Different Retrospectives and pre-mortems

On October 14, 2016October 15, 2016 By James KingIn Agile development, Implementation, ObservationsLeave a comment

One of the most powerful components of agile approaches is the retrospective. I often think that even if a team does not know what “agile” is, if that team pauses on a regular basis and reflects on how to get better at what they do, then they would invent most of the other agile practices for themselves.

But stopping on a regular basis can get stale after a while, so I thought I would sharer some slightly different sets of questions that you can use to keep things fresh.

Continue reading “Different Retrospectives and pre-mortems” →

A choose your own adventure for agile coaches

On July 6, 2016July 6, 2016 By James KingIn Agile fables, Observations1 Comment

Following a discussion I had in a recent class on agile coaching, I said I would create a “Choose your own adventure book.”

I have only done 3 pages but if you are interested then have a look

https://kingsaddress.wordpress.com/

If people like it then I might add some more content but for the moment it only has some comments on the different approaches to agile coaching that Lao Tzu and Confucius recommend.

Minor update to role speed dating

On June 30, 2016July 1, 2016 By James KingIn Agile development, ObservationsLeave a comment

Running through the speed dating exercise I sometimes do, we tried a variant.

We had a meeting with leaders across several teams that integrates together. So we went through the usual job summary to see if people had a similar focus and understanding of their roles:

Continue reading “Minor update to role speed dating” →

Dealing with baddies on agile projects

On May 16, 2016May 17, 2016 By James KingIn Agile development, Arguing, ImplementationLeave a comment

[Editors note – this is a long an obscure article that made sense to me and some people I explained it to. If it is not making sense half way through abort rather than continuing … it either makes sense early on or does not make sense at all]

I was running an agile course on how to facilitate good work in agile teams. We had some great discussions about conflict being good and people being unleashed to create value rather than being held back by managers who try to control them to force them to add value.

But then we had a less comfortable conversation. Someone asked what you do with someone who is being a [bad person] in an agile team.

Continue reading “Dealing with baddies on agile projects” →

Clarifying agile roles – speed dating?

On May 11, 2016 By James KingIn Agile development, Implementation, Leading change1 Comment

I went through this quick meeting with an agile class recently and I said I would post this for the crew to refer back to.

In agile teams there are a couple of core roles and then the rest depends on the kind of work the team does. But we can give some more clarity than this, as I have previously discussed here.

Even so, the role of the Scrum Master or Product Owner or Tech Lead or even others will vary from project to project and even sprint to sprint.

So I often have people sit down together and actually tell each other what they think they are in the team for. Essentially I get them to go through these questions that I got from a book called “Stand Back and Deliver.”

IMG_20160511_002553

Continue reading “Clarifying agile roles – speed dating?” →

Card sorting – agile BA technique 158

On April 29, 2016April 29, 2016 By James KingIn Agile development, Investigation1 Comment

Card sorting is a simple and useful way to gather feedback on which features people want in a new system, which problems they want solve or generally speaking, what they want.

So I was surprised recently when some business analysts I was working with had not heard of the technique and I thought I would describe it here so they can look at it again.

All you need is something people want and a pile of cards to sort:

IMG_20160428_111205