The Agile Tribe - Latest Comments

Re: The Quick and The Dead…………….

David Greenlees — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 02:32:30 -0000

Thanks MB. I just finished reading your blog series on what ET is not today. A great read indeed.

I also have a copy of Jerry's book (Perfect Software). That's next on the to do list. Will add the other to the to buy list.

As always, thanks for sharing your knowledge with everyone.

Re: The Quick and The Dead…………….

Michael Bolton — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:56:29 -0000

Thank you for adding a link to my blog. If you liked that, there's a more recent one that may pique your interest: http://www.developsense.com/bl...

In addition to that, I strongly recommend Jerry Weinberg's Perfect Software and Other Illusions About Testing, and his Secrets of Consulting, too.

Cheers,

---Michael B.

Re: Agile, What’s in a Name?

Deepak Dhananjaya — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:16:36 -0000

Very truly said about people Misunderstanding the concept of agile and managing it the "non agile " way and reasoning agile to be failure.
If we understand the process, roles and responsibility that agile defines is so easy and helps us manage the project more structured way.
the only point i would like to clarify is thaet "agile does not mean no documentation" mean it never says about not having documentation for the project, but only appropriate documentation can be followed

Re: Why so little good Agile?

Grtgrt — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:16:40 -0000

The problem seems to be that the Agile Manifesto is not abstract
enough:

For defining Agile we should focus on the goal of
Agile rather than on the misleading, very problematic way
suggested by the authors of the Manifesto: Please read

The
New (2011) Definitions of Agile, or</li><li>

Agility
is fine – though the Manifesto can be Poison

</li>

</ul>

Re: Three Truths

PM Hut — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 05:31:58 -0000

Your first point is spot on! Not only that, larger teams increase communication channels. I have published on the advantages of small teams before. I think the ideal number of team members is 5, less than that you really don't have a team, and more than that you will spend more time resolving conflicts and motivating team members than actually doing something productive.

Re: Three Truths

David Zheng — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 19:21:49 -0000

Agreed, great article.

Re: Agile, What’s in a Name?

Seema A — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 21:30:02 -0000

That's true...have seen it happening when a lack of planning, accountability, tracking, dcoumentation, structured approach, is conveneintly covered under the term 'AGILE METHODOLOGY'..

Re: Agile, What’s in a Name?

Susan Akers — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 01:26:13 -0000

Nice one Peter. Can't agree more. Don't abusing and start using Agile correctly!

Re: What’s your role in an Agile team?

Peter Saddington — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 20:24:40 -0000

sweet. nice!

Re: Agile Australia through the looking glass

Wayne Allan — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 23:38:37 -0000

Thanks Agile Scout

It was quite an insightful event there are so many more things I could have mentioned.. and I will... briefly.. just one.

In the open space I discovered that agile change needs to be delivered gently and sometimes without the mention of the word agile at all. If you are in a position to, you can point out that something is not working well and that you would like to try something else for a while to see if it works better. It's as simple as that!

This correlated with my own experience with people's knee jerk reactions to the word agile, it can conjure up fear, anxiety and a whole heap of other emotional responses. Those who are unfamiliar with agile can have a tendency to view it incorrectly as either the silver bullet for everything or just another werewolf process that devours more of their precious time.

Re: Agile Australia through the looking glass

AgileTribe — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 21:11:00 -0000

Thanks Peter. Put in a paper for next year's conference so we can get to catch up. :)

Re: Agile Australia through the looking glass

Peter Saddington — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 08:37:24 -0000

This is awesome. Wish I could have been there!!

Re: Welcome

Peter Saddington — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 08:36:56 -0000

Keep up the good work!

Re: The Definition of Done

jonathan_coleman — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 01:58:07 -0000

Hey - I've just walked the team through a definition of done workshop. Was lucky enough to have a great team. As we walked through what a story card would go through to be 'done' we captured what this means for our swimlanes on the wall. What was "Done" for inprogress. what was "done" for testing, & signoff. What was "Done" for "Done". I've shared this link with the team - thanks for this!

Re: People Issues and performance reviews – Team Leader or Iteration Manager?

Steven Jenkins — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:23:00 -0000

Thanks Renee, Since giving the talk a number of people have raised examples that will change the relationship between the TL and IM. Examples like distributed project teams where the IM has multiple TLs to consider and split teams where the TL has multiple IMs for interaction. Both of these project types and your operational example will change the IM vs TL relationship but the principles of "keeping close" for each of the above eight recommendations should still apply. We still value collaboration, interactions and transparency. How can we bring these values to play in the IM and TL relationship?

Re: Why so little good Agile?

Shane Hastie — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 08:14:40 -0000

Thanks for the comments Renee - you're right about the fine line. I'm not in favor of fanatical adherence to a set of rules as a replacement for considered thinking; find the set of practices that work together to enable the most effective delivery of value to customers, but make sure it is about effectively delivering value not about using the label agile to justify doing sloppy work.

My tirade is aimed at teams and organizations that pick up a few practices that look easy without understanding how the various practices interact together to create a system to deliver customer value effectively.

Re: People Issues and performance reviews – Team Leader or Iteration Manager?

Renee Troughton — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 07:04:45 -0000

Nice write up Steven. Do you see the TL vs IM relationship behaving differently in a more operational rather than project area?

Re: Just give me a ‘G & T’!

AgileTribe — Mon, 30 May 2011 20:18:55 -0000

Thanks for your comments Adam and Matthias. There are probably at least another 100 acronyms out there in the Scrum/Agile world and I agree Adam that if your audience is knowlegdable you can get away with some acronyms. The big mistake that people make is that they ASSUME they know their audience and so that they will understand but experience has certainly proven to me and also surprised me that some things you take as basic acronyms are not understood. That's the risk!

Re: Just give me a ‘G & T’!

Adam Spencer — Mon, 30 May 2011 05:18:59 -0000

IMHO Susan - I do think acronyms have their place. They are after all about efficiency, that is – getting your message across as quickly as possible. Sometimes the brain is working faster than the mouth and getting all those long words out just slows you down. A handy set of acronyms with a knowledgeable audience gets you there quicker. It’s like software usability – for the novice users you need nice elaborate GUIs that explain it all, however for the power user a green screen (or 3270 for the ultimate acronym) will get the job done faster!

Re: ‘A Rose by any other name?’

Tony Ponton — Sun, 29 May 2011 21:39:55 -0000

Thanks for your comments Todd , much appreciated .

I personally have concerns with evangelism and the use of the term .

Agile was once the doyen of the software community , now however more than ever, non software teams are practicing Agile.

Once particular stakeholder recently saw this word used in a coaching
mission statement and immediately stated that he associated it with
preaching.

So the point I was attempting to convey is to be sure we step outside
the dogma of evangelising the perfect dot point adoption of Agile and
be pragmatic about how we coach ,espouse and aid it's adoption.

I wrote this post after a number of these interactions with non software teams and being introduced to the

"Oath of Non Allegiance" by Alistair Cockburn , which reads :

I promise not to exclude from consideration any idea based on its
source, but to consider ideas across schools and heritages in order to
find the ones that best suit the current situation.Hope thhis clarifies my intent and thoughts - Cheers

Re: ‘A Rose by any other name?’

Todd Owen — Fri, 27 May 2011 20:52:28 -0000

I whole-heartedly agree, but I am curious that you warn us to remain "pragmatists" not "evangelists". I mean, sure, there's no need to be self-righteous and dogmatic, but I thought the software community had already adopted the word "evangelist" to mean something a bit different to its original religious connotations. You see the job title "technology evangelist" popping up quite a bit these days, and I think it reflects the realization that new technologies need more than just technical excellence to succeed -- they also need passionate supporters and advocates.

By that definition, this blog itself would be an example of evangelism!

Re: ‘A Rose by any other name?’

Renee Troughton — Wed, 25 May 2011 06:14:33 -0000

My detailed thoughts as conveyed to Tony on this -
http://agileforest.com/2011/05...

Re: Why so little good Agile?

Renee Troughton — Wed, 25 May 2011 06:13:55 -0000

" Please stop calling these half-hearted implementations Agile – it’s not, it’s just a continuation of the bad practices that many organisations have followed over the years, just with a different brand." I couldn't agree more.

I did find it interesting that your post was slightly at odds with Tony's right below.

There is a fine line between being adaptive and pragmatic tailoring vs going too far.

For context of a more ellaborative thoughts - http://agileforest.com/2011/05...

Re: Just give me a ‘G & T’!

Matthias Marschall — Mon, 23 May 2011 04:35:52 -0000

If you dive deeper into Scrum, there are some more:
SM (ScrumMaster), PO (ProductOwner), and the good, old "chickens" and "pigs" ;-)
Are those acronyms helpful for getting more buy in through the company? No way...

Re: The Family Agile

Shawn Wallace — Thu, 19 May 2011 00:09:48 -0000

Unfortunately I did not take any pics or the wall.