Archive for April, 2010

• Best Links of the Week – Mar 27th 2010

  Date: 2010.04.27 | Category: Agile, Coaching, Extreme Programming, Lean, Links of the Week, Planning, PMI, Quality, Refactoring, Testing | Response: 1

  More good links to share with others.

  1. Ouija Board Estimation\Seance Sizing – a new method for estimation that relies on team, not the undead.
  2. Is the Agile Community Being Unreasonable? – InfoQ takes a look at the friction between the PMBOK and Agile principles.
  3. Toyotas’ Journey from Waterfall to Lean Software Development – Henrick Kniberg takes a visit to Toyota and peaks under the hood to see how a Lean company develops software.  What he finds will surprise you!
  4. Defining the Last Responsible Moment - Karl Scotland puts some meat on this fuzzy Lean concept by looking at the cost vs benefit of delay.
  5. Managing vs. Coaching vs. Mentoring - Jurgen Appelo makes the distinction between these three concepts.
  6. The Problems With Acceptance Testing – thoughtful entry by Jim Shore reevaluating the importance of automated acceptance testing on Agile projects.
  7. Alternatives to Acceptance Testing – more from Jim Shore on what can be used in place of automated acceptance testing.
  8. More on Automated Acceptance Testing - George Dinwiddie adds his perspective to the topic of automated acceptance testing.
  9. The Path to Frequent Deployments – a report from Kent Beck, author of Extreme Programming, on how to  increase development speed by moving from annual to quarterly to monthly to weekly and finally to daily deployments.
  10. How to Be a Great Tech Leader – Richard Kasperowski talks about the technical elements needed to succeed when running an Agile project.

• Best Links of the Week – Mar 13th 2010

  Date: 2010.04.13 | Category: Agile, Coaching, Communication, Lean, PMI, Scrum, Transitions | Response: 1

  Sorry for the long delay – I’ve been swamped.  Now back to the great links.

  1. Large-Scale Agile - Jim Shore talks about the seven factors to consider when trying to make Agile large.
  2. What is the One Thing You Can Do to be More Agile? – various vendors at the Agile 2009 conference provide their answer to this question during this five-minute video.
  3. Intro to Scrum Video – Bob Hartman and Arif Gangji provide an eight-minute video overview of Scrum.
  4. In Praise of Middle Management – this article explains how leadership from middle managers is essential for driving change brought on by Scrum.
  5. The Role of Test Manager in an Agile Organization – Johanna Rothman talks about how Agile transforms the role of Test Manager from one that schedules resources to that of coaching, removing obstacles and building organizational capacity.
  6. 78 Things I have Learned in 6 Years of Agile Coaching – Jean Tabaka shares her accumulated wisdom about Agile and change.
  7. Top 10 Questions When Using Agile for Hardware Projects – In this interview, Larry Maccherone discusses how Agile is applied on software-hardware projects.
  8. You’re Just Going to Fail, So Don’t Bother – Scott Downey, Scrum Coach at myspace, discusses why Scrum is so difficult for many organizations and identifies the six hard truths you eventually confront when using Scrum.
  9. Agile Roots – A Personal History – Jim Highsmith, a signatory of the Agile Manifesto, discusses the origins of the Agile movement.
  10. The Wrong Lessons from Toyota’s Recalls – and the Truth - Jeffery Liker gives his take on the Toyota recalls and what they say about Toyota’s highly touted manufacturing process.

• Welfare CSM – June 7th & June 8th

  Date: 2010.04.13 | Category: Agile, Certified ScrumMaster, Personal, Scrum, Training | Response: 3

  I am pleased to announce a new and exciting Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) class I created with Tobias Mayer being held in San Diego on June 7th and 8th.  This class will be operating under the Welfare CSM model.  I am very honored to take part in this effort and help people who want to learn about Scrum but their organizations will not pay for the training, individuals who are unemployed and want to use this time to add to their skills or for people outside the software industry.

  For me, this CSM class is a significant departure from previous (uncertified) ScrumMaster classes I offered in 2007-2008.  At the time, I was not satisfied with the results, but could not put my finger on what was bothering me about the curriculum I was teaching.  The men and women I was training were competently trained on the pieces of Scrum, but were struggling with applying it to their environment.  In 2009, I came across this interview from Tobias and was both intrigued and inspired by Tobias’s model.  After reflecting on his interview and my experience, what was missing from my trainings became visible.

  In order to succeed with Scrum, one needs to know, understand and experience the essential principles of Scrum which are the foundation for all the practices, rituals and tools of the framework.  Unfortunately, the training I provided (which mirrored most of today’s commercial CSM offerings) focused on the mechanics of Scrum, excluding the essential conversation of why these principles are important and how each element infuses the day-to-day activities of Scrum teams.  As a result, most students were only able to mimic what I was teaching and were unable to improvise and adapt Scrum to the unique constraints of their environment.  Ultimately, they become frustrated by their inability to drive change in their organizations and Scrum was abandoned without producing any lasting effects.

  In this two-day CSM class, Tobias and I will examine, illustrate and play with the essential principles of Scrum – commitment, collaboration, visibility, respect, focus and accountability –  through a series of exercises, games and creative activities.  When you leave this course, you will come to know and understand the Spirit of Scrum and how this spirit of collaboration and change embodies each and every activity in Scrum.  Most importantly, you will have learned how to facilitate Scrum among your peers and be successful with this new way of working.

  Scrum is not a bag of programmer and management tricks to increase productivity, but it is a transformative re-imagining of our relationship with our work and our peers.  Come join us on the journey.  It is going to be a lot of fun!

• 8 Great PDU on May 13th @ 7th Annual PMI San Diego Conference!

  Date: 2010.04.09 | Category: Agile, PMI, SIMSOC, Team, Training | Response: 1

  Are you looking to have some fun and do something hands-on & different during the conference? Want to learn about teamwork and motivation? Then sign-up for my one-day seminar – Leaping to Success with High Performing Teams – at the 7th Annual PMI San Diego Conference.

  Building high-performing teams is the result of a complex interplay of six essential skills: leadership, team building, motivation, communication, decision making and negotiation. In this one-day interactive seminar, you will learn how to develop, nurture and sustain high-performing teams by improving your skills in these area while participating in a fast-moving, rich simulation designed to mirror real-life challenges and situations. This thought-provoking, fun game has powerful insights on team dynamics and interpersonal interactions for any manager or senior leader in your organization.

  If you are interested please read this review of the simulation and be sure to sign-up when you register for the 7th Annual PMI San Diego Conference. Hope to see you there!

  Sign-up for the 7th Annual PMI San Diego Conference today.

• The Scrum 50000 Mile Maintenance – April 28th

  Date: 2010.04.01 | Category: PMI, Presentations, Scrum | Response: 1

  I will be offering a short seminar about Scrum for PMI San Diego at the end of the month.  I am looking forward to speaking to a new audience about Scrum and providing education on what Scrum really is and what it entails.  In this two-hour seminar, I will be building on the concepts, principles and ideas I plan on exploring in the Welfare CSM class (more on that later) and at the PMI San Diego 2010 conference in May.  This should be really fun and a great opportunity to build your personal network, so if you are interested in attending, register here.

  Here is the description of the meeting to help you understand my focus:

  Having problems with Scrum? Are you getting all the benefits you were promised? Scrum is a framework for managing complex programs and projects by combining collaborative, self-organizing teams with short, iterative cycles. While Scrum is easy to set-up, true success and real improvements are frequently difficult to achieve. The simplicity of the Scrum framework regularly hides the essential principles – collaboration, visibility, self-organization, empowerment and respect – which your organization must support and cultivate for Scrum to succeed. In this 2-PDU workshop, Carlton Nettleton will share his insights into Scrum and lead you through a number of hands-on exercises and simulations to help you re-focus your efforts on the fundamental Scrum principles.

  Hope to see you there!