Archive for the ‘Agile’ Category

• Speaking @ PMI San Diego Soft Skills Breakfast on Oct 15th

  Date: 2010.10.04 | Category: Agile, Coaching, Communication, PMI, Presentations | Response: 0

  I have been invited to speak to at the PMI San Diego soft skills breakfast group on the topic of Powerful Question.  The breakfast meeting is for project managers to learn new techniques and interpersonal skills and to network with their peers.  The meeting starts at 7:30 AM and I probably will begin speaking around 7:45 to 7:50.  Here is the description of the topic.

  Want to unlock the creativity of your teams?  Would you rather guide your team members through their own thinking process rather than lead them down your own?  At the October breakfast meeting, Carlton Nettleton will describe the powerful question technique, how to ask powerful questions and why these open-ended questions are key to creating high-performing, collaborative teams.

  You do not need to be a member of PMI San Diego to attend, but they request people to sign-up in advance.

• Sponsoring Agile Open California – Oct 11th & 12th

  Date: 2010.10.01 | Category: Agile, Conferences, Personal | Response: 0

  This year Look Forward Consulting is a Silver Level Sponsor for Agile Open Northern California.  As a sponsor, I am very proud to be supporting the Agile community in California and would like to see the number of people doing good Agile grow.

  As in years past, the event will be held at the Fort Mason Conference Center and will be using Open Space Technology.  If you have not had the chance to participate in an Open Space, you are in for a treat since each Open Space is a special experience.  For only $250, you will get to interact and learn from fifty to sixty of the leaders in the California Agile community in an intimate and thought-provoking environment.  The topic this year is “Agile Out of the Box”

  

• Speaking @ Agile San Diego on Oct 7th

  Date: 2010.09.29 | Category: Agile SD, Coaching, Collaboration, Communication, Games, Scrum, ScrumMaster, Team | Response: 0

  Next week I will be speaking at one of my favorite groups – Agile San Diego – on October 7th beginning at 6:30 PM.  The topic will be “Tools for ScrumMasters and Agile Team Leaders” and this is a quick description of the session.

  Are you just getting OK results with Scrum?  Has Agile not delivered on the much anticipated quantum leads in productivity everyone had been promised?  One common source of lackluster performance comes from following routine behaviors and ordinary patterns of teamwork associated with the “old way of doing things”.  In this hands-on workshop, Carlton Nettleton will share powerful techniques from his coaching toolbox that breaks these old patterns, unlocks the potential of Teams and gets them moving toward high-performance.

  This is going to be a fun evening and a bit experimental since I am going to leave the main learning objective up to the participants.  I will also be giving away a free copy of Lyssa Adkins’s excellent book, Coaching Agile Teams.  Come to The Linkery, have a few drinks and learn something new!

• Innovation Games® at PMI Silicon Valley – Sept 21st 2010

  Date: 2010.09.15 | Category: Collaboration, Communication, Conferences, Games, Innovation Games, PMI, Presentations | Response: 0

  Just wanted to alert folks I will be facilitating an Innovation Games^® session at the PMI Silicon Valley 2010 Annual Symposium on Tuesday, Sept 21st from 3 PM to 5 PM.  The theme of the conference this year is “Beyond Project Success – Business Success” and I have been working with Luke Hohmann and Margaret Motamed to select some fun games to play that will open up some minds on the value of collaborative games in helping your enterprise grow and succeed.  We have also planned some exercises to ensure the participants walk away with a memorable learning experience.

  Stop by if you are looking to do something different, have a little fun and say hello!

• Estimating & Planning for Agile Teams – Oct 2nd

  Date: 2010.09.12 | Category: Agile, Estimating & Planning, Extreme Programming, Planning, PMI, Scrum, Training | Response: 0

  Having trouble communicating deadlines to stakeholders?  Unable to get a commitment from the Team on when work will actually be delivered?  Having trouble managing dependencies?  Agile processes, like Scrum and Extreme Programming, rely on lightweight techniques to progressive guide and steer a project to completion.  In this hands-on workshop, Carlton Nettleton will review the common Agile tools used by successful Teams to produce project plans which have clear milestones and deliverables and raises risks and dependencies early.  The topics covered in this class will include:

  • Importance of creating a Definition of Done for the Team
  • The role of user stories to capture, develop and validate requirements.
  • Common estimating techniques employed by Teams.
  • How to develop and maintain a Release Plan to track progress.
  • How to use easy-to-understand Agile metrics to monitor status.
  • Link common Agile planning practices to the PMBOK.

  Participants that are PMP will earn 4 PDU.  Register today!

• Speaking @ Agile San Diego on Oct 7th

  Date: 2010.09.09 | Category: Agile, Agile SD, Coaching, Scrum, ScrumMaster, Team | Response: 1

  I will be running a short workshop at the next Agile San Diego meeting showing off a few of my favorite coaching tools.  If you are looking for a few new tricks, stop by and say hello.

  Are you just getting OK results with Scrum?  Has Agile not delivered on the much anticipated quantum leads in productivity everyone had been promised?  One common source of lackluster performance comes from following routine behaviors and ordinary patterns of teamwork associated with the “old way of doing things”.  In this hands-on workshop, Carlton Nettleton will share powerful techniques from his coaching toolbox that breaks these old patterns, unlocks the potential of Teams and gets them moving toward high-performance.

• New Offering – Innovation Games®

  Date: 2010.09.02 | Category: Agile, Collaboration, Design Excellence, Games, Innovation Games, Product Owner, Scrum, Tools, Voice of the Customer | Response: 1

  On May 6^th and 7^th, I attended an Innovations Games^® consultant’s class hosted by Luke Hohmann.  Innovations Games^® are collaborative games designed to help business people develop and prioritize new product ideas.  In the context of Scrum, these games are tools the Product Owner and product designers can use to engage the customers and different business stakeholders in defining the requirements for a product and thinking about product roadmap and multigenerational release plan.  Not a lot is written about the “fuzzy front-end” for Scrum teams and Innovations Games^® fill that significant gap in way that is consistent with the Scrum values and principles.

  It was quite instructive to hear about the games and how they work from Luke.  From the different case studies discussed, we really illuminated the dynamics involved with selecting the right game for problem.  In addition, a few of my misunderstandings about the purpose of the games and how they are played from reading the book were cleared up as well.  What I liked most about the class was in addition to talking about the games, we played a lot of them in the course of two days.

  1. Remember the Future (played)
  2. Prune the Product Tree (played)
  3. Speed Boat (played)
  4. Product Box (played)
  5. Buy a Feature (played)
  6. 20-20 Vision (played)
  7. Show and Tell (played)
  8. The Apprentice
  9. Start Your Day
  10. Spider Web
  11. Me and My Shadow
  12. Give Them a Hot Tub

  Below are pictures of the Product Box I created for Look Forward Consulting announcing the new service available.  I look forward to using these games more and helping Scrum teams with improving prioritization and collaboration with their customers.

  

  

• 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.