Changing Roles to Implement Scrum

Now you are thinking about implementing Scrum. Next question, what is my role going to be? What are other people in my organization going to do? You have a few options. Related Websites 20 Reasons Why I Love the Recession I’m one of those weird people that believe when things go [...] [...]

Scrum’s Dirty Little Secrets

I am going to let you in on this, now. Scrum has a few dirty little secrets. It’s not the loosely-controlled, half-assed, software development framework that everyone likes to make it out to be. It actually has a couple of very powerful techniques very well hidden in there – to the point that most people [...] [...]

Always Postpone Meetings With Time-Wasting Morons

Scott Adams’ first Dilbert collection was a book  titled, “Always Postpone Meetings With Time-Wasting Morons”. Behind great humor is at least a grain of truth. This title has always stuck with me. It is about something near and dear to my heart… meetings… or, more accurately, how much I hate them. Don’t get me wrong. I [...] [...]

Meeting-Free-Fridays

My absolute favorite meeting tip, if you have the authority (or know someone who does) is: Meeting-Free-Fridays. Instruct everyone to block out their calendar on Fridays (or whatever day you choose). Then instruct everyone, if they value their hubcaps, they should not attempt to schedule meetings with you on that day. Apart from the alliterative appeal of [...] [...]

Is It Good Enough?

Scrum states, nay, demands we always ask this. When a user says to a product owner, “Now that I see this, I would like it to do…” we should politely interrupt “Great Idea… let’s put it on the backlog!” Immediately followed by, “Is this good enough (for now)?” There a many reasons why this important. We don’t want [...] [...]

How Scrum Changed My Life

Chapter 1 – Socks One day, shortly after my company was acquired by a publicly-traded company, the boss said to me, “Our new parent company has instructed us to be ready for a Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) audit in 9 months.” As he was leaving my desk, in his best Columbo voice, he says, “…and by the way, [...] [...]

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