Archive for August, 2010

• Reading List (1st Half of 2010)

  Date: 2010.08.23 | Category: Agile, Coaching, Communication, Documentation, Lean, Personal, Retrospectives, Scrum, ScrumMaster, Team, Tools, Training, Transitions | Response: 0

  Wow!  I have read a LOT in the last six months!  I guess that is one of the advantages of being on the road for about six months.

  1. Understanding A3 Thinking – excellent description of how to use and create an A3: a Lean tool for executing Plan-Do-Check-Act (the Deming cycle).  This is the definitive source on A3, Henrik Kniberg has an Agile example and template on his site.
  2. Getting the Right Things Done – good description of the concept of True North, developing strategy from True North and the respectful nature of Lean, the rest is kinda dull.
  3. Pedagogy of the Oppressed – unique perspective on the characteristics of oppression, the oppressed and the oppressors; liberation for both the oppressed and the oppressors originates when the oppressed become fully engaged in the human dialogue of being, not simply exchanging roles with the oppressors.  Interesting connections to corporate life in the 21st century.
  4. Project Retrospectives – discussion on the importance of making a deep-dive examination of a software project when it finally is complete with detailed exercises and agenda.  This is great book if you want to know more about retrospectives.
  5. More Secrets of Consulting – just brilliant!  If you liked the first book, this one has so many practical gems for the consultant.  The only tedious parts of this book are the references to his other books.  My favorite tool: the Wishing Wand.
  6. The Future of Management – this book was a favorite of the CEO at my last client.  There are many Scrum concepts in the case studies provided.  Too bad that many of the principles of self-organization and empowerment supported by the executives never filtered down to the teams
  7. Coaching Agile Teams – WOW!  This is an awesome book, deep and rich with many profound insights on the various roles of an Agile coach.  In addition, Lyssa provides practical tools to improve both the coach and the individual.  This is definitely a book to return to again and again.
  8. Training From the Back of the Room – this is my favorite book from the last six months since it has had the most impact on my personal performance.  It has changed my perspective on how to train adults with its sound theory of education and myriad of exercises which bolster learning.  Share this book with anyone who trains adults (thanks to “Agile Bob” Hartman for tweeting this book title!)
  9. Practices for Scaling Lean & Agile Development – comprehensive companion book to Scaling Lean & Agile Development (which is very good on Lean and Scrum).  This book is full of good stuff, but just too long.  Unless you are a guru (or wanna be), stick with the first book.
  10. Succeeding with Agile – Mike Cohn has put out another great book based on his years of practical experience with Scrum.  This book is also pretty long, but not tedious.  A great read if you have some experience with Scrum, but want to improve the overall experience, apply targeted improvements or figure out how to expand the reach of Scrum in your organization – it covers it all.
  11. The Back of the Napkin – provides a framework on how to apply visual thinking tools to explain and sell ideas.  Since most of the work I do is conceptual, being able to draw a powerful picture is a useful skill.  A nice addition to my consultant toolkit and I look forward to sharing it with others (I didn’t find the companion book that useful, so skip it).
  12. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series (not pictured) – these books were consistently entertaining, surreal and light; most were less than 200 pages.  The pace slows down around book 3 (Life, the Universe and Everything), but delightful nonetheless.  I cannot believe I just discovered them in my mid-30′s!

  Believe it or not, there are a few books I did not get a chance to read.  I guess these will have to wait until after vacation.

  • Leading Out Loud – about finding your authentic voice in business.  I bought this to get some ideas about leadership and self-organizing teams.
  • Hope is Not a Strategy – I need to understand the sales process better and improve my ability to sell.  This looked interesting.

• You Can’t Phone It In

  Date: 2010.08.19 | Category: Agile, Coaching, Collaboration, Scrum, ScrumMaster, Team | Response: 0

  Being a ScrumMaster is much more than just showing up for the Scrum meetings and lobbing in a few facilitation techniques to keep things moving along.  Yet I think many project managers who are new to being ScrumMasters misunderstand what is required of them.  I feel they read about Scrum in one of the many excellent books on the topic and think, “Facilitation…four meetings…lessons learned…planning…task tracking.  OK, that looks easy – I can do that in my sleep.”  All they can see are the transactional aspects of Scrum.  Since that is all what Scrum is to them, they bring the empty project management mindset to the work and the result is a functional Scrum without any purpose, rituals without any meaning.  And this is where I think many project managers turned ScrumMaster stumble with the role.

  An excellent ScrumMaster has a real presence with the Team.  To become an excellent ScrumMaster one must go beyond the simple transactional elements of Scrum and focus on the transformative aspects of the work.  As ScrumMaster you need to focus, really focus, on the needs of both the Team and the individuals as you work to improve the environment they work in.  You need to be both physically and emotionally there for them in a profound way.

  Scrum’s great promise is that it reconnects people to each other work through empowerment and true collaboration.  As ScrumMaster it is your responsibility to facilitate collaboration, to help people feel comfortable and willing to take both professional and personal risks.  This does not happen in a fifteen minute Daily Scrum, or a two-hour Sprint Planning meeting or during a Sprint Retrospective.  Those rituals have very specific goals and individual coaching is not one of them.  The moments where one-on-one coaching happens and trust is developed are the times when the people are doing the work.  It is those moments when one notices a Team member’s joy, disappointment, frustration, happiness and anxiety.  You catch them being real and experience the moment with them.  This only happens when you share physical proximity, observe and be present when these moments happen.

  In Scrum, we strive to give the Team members slack and ask them to limit multitasking to preserve their focus.  We expect the same from the ScrumMaster and that is why I recommend new ScrumMasters only focus on one Team.  If as a ScrumMaster you are lurching from fire-to-fire, meeting-to-meeting, team-to-team you are still operating in the old project management paradigm and it needs to stop.  People on the Teams need your help.  Stop being so busy and focus on what the Team needs for a change.

• Best Links of the Week – August 13th 2010

  Date: 2010.08.13 | Category: Agile, Coaching, Extreme Programming, Lean, Links of the Week, Pair Programming, PMI, Scrum, Transitions | Response: 0

  Beat the summer heat with these engaging posts.

  1. Lean Software Experience Report – detailed discussion of how XP and Lean were combined for GlaxoSmithKlein IT projects to support new drug development.
  2. Making People Before Making Products – great article highlighting the import role management plays in developing & mentoring knowledgable workers; watch out for the funky scrollbar.
  3. How to Succeed With Scrum When Your Company is Anti-Agile? - Rob Diana talks about how to recover from previous failed Agile attempts in your company with time-honored values such as lies and entrapment.
  4. How to Do Agile When We Only Have 50 Crap Developers? – a short rant on the importance of having good people on your Agile team; the comments are very interesting, too.
  5. Pair Programming Interviews – an experience report from Rob Bowley on how to use pair programming in your interview process.
  6. The Secret Sauce Recipe to Agile Coaching – Rob Myers talks about what it takes to become an excellent coach for an Agile team.
  7. A Coaching Toolkit – a collection of principles to keep in mind when coaching Agile teams.
  8. Scrum Adoption #1: Awakening – Tobias Mayer examines the concept of awakening as a prerequisite for making inroads with Scrum in your company.
  9. How to Screw Up Agile – great mind map on the factors which inhibit (and help) Agile grow in your organization.

• Lean and Agile: Roommates, Married or Twins?

  Date: 2010.08.02 | Category: Agile, Conferences, Lean, Presentations | Response: 1

  On August 11th from 9 AM to 10:30 AM, Gil Broza and I will be moderating an all-star line-up of Alan Shalloway, Jim Shore, Jean Tabaka and Mary Poppendieck who are panelists at the Agile 2010 conference.  Here is our summary of the panel:

  What is Lean? Is Lean the next “big thing” I need to learn — or is Kanban enough? Is Agile still relevant? To add to the confusion, there seem to be several different interpretations of Lean Thinking in the Agile community! In this panel, four Agile/Lean thought leaders and practitioners will discuss the essential elements of Lean and its relationship to Agile. Our panelists will share their ideas about Lean, show similarities they see between Lean and Agile, and help attendees understand (and perhaps reconcile) any differences.

  This panel came about during last year’s conference in Chicago where Gil and I discussed what does our community really know about Lean.  Are we trying to reinvent the wheel?  Are there misconceptions about Lean in our community?  In our conversation, it became clear we were really passionate about hosting a conversation between members of the Agile community and thought leaders on the Agile and Lean communities on this topic to help everyone get a deeper understanding of both.  We also wanted to make sure that the experience is very interactive with the audience members giving the panelists feedback on how well they communicated their ideas.