Use the river diagram to communicate data

I run a lot of workshops, including planning workshops and retrospectives. Sometimes the crew votes on things like “what is the best feature, or how did we go this time.” But sometimes we collect data and then want to discuss it as a team. And this presents a challenge – I like data in a […]

Using value stream maps

A value stream is a “Lean Manufacturing” tool. It is a way to identify where customers experience value and where we consume value to provide our product or service. The approach is quite simple.

Manual regression testing may not suck so badly after all

I often work with good developers and one thing I notice about all good developers is that they seem to love the idea of building robots. Bad developers see problems and sit there waiting for someone to come up with a solution in enough detail for the developer to transcribe the solution into code, much […]

A daily status meeting? Really? Now you want daily performance measures? Really?

I run agile training courses and I often preach the benefit of a daily standup. The idea is that it is 15 minutes a day where everyone in the team lists What they have done since last time What they will do today What obstacle or issue is in their way It works really well […]

Measuring the impact on production support

I was running a course in agile development when I mentioned that one of the good things about agile is being able go live with something valuable sooner. One of the class asked whether you can measure the benefit of going live sooner. “Of course,” I replied, “and of course you should be doing so”. […]

Agile governance and the problem with measuring self-organising teams

I have been in some interesting conversations recently about agile development teams and sound organisational governance. One of the challenges faced by organisations is that the traditional measures used to monitor and control teams are not necessarily suited to the style and approach of agile teams, while agile approaches may seem to remain silent on, […]

Talking about retrospectives on another blog

I was running a course on “facilitating workshops in agile projects” when some of the crew asked what different questions they could ask in retrospectives (instead of just “what worked and what didn’t). We got talking about the retrospective at the end of a project. So I published a story of sorts on how to run a […]