book ‘Black Swan’ Nassim Taleb introduces the concept of epistemic arrogance: where what a person thinks they know exceeds what they actually know. On Agile projects, epistemic arrogance is evident when there’s a mis-match between what we think the customer needs and what the customer actually needs – something David Hussman refers to as ‘Product Arrogance’. Although one of the

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22
Dec

Why Managers Should Stop Managing and Start Leading

Although companies might be having some success with Agile at the team level, scaling Agile at the enterprise level presents a new set of challenges – and therefore, requires a different approach. For example, whereas team dynamics and customer collaboration might be key at the delivery level,  leadership becomes a critical success (or failure) factor at the enterprise level. So

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