When I kick off a class or workshop, I want participants to engage as soon as possible after entering the room. I do work through some practical bits first, but after that I quickly hand things over to participants. For a long time, I’ve been using an opening exercise I learned from Ken Schwaber. In […]
Category Archives: Agile
Late Again, Thinking About the Cost of Delays
It’s Wednesday morning, and I’m on the train heading to Stockholm. The train is late, and it’s not the first time. One reason delays annoy me so much is that they break my expectations. I’ve made my plans to fit with the train company’s timetable, and now they are not upholding their part of the […]
Johanna Rothman to Stockholm, May 30, 2012
Author, consultant and teacher Johanna Rothman is coming to Stockholm on May 30, this year. She will be leading a one-day workshop about the agile project portfolio. The course will be in English, and I highly recommend you check it out if you need some inspiration on how to manage in a situation where you […]
Release More Often Without Risking Anything
Joakim Holm has written an awesome post about breaking through the wall of conventional thinking, smashing a dilemma into pieces, and finding a third option along the way. One day soon they realize that “Hey, we’re pretty good. We can take advantage of that and release more often without risking anything.” via Breaking through the […]
Pit of Specialization
In an effort to prove I’m not a perfectionist, I’m publishing this work of art I just created, while sketching out some ideas for an upcoming talk. Being a specialist can be a double-edged sword. Have you experienced this pit? Did you like it there, or did you find a way to get out of […]
Common Pitfall: Planning Alone
Many organizations forget that planning is all about the planning. You’ve probably heard the saying: “The plan is nothing, the planning is everything”. For me, that means that the process of planning itself is, to a large degree, what creates belief in and understanding of the plans. The plans will break anyhow (we’ll still do […]
Some Help Examining Your Engineering Practices
At Citerus, I worked with my colleagues to create a basic form we can use to take a quick inventory of the current engineering practices in the teams we work with. It was originally in Swedish, but I just translated it into English for use at a client. We’re not dogmatic, so neither is the […]
Sketchnoting the Concept of Flow
I like to take stuff and try to express it in as simple language as possible. That’s my way of checking my own understanding of a concept. One concept that comes up often when we talk about lean software development, kanban and agile is that of “flow”. A couple of days ago, I decided to […]
Thinking Tools for Conference Reviewers
Recently, I’ve been reviewing session proposals for Agile 2011. It’s a rewarding job, even though I’m not getting paid for it. I was asked to help out, and said yes because I knew I would learn a lot from it. Since this is the first time I’m reviewing sessions like this, I started out by doing some research into what to look for.
Tankar om rollerna i Scrum
Jag skriver på en bok med arbetsnamnet “Nyckeln till Scrum”. Min erfarenhet säger mig att de som lyckas bäst med Scrum är de som inte bara kan metodens praktiska steg, utan som också förstår varför den är utformad som den är. Beväpnad med den förståelsen öppnar sig också vägen framåt, möjligheten att gå bortom Scrum. […]