Category

Last weekend I was reviewing the traffic on the website and here are the top ten articles that people were clicking on in 2015.  This list is really interesting, so take a moment to review the best of 2015 and enjoy!  Happy New Year! What is Teamicide? – last year I...

One of the greatest challenges to trust, collaboration and self-organization in the workplace is visibility.  This is because most of software development is intellectual work without physical representation.  We take complex ideas on what a software product should do and express...

“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” With that classic throw back to the 1980’s, let’s wrap up our conversation on what are the key question to raise when being asked to dispatch help to Waterfall Island.  This entry is a continuation of an...

My favorite tool these days has got to be Rory’s Story Cubes®.  I came across these intriguing picture dice a few months ago when my consulting colleague from Canada, Ellen Grove (@eegrove), tweeted a photo of them.  At once, I wanted to know more about them, where I can...

“I could be wrong” Mike Cohn at the Scrum Gathering Phoenix At the beginning of the month, I had the opportunity to attend the Scrum Gathering in Phoenix and present a session on Lift Off. It had been about two years since I went to a Gathering and I was SO happy that I attended...

“The major problems of systems work [software development] are not so much technological as sociological” First published in 1987, Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister were some of the earliest people to think of software development primarily of a human challenge rather than a...

During my consultants retreat in October where we discussed Agile Chartering, I had a chance to collaborate deeply with a dear colleague and friend Deborah Hartmann Preuss, coaching for effectiveness + joy.  Deb and I first met way back in 2008 at the very first Agile Coach Camp...

Better teams create better outcomes.  Agile Chartering is a vehicle to start teams off for success. At the end of last October, I participated in a three-day international workshop in Itterswiller, France with thirteen other Agile consultants, trainers and coaches from the US,...

Last week, I was having a conversation with a ScrumMaster about teams and the Tuckman Model came up.  From the blank look on this person’s face, it was clear that they had never heard of the Tuckman Model before which is surprising since ScrumMasters should be knowledgable...

Whenever I ask people to draw a diagram or explain an idea in pictures, I always sense a hint of tension.  People take a deep breath and hold it tight.  How can we not compare our meager skills to a creative genius like Claude Monet or Andy Warhol?  Let me let you in on a little...