All Things Agile
Why I recommend to only conduct single site and fully distributed meetings. The moment one active participant is remote everyone should join on their own line.
Continue reading “The Case Against the Meeting Room Conference Phone”A lot of people have free time towards the end of the year. This year some of us are neither traveling nor able to do other outside activities. Below is an eclectic list of some of my favorite blogs and videos you may find interesting. Some are old so you may have missed them. They are still relevant today.
Continue reading “An eclectic list of some of my favorite blogs and videos”
My current team administers AWS access and IAM permissioning among other related responsibilities. Some of our (non-operational) stories do not fit well in the standard story template:
[As a … ] [I want to … ] [So that …]
Searching I found a couple of good alternative templates depending on the context.
Continue reading “User Stories, Improvement Stories, or Job Stories”
I recently used a simple adaption of aws-ops-wheel which was very much liked by the team.
Continue reading “Spinning The Wheel of Names Retrospective”In order to take our team’s workflow and reporting to the next level, I have made many changes to our JIRA project. Most of the changes were not difficult. Finding out what can be done in Jira, and how, was harder. This blog describes some of the tools, tricks, and limitations I discovered with the help of Google, my friends, and colleagues.
Continue reading “Jira Tips – Searching, Creating Issues, Reporting, Swimlanes”
One of the main tenets of agile and lean is a short feedback loop. Sprint reviews, retrospectives, and other communication give us important qualitative feedback. For trending and comparison against goals, metrics can be very valuable. But metrics can be dangerous as well. The wrong metrics can give false data or even have a negative impact. It is important to select the right metrics and to use them correctly.
Continue reading “How to Select Agile Metrics and Some Examples”
Early in 2019, I participated in an excellent game facilitated by Bonsy Yelsangi which provided us a lot of insight into estimation and story writing. I have facilitated the game several times with very positive feedback. The game can be played in less than an hour.
Continue reading “Fruit Estimation Game”
A colleague asked me some time ago for retrospective ideas. Life got in the way and I never got back to her. Today, when I was looking for an idea for our team’s next retrospective, I finally got around to share my list of retrospective ideas. I have not tried all of them. Some ideas seem amazing and I would love to try them with the right team and in the right circumstances. Others seem a bit Pete and repeat. I have added a * to my favorites. Let me know what you like or has worked well for you.
Continue reading “30 Retrospective Ideas”Sometimes the best way for the team to improve is by improving the individual members, “Do you think what I believe you think of me?” is a simple retrospective for teams up to 6 members. The team members rate each other’s most important contributions to the team and what behaviors or skills impact the team negatively. Recently I facilitated the Do you think what I believe you think of me? retrospective with a high performing team that has been together over three months. Every member of the team learned ways to improve. And to my surprise, the team enjoyed it.
Continue reading “Do you think what I believe you think of me?”
Recently someone related to me that “their new scrum master / agile coach insists on two week sprints.” What happened to “people over process“? Too many companies do the scrum ceremonies almost like a cargo cult and are very far from an agile culture.
Confused about agile at your company? Some of the better blogs I have read on related topics may help you. Forward the ones you agree with to people who can help you drive change.
Continue reading “Not all “agile” is agile”