Archive for the ‘PMI’ 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.

• 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!

• 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.

• Best Links of the Week – July 30th 2010

  Date: 2010.07.30 | Category: Agile, Certified ScrumMaster, Extreme Programming, Lean, Links of the Week, Open Workspace, Pair Programming, PMI, Scrum, Task Board, Team | Response: 0

  More great writings gathered from far and wide.

  1. Scrum at Mind Candy – brief video of a task board in action over a three month period.
  2. Confessions of an Agile Project Manager – PMI sponsored a video contest among PMP using Agile – check out the results on YouTube!
  3. Thoughts on two months pairing - Sarah Mei reflects on her experience pair programming and the benefits it has provided her professional & personal life.
  4. Can Agile Learn Anything from PMBOK? - Dennis Stevens looks at how the PMBOK supports, compliments and impedes Agile and proposes some solutions to make the two synchronize better.
  5. Multitasking Gets You There Later - Roger Brown discusses a common paradigm in project management when dealing with too many projects and too few people.
  6. Waterfall, Lean\Kanban and Scrum – Ken Schwaber, co-creator of Scrum, discusses why Scrum relies on empirical process control theory and why they did not choose Lean or a defined process.
  7. The Role of Middle Management in Toyota or a Lean System – special post on the new focus of management in Agile organizations.
  8. Team Room – want to get increased focus, quality and retention from your Team?  Check out this team room article by Martin Fowler.
  9. Agile + UX: six strategies for more agile user experience – how Comcast is combining good user experience (UX) practices with Scrum.
  10. June 2010 CSM class – very cool visualization of a Certified ScrumMaster class taught by Tobias Mayer and Bachan Anand.

• Best Links of the Week – July 2nd 2010

  Date: 2010.07.02 | Category: Agile, Coaching, Communication, Lean, Links of the Week, PMI, Scrum, ScrumMaster, Team, Transitions | Response: 0

  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.

• 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.

• 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!