Agile

Home /
Tags /
Agile

Antipattern: Adrenaline Junkie

Antipattern: Adrenaline Junkie

Understanding Project Pressure and Tension

I constantly wonder why situations arise where pressure and tension are generated in projects. One reason is that most projects are simply complex—you have to coordinate several, sometimes dozens of people, anticipate and plan in advance what will happen, and determine what resources will be needed. As a species, we’re not very good at detailed long-term planning (see: David Rock – Your Brain at Work).

Meetings in a Hurry Are Not Effective Ones

The Importance of Timeboxing in Scrum

The timeboxing is a fundamental technique for many Scrum activities. There is often a misunderstanding that meetings should be fast, leading facilitators to rush participants to finish within the timebox. This haste results in poorly discussed problems and many uninformed decisions.

The Hacker Way

A few days ago, Paweł Wrzeszcz sent me Erik Meijer’s talk “One Hacker Way” (watch here) from the GOTO Conference in Copenhagen. It is a very provocative talk, which is great. It questions the Scrum method and challenges the status quo in Agile. Given that Scrum is a dominant framework in software development, a critical view is healthy, especially as Agile has become a significant business machine over the past 20 years. When implementing Agile at Scale, core ideas can easily become distorted. (Check out Dave Thomas’ “Agile is Dead” talk here).

JDD, Warsjawa, Agile Prague and Cambridge Agile Conferences

Vacation time is over, and it’s time to get back to hard work :)

Time for Non-Violent Rebel

The Deficit of Humanity in Agile Practice

Agile thinking has been with us for several years. There is a lot of humanity behind Agile thinking, and this is what is great about it. But Agile, like every idea, is just that—an idea. It is not easily applicable in life and often distorted to be convenient, though not necessarily useful. People focus on practices and lose the spirit of the idea. Agile is just an example. All in all, the problem is the deficit of humanity in the business context.

Is Poland Christ of Nations?

I recently came across a very interesting article about the pitfalls of the Polish style of management and its historical roots. It is more generic than just IT but includes aspects of participatory management, such as Agile practices. If you understand Polish, you can read the article here.

I'll be there (for you) ...

I am very excited and happy to announce that you can hear my talk at two Agile conferences in Europe:

Simple, Complicated, Complex and Chaotic Systems, in Other Words Cynefin. And How Does It Relate to Software Development?

Intro

You might have already come across terms such as complex systems, complicated systems, or complex adaptive systems; especially, if you have read Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo or heard about Ken Schwaber’s ideas about the applicability of Scrum. It might sound intriguing, but finding logic in it is difficult without some background theory. This is the point at which Dave Snowden’s Cynefin concept comes in handy. This concept is based on complex systems theory, anthropology, evolutionary psychology, and, last but not least, cognitive psychology.

Simple, Complicated, Complex, and Chaotic Systems: The Cynefin Framework

Perhaps you’ve previously encountered concepts such as complex systems, complicated systems, or complex adaptive systems, for instance when reading Jurgen Appelo’s Management 3.0, or when considering Ken Schwaber’s thoughts on the applicability of Scrum. This might sound intriguing, but it can be difficult to find logical sense in it if one lacks a certain theoretical foundation. This is where it’s worthwhile to examine Dave Snowden’s concept called Cynefin, which is based on complex systems theory, anthropology, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive psychology.

A Morning Thought: The Greatest Contribution of Agile

A Morning Thought: The Greatest Contribution of Agile

Today morning I came across Henrik Kniberg’s video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb0O0Lgs9zU titled Culture over Process. What hit me was that it was about Culture.

Self-Organization - A Myth?

The entire Agile community (and not just Agile) loudly discusses organization. I have the impression that for some time, we’ve been trying to find the holy grail that will allow us to answer the question: “How to manage without managing?”. This time, I’ll play the devil’s advocate.

Why I Hate These Standups...

Why I Hate These Standups…

I often hear it… that they are a waste of time, just distractions from work, adding no real value…

The Scrum You Don't Know

But we don’t have a Product Owner! The Product Owner is unavailable! We are working on several projects at the same time! Our deadlines are getting delayed. Testers do not have time to test our code.

Trust in the Team

The Importance of Trust in Agile Methodologies

One of the main values of agile methodologies is trust. However, it is not always clear what this means.

So How’s It with Architecture - Up-Front Design or Evolutionary Architecture?

So How’s It with Architecture - Up-Front Design or Evolutionary Architecture?

Where does architecture currently stand? We can say that there are two classic approaches:

Why Agile Fails

Introduction

Implementing a methodology from the Agile family is not at all easy. The problem usually lies in management, who upon superficially understanding what it’s all about, perceive the new method as a promise that from now on, everything will magically work better. It doesn’t matter if we have subpar team members and adhere to the principle that “any specialist can be replaced by a finite number of students.” It doesn’t matter if there’s complete disregard for knowledge management and skill development in the team because there’s never time for that. It doesn’t matter if people working on projects are shuffled between projects—after all, it’s about interdisciplinarity, and everyone should know everything.

Meeting Deadlines at All Costs is a Mistake!

The Necessity of Deadlines

Deadlines are necessary. Whether you work in Scrum (Agile) or a waterfall-like methodology, one thing is certain: without deadlines, there is no motivation. According to Parkinson’s Law (no relation to the disease), deadlines are essential.

Have You Ever Thought About a Career as a Trainer/Consultant?

As our activities at BNS IT (bnsit.pl) continue to expand, we have openings for individuals eager to work with others to share knowledge and experience. We aim to support teams in increasing their work efficiency.

20/80 Rule Reloaded

The 20/80 Rule Reloaded

A short thought occurred to me.

Young Manager/Team Leader! Get a Grip!

History tends to repeat itself, and this is a common tale among young managers and team leaders. A recurring, tragic mistake is the commitment to unrealistic deadlines.

A Few New Concepts - Architectonic Mantra, Design Retrospective, Shared Context, Natural Order of Refactoring

Recently, several named concepts have evolved in my mind, or maybe I just understood them well. Here are a few notes that I consider an alpha draft ;-)