Denver APLN Meeting Next Tuesday (Jan 20)

January 13, 2009

Denver’s new APLN chapter is having our first proper (i.e. non-planning) meeting next Tuesday. Date: January 20, 2009 Time: 6:30pm Location: Sigis Cabaret room in the Tivoli Student Center on the Auraria Campus Our topic will be an open discussion on how to convince management that agile is the proper approach to be taken on [...]

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Follow me on Twitter

January 7, 2009

I’ve decided to experiment with Twitter as a way to post more often than the once or twice a week I do here and to engage in conversations I’m otherwise missing. Follow me here: http://twitter.com/rslawrence. Anyone else on Twitter? Have you found it useful?

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Short Answers #2: What to Focus on in 2009

January 3, 2009

It’s officially a series now. In this Short Answers video, I answer the question, “If my Scrum team could work on one thing in 2009, what should it be?”

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New Benjamin Zander Video – “How Fascinating!”

December 12, 2008

There’s a new Benjamin Zander video over at the Pop!Tech conference website. There’s some overlap with the video from TED I posted back in June—most of the content in each video expands on the ideas in The Art of Possibility. Nonetheless, this video is well worth watching even if you’ve seen the few other videos [...]

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UI Sketches for Distributed Teams

December 11, 2008

In the same way that user stories help focus a software team’s work around business value, starting construction of a user story with the UI keeps focus on the core user experience through which that business value is received. Early in my career I’d make the most beautiful Photoshop UI mockups I could. I thought [...]

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Short Answers #1: When Stories Are Larger Than Planned

December 10, 2008

I’m experimenting with video for what is likely become a new series here. In these “Short Answers” posts, I’ll answer an agile question in about a minute. Use the comments to suggest questions you’d like to see in future Short Answers. In this post, I answer the question, “What should I do when I discover [...]

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Are the Product Owner and ScrumMaster’s Interests Opposed?

November 26, 2008

The Chief Engineer role in the Toyota Product Development System combines parts of the Product Owner, ScrumMaster, and senior technical team member roles from Scrum. In addition to leading the technical design of a new product and facilitating the work of the other engineers, the CE must deeply understand and care about what the customer [...]

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Motivated Individuals

November 14, 2008

As agile approaches the mainstream, it’s easy to lose sight of some of the core principles, especially this one: Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done. If agile is to apply broadly, we can’t reserve it just for those projects that [...]

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A Common, but Bad, Idea

November 13, 2008

Please don’t do this:

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Risk

November 7, 2008

If you’re an IT executive, which is less risky? Investing a little bit in an effective agile adoption, something that’s been proven at other companies to improve cash flow, increase productivity, and grow revenues…or…hunkering down and cutting costs, knowing that at this time when your business needs you the most you’ll be less productive than [...]

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