Passing on some good summer reading.

1. Core of Agile and Scrum – essential principles of Agile and Scrum that transcend the software development.
2. Three Legs to an Agile Transition – George Dinwiddie looks at how teamwork, visible progress and continuous improvement are key to change organizational culture.
3. Why Multiple Product Owners is a Bad Idea – read the article to find out how having multiple people setting priorities short circuits the role.
4. Nobody Can Do Agile – Simon Bennett explains why Agile is about thinking, not doing.
5. Agile Requires Cross-Functional Teams – Johanna Rothman discusses why cross-functional teams are essential for Scrum and other Agile processes.
6. Sir, Please Step Away From the Team – common the changes in management style for managers when Agile teams start in your organization.
7. Story Time! The hidden Scrum meeting – ever wonder when the requirements and the analysis happens on a Scrum Team?
8. How Does a PM and SM Coexisit? – a reader asks Michelle Sliger how the role of the project manager changes with the introduction of ScrumMasters.
9. Truly Agile CMMI – a short blog and video about a company that gets both Agile and CMMI.
10. Millennials and Scrum, Made for Each Other – Lyssa Adkins talks about how the Scrum values and principles align with a new cohort entering  the workforce.

New stuff to read and learn before the holiday

1. The Zen of Scrum – Jurgen Appelo provides a 70-minute video overview of Scrum, roles and philosophy.
2. The Difference Between Waterfall, Iterative Waterfall, Scrum & Lean (in pictures) – Visual representations of these various processes.
3. Company Culture Affects Your Code – A short examination of influence of Conway’s Law and culture on your software projects.
4. Explosion of Agile Practices – A list of 50 or so common practices used on Agile teams.
5. My Progression Toward Kanban – Brian Doll provides a good overview of Lean software development techniques and his personal journey there.
6. Post Agile Companies – Cory Foy looks at three Agile organizations and explains why understanding the Agile principles and values is more important than doing the Agile practices.
7. How Great Leaders Inspire Action – Simon Sinek describes a simple model to inspire others in this 18-minute video from TED.
8. Iterative and Incremental Development – Explanation of the difference between incremental vs. iterative software development (IID) and the history of IID.
9. Why Estimate Twice? – Good overview on the common practice of estimating the size of features, while estimating the duration of tasks.

Some new links to share and idea to learn.

1. What Does an Agile Coach Do? – Considering an Agile\Scrum Pilot?  Don Gray talks about what you might expect from your new Agile Coach.
2. Should the ScrumMaster Also Be a Member of the Team? – Clinton Keith provides his perspective to a common question\scenario many Scrum teams face when starting out (with good dialogue in the comments).
3. Pathologies of the Daily Scrum – Experience report from a session at Agile Ottawa identifying ways daily standup meetings breakdown and some suggestions to improve your daily meetings.
4. Institutionalized Agility – Rob Myers discusses some of the common obstacles when your organization decides to “go Agile”.
5. Balancing Agile – Special guest poster, Alan Shalloway, talks about the role of management in an Agile process.
6. Do You Need Iteration Zero: A Case Study – Jim Shore examines a common practice when starting up new Agile teams and critically evaluates how necessary it is today.
7. Why Your Agile Project Cannot Be a Success – List of 32 items that increase the risk of failure for your Agile project and point to signs that you do not understand Agile.
8. The Dangers of Agile Development – Jeff Anderson takes a humorous look at some of the real risks posed by Agile projects.
9. Making Change Stick – Steve Denning looks at the ten practices\principles to understand when leading a change effort.
10. The Myth of Utilization – If your computer slows down at 100% utilization, then why do we ask our team members to do the same?

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.

Here are some links to the best of the blogs since the beginning of the year.

1. The Role of Leaders on a Self-Organizing Team - Mike Cohn talks about the important role management continues to play on Scrum teams.
2. Agile Scales, Waterfall Doesn’t – or so claims Vasco Duarte during this 48-minute video from the Agile Eastern Europe 2009 Conference.
3. Scrum, But – in this 10-minute video Scrum co-founder, Ken Schwaber, explains the negative impact on your business of “We use Scrum, but…”
4. Management 3.0: The Era of Complexity - Jurgen Appelo describes the new role of social networks as management dives into the 21st century.
5. Faster, Better, Cheaper! TDD wins in a simple experiment – a side-by-side comparison of two software developers working on the same project – one using Test-Driven Development (TDD), the other not; the developer who used TDD increased his productivity by 50%!
6. Agile Game Interview: Simplicity is Hard - Clinton Keith interviews Chris Ulm, CEO of Appy Entertainment, about why Agile is an essential factor in their successful launch of high quality, iPhone games.
7. Embedded Collaboration - Dave Rooney kicks off this post with a classic quote from “The Princess Bride” to explain the real meaning of collaboration.
8. Agile Office Space – the Motley Fool shows off their cool Agile workspace and describes the principles they used to create this space.
9. Wives of Rockstar San Diego Employees Have Collected Themselves – apparently some people are fed-up with yet another death march in the gaming industry and interesting from commentary from Clinton Keith that Scrum is not the solution, but provides visibility and a reality check to wishful thinking.

New Year links, a little late, but ready for your review.

1. Defense Procurement Goes Agile – a summary from the Agile Process Leadership Network’s (APLN) October 2009  meeting describing how the DoD is moving away from waterfall to an iterative, incremental processes.
2. Mixing it up with Agile & PMI – Orange County PM, Donna Reed, makes the claim that to be a successful Agile PM one needs to “move away from ACTIVITY-BASED project management toward VALUE-BASED project management.”
3. Starting Scrum: What Would be the Logical Position of a Classic PM – SM or PO? – a Google groups discussion posed by a member with some excellent commentary.
4. Synchronize Rather than Overlap Sprints - Mike Cohn explains why aligning Sprint end dates within one or two days of each other is a much better way to coordinate multiple Scrum teams.
5. Agile Antipattern: Changing the Definition of Done – Bob Hartman discusses how the pressure to meet deadlines is simply “deficit spending” on your project with a bill that will get paid off sooner than you think.
6. Welfare CSM Day 3: Experimental Mobiles & Rainforest Birds – interesting experience report about a different type of Certified ScrumMaster trainer; be sure to read the comments for additional insights and reflections by the other participants.
7. UI Test Automation Tools are Snake Oil – an opinionated piece from Michael Feathers on the value of that expensive UI test tool gathering dust in your organization.

A bag full of Christmas links.

1. Grooming the Product Backlog – Laura Brandenburg talks about the role of requirements management through the Scrum Product Backlog.
2. Make the Product Backlog DEEP – more on good practices for maintaining the Product Backlog from Mike Cohn.
3. Why is Agile so Hard to Sell? – describes some of the issues growing Agile in the enterprise.
4. Is Scrum for Lazy Project Teams? – looks at the misconception that Scrum does not challenge teams to work their hardest.
5. When the Scrummaster Becomes the Impediment – different perspectives on how to solve the problem when the Scrummaster becomes a bottleneck.
6. A Day in the Life of a Scrum Team – a short 6-minute YouTube video of a Scrum Team in their native environment.
7. Agile Business Analysts – what is the role of the business analyst on an Agile team?
8. Building trust – five concrete things you can do to build trust on your teams.
9. Something in Agile Needs Fixing – Rob Bowley summarizes the Open Space discussion on the topic of “Agile isn’t solving our customers problems because they aren’t here.”

Here are links to the best of the blogs for the week of Dec 18th 2009.

1. A ScrumMaster’s Checklist – a comprehensive checklist from Michael James offering four areas a ScrumMaster should pay attention when coaching: the Team, the Product Owner, the organization and the technical practices.
2. Agile Leadership: Methodology Ain’t Enough – the Hacker Chick brings us a blog article about the management beliefs and behaviors which support the growth of Agile teams.
3. When Should QA be Engaged in an Iteration? – Hiren Doshi PMP discusses the role of QA on a Scrum team and tackles the myth that QA folks “have nothing to do until the end of a Sprint”.
4. Five Reasons to Hire a Coach for Agile Teams – Ester Derby talks about five pitfalls of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Agile coaching.
5. Scrum Doesn’t Do Anything – explanation of how Scrum only comes to life when people are added to the framework and the importance of the following the rules by Tobias Mayer.
6. Practical Agility: On Estimation – Dave Rooney describes the Agile estimation lessons he learned while undergoing a recent move.
7. Overcoming Technical Challenges for Adopting Agile Methods in the Enterprise – Vijay Narayanan over at InfoQ discusses the importance of having an development environment which supports your Agile process.
8. Flipping Out – short description of how Flickr uses Continuous Integration and a Single Code Base to add features to their application without branching.

There was a lot of great stuff to read this week, unfortunately I can only go with eight or so entries.  Cya next week!!