One week is just right

This goal of this post is to outline some good reasons why one week iterations are a very good idea for most software development teams.
The suggestions and conclusions below are based on my experience with one week iterations across 3 teams on a major e-commerce project.
Before seeing one week iterations in action I believed they could be too stressful and with very little time to prepare requirements or even complete something useful and potentially end up with nothing to demo most of the weeks. I have since changed my opinion based on almost 50 iterations of evidence so let's start with the reasons

1. It is tough! What I thought before turned out to be true! There are so many things that need to happen for a week and yes it is tough. It is tough for the analysts to prepare requirements, meet with QA and refine them, meet with devs and refine them, get answers and slice and descope as necessary. It is tough for the devs to ensure requirements are small enough to develop and meaningful enough to present, reject requirements that aren't ready, estimate and tech design and implement those that are. It is tough for the QAs to participate in acceptance test specification for new requirements, acceptance test writing for those in progress, functional and journey tests, exploration tests and demo preparations. You get it I believe. Yet even though it is tough it is also very useful that it is tough because it is a built-in pressure that ensures people switch on to disciplined mode because to get through all these you have to be disciplined. So reason number one is that the busy schedule increases discipline and discipline is the best friend of competence.

2. There is stuff to demo! - with over 50 iterations of evidence I am confident one week iterations will not impact teams ability to show progress. Quite the opposite, the ability to show something that isn't just working but actually in most cases ready to go into production is the best way to win the customer over and over again. You could say in most companies the stakeholders would be amazed if you are able to deliver quality meaningful features every week.

3. You really are more agile/flexible. Actually seeing the impact of one week iterations I am starting to think that anything more than 2 really isn't much help in terms of flexibility. Shorter cycles let you fail faster and improve faster. They also allow the business to adapt faster and significantly reduce any change concerns. Shorter cycles also enforce good engineering practices like emerging design and architecture, continuous integration and deployment, true shared code ownership and refactoring.

4. These guys are great! Even though I already touched on credibility in point 2 I think it deserves a separate section. Your ability to deliver every week will impress people, especially if you're the first team in the organisation to do such short cycles. Along with your CI tools and your ability to deploy anytime and I am sure these will prompt even more amazing practices and tools it is very likely that you soon will become centre of attention and people would want to associate themselves with your team and even work for you. Granted this may happen without one week iterations but I believe they improve your chances.

5. It is all or nothing. If you've ever heard a business owner saying "they're all must haves really" then you know what I mean. What one week iterations combine well is positive feeling about delivering all the time and a shorter release planning cycle. And in case you're wondering yes I do mean looking at the release plan with the business owner every week or as often as possible but never more than 2 weeks between the sessions. The combination of high business confidence in your ability to deliver with the regular realisation what is possible with the current capacity and what not will virtually ensure the business owner's buy in into fixed date/flexible scope idea. (I would not really want to go for fixed scope/flexible date but that is for another article).  And that is one of the most important hurdles to making your release successful simply gone.

So in conclusion - I believe one week iterations are just right. Of course based on the environments that I've seen but also based on feedback from 20+ colleagues about the environments that they've seen.
So I'd say it is a pretty good bet that it would help you if you're thinking about doing shorter cycles. And I hope you won't forget to have fun ;)

Weekly agile links 27th September - 1st October 2010

The Rise Of The Lean Machine An eye opening presentation by Claudio Perrone. I can immediately think of at least 5 steps I'd need right now or in the near future.

Where to Begin Your Transition to Lean-Agile
Alan Shalloway & James R. Trott give us a more practical guide to making a lean/agile transition work.

Common Myths of Kanban This is in context of software.. Kanban now popular enough to have myths!

Managers New to Agile May Not Know What to Do Johanna Rothman explains some of the problems with adopting agile..

How to be happy (but not too much) Dan Jones explains how being happy means you're more open to learning,etc.etc.

Defining What Done Means Another great article by Rachel D.

Six Key Things For Managing Agile Teams Derek Neighbors lists a number of the characteristics of collaborative teams (but not all).

A Root Cause Analysis of Agile Practices Regularly link to Karl Scotland and he does not disappoint again with a summary of a recent open space session with the above topic. Also congratulations to Karl on getting the opportunity to write a book about Kanban!

Weekly agile links 20th - 24th September 2010

Essence of Scrum Originally published by Tobias Mayer in 2009 and now re-worked and adapted by David Sheriff.

Estimation and Release Planning with Fruit Salad An interesting game to learn estimation and planning on Lyssa Adkins' blog.

Podcast interview with @davegray on How Games at Work Inspire Creativity Podcast on how interactivity will make your meetings and your ideas even better.

The Quest for High Performance Tom Reynolds CSM, CSP on getting there..

The Ultimatum Game and article by Cedric B. that mainly talks about traditional organizational behaviour and how to deal with it while implementing agile/scrum.

Are Job Descriptions Illegal? Here Are 9 Reasons Why They Should Be Lou Adler challengers traditional job descriptions.

THE PROBLEMS WITH ESTIMATING BUSINESS VALUE Mike Cohn on how to estimate business value - e.g. use themes/epics not small items.


Risk Innovation or Be Beaten by Those Who Do An article about innovation not just for products but for process & leadership. By Lea Strickland.

People Help Agile Adoptions An article about change, how people cope with it and how we could go about it .. by Scott Dunn.

Mood Board Shows some process innovation in the form of 'different' kanban boards as well as explains the use of the mood board.

Performance Reviews Shift Blame, Prevent Partnership On Esther Derby's blog although it looks like it is from HBR. Explains a lot of things we seem to just accept as given.

Building a Transition Backlog Another great post by Rachel Davies based on experience with agile transitions.

John Seddon Keynote Great summary of a John Seddon's key note (by Patrick Kua). Couldn't quite get which conference was that but this does not reduce it's value. Thanks Patrick.

Agile 2010 Booklist
Yves Hanoulle went through the trouble to ask attendees for the one book they would recommend - makes a great reading list.


Slides from the Deming's Red Bead Experiment by David Joyce and as presented at Agile Australia 2010.

Scrum is great! .. but what is wrong with it? (100th Post!)

I was wondering how to avoid my 100th post to be a 'weekly links' post and was presented with the opportunity today.

Well this is not really the full post that the title suggests but a "Bare Talk" (as they call it) which I suggested for Scrum Gathering 2010 in Amsterdam.
If it gets into top 6 then I might get the chance to (write &) present the actual talk/article.

So the link is here: "Scrum is great! .. but what is wrong with it?" and I'll need your votes to make it happen!

Thanks for your support!

Weekly agile links 13th - 18th September 2010

A Survival Guide for New Agile Coaches New Blog Series by Dave Rooney

Lean Bicycle Factory Demonstration Game This is a great Lean Game that you can play alone or with your team. I found it was really great in showing some lean principles.

STEAL THIS PRESENTATION! Some tips on making your presentation less boring. I'm would also suggest splitting your presentation parts in 10 minutes blocks and have activities in between.

Slicing and Dicing Epic User Stories Some tips from Rachel Davis on splitting big user stories.

How BA uses Agile An explanation from BA of how the Agile has helped IT projects to deliver more value, sooner.

The Joy of Craftsmanship Matt Wynne explains why for him craftsmanship is about finding joy in your work.

GAMING INCENTIVES via Esther Derby. Mainly talks about toddlers but I am pretty sure it would work exactly the same way with adults (not that I have seen it anywhere!)

Speaking is a Team Sport: 3 Ways to be Responsive to Your Audience The same message keeps coming back to me whether it is in books, articles or tweets. so time to remember and learn ;)

Social-Technical Systems The slides from Mary Poppendieck's seminar "Social-Technical Systems" at Crisp published by Henrik Kinberg. Also has a link to Dan Pink's amazing talk on motivation.

Weekly agile links 6th - 10th September 2010

It seems like links are flowing from everywhere these days and more and more knowledge flies around us.. we only have to reach out and learn. I hope you will find plenty of interesting articles in my collection this week. Happy reading!

Article: Lean And Agile — Roommates, Married Or Twins? Very interesting post by Gil Broza briefly describing a panel discussion with this title at Agile 2010.

Agile is Ready for the Enterprise Michael Hugos explains how mature has agile become in the last 20 years or so.

JOB is a four-letter word Harold Jarche on the inadequacy between the way we structure jobs and the current networked reality.

Agile2010 Bag Packing with Kanban Karl Scotland presents an exciting real world kanban experiment + video.

Is “Agile Methodology” an Oxymoron and Counterintuitive to Agile-Lean Product Development and Craftsmanship? by Russel Pannone. Perhaps worth reading if I could place it higher than all of my other tasks (unlikely).

Reading The Toyota Way Matteo Vaccari with some thoughts on how this book changes his view.

BUT /MY/ TEAM NEEDS A LEADER Can teams function without a leader? Check this Esther Derby article for the answer.

An interview with Jerry Weinberg Thanks to Jon Jagger

The Thinking Tool called Agile Henrik Kniberg's slides from his keynote @ Lean/Agile/Scrum conference in Zurich - "The Thinking Tool Called Agile"

Collaboration Game: Where Are Your Keys? This got me interested in the game so I am reading a bit more about it here

Simplicity: A New Model A nice long post by Jurgen Appelo on simple and complex systems and rules.

10 Tips on Presenting at Conferences Thanks to Cory Foy

How do I know if my PEOPLE are being fully utilized? by Richard Cheng. I changed the word resource to people as this is what this article is about.

Agile Ruined My Life Some interesting agile implementation horror stories by Daniel Markham and some thoughts on the reasons why such things are common.

Success with Agile Managers Here's a great extract from a book I am currently reading. The article is by Clinton Keith and explains why we need the role of Agile Manager.

Solution Focused FAQ Got interested in the solution focused approach (thanks to Dadi) during acg-uk this year and this FAQ comes handy to help me learn more.

Weekly agile links 23rd - 27th August 2010

Well, here's my second week of holiday for this year.. and a long list of links is ready to be published. Next week I am off (kind of a annual reset phase) and hopefully should be back with more links after the break.. ;)

Enjoy!

Agile release pattern: Feature-on/off-switch Nice suggestion by Johannes Brodwall - would be very useful to have it for every feature!

Motivation from the Mosaic Project Services Pty Ltd Blog. Mainly discusses Dan Pink's talk

Middleware Management pitfalls 8. Application immaturity by Sander Hautvast

Using the Class of Service Concept To Optimize Flow, Manage Risk, and Increase Predictability Nice guide to Class of service by Jeff Anderson

The Fallacy Of ReUse Udi Dahan explains why 'getting things done faster' is not aid too much by code reuse.

Seth Godin Gives Up on Traditional Book Publishing Some Lean Thinking applied by Seth Godin...

The Benefits of Making the Shift to Student-Centered Teaching Training from the back of the room applied to colleges and unis... yes, it does make sense!

5 Danger Signs of Frozen Thinking Tim Berry explains it in simple words... yeah read carefully and think again..

The One With The Fifty Percent Resources Geoff Watts on multi-tasking and treating people as resources.

Creating and Sustaining Agile Culture Janet Gregory presenting @ Skillsmatter.

Don’t Call Me a Guru, Dammit! Rick Ladd republishes a few years old article/interview with Mr. Ackoff from the telegraph - Anti-guru of joined-up management

Khan Academy deserves a link purely for the great collection of training videos it is. Thanks for sharing.

Some thoughts on Senior management by Seth Godin

The Hole in the Soul of Business Every organization is “values-driven.” The only question is, what values are in the driver’s seat? - this is an article about business and values and a must read one.

Watching “agile” move from a common-sense philosophy to an organized, detailed practice A very long and intriguing article by Edward Yourdon on the eveolution of agile.

Re-imagining Agile part 1: Why it shouldn't be done, and how to do it This one seems to be discussing the principles of Agile software development - have not read it yet though.

Weekly agile links 16th - 20th August 2010

The Most Important Thing You need to read this article by Jack Uldrich. It is very important for our future.

Agile Coaches Dojo workshop presentation by Rachel Davis

A reminder: Deming's 14 points or guide to transforming into a lean company - invaluable.

On Improv, Agile, and Fear at Agile Coach Camp Canada 2010 report by Todd Charron

Four Team Self Awareness Discussion Activities This goes straight to my favourite links. Seems like a good collection of activities that can be used on many occasions.

Project Communication Plan - How to prepare for it? Could be useful in not so Agile environments or can simply serve as reminder of what useful information might be required.

3 Project Recovery Methods This has some PMI stuff in it but again could be useful at some point.

Setting the Record Straight: I Love Scrum Alan Shalloway, CEO Net Objectives about Scrum and other methods. Interesting read.

Small Changes – Small Improvements Ketil Jensen with some ideas about Kanban and the move from Scrum.

Agile Brushstrokes: The Art of Choosing an Agile Transition Style - Joshua Kerievsky on transition options.

Weekly agile links 2nd - 7th August 2010

Looks like being in India does not mean articles are getting fewer. Due to jet lag and food lag I am only able schedule the publishing on Sunday so hopefully (if I calculated zones correctly) it will be available at some point on Monday,

I hope you find something useful - Happy reading!

Leading from behind A short one, more like advice.. similar idea to training from the back of the room.

We’re not Japanese and we don’t build cars I couldn't help citing Konosuke Matsushita: “We are going to win and the industrial west is going to lose: there’s nothing much you can do about it, because the reasons for your failure are within yourselves. Your firms are built on the Taylor model; even worse, so are your heads. For you, the essence of management is getting the ideas out of the heads of the bosses and into the hands of labour. We are beyond the Taylor model.”. Read this article - and try to understand it.

Building Trust on Agile Teams by Rachel Davis - useful thoughts on building trust - again a mention of Patrick Lencioni's excellent book

The economics of value and localism Another article by professor John Seddon. I wish more people who make public sector decisions read & understand it.

The System Behind the behaviour I love these kind of stories .. this time it is by Ester Derby and published in Better Software

5 CMMI misconceptions in the agile community Assumptions, misconceptions.. they usually are at the bottom of every conflict.. Looks interesting though not sure how relevant is CMMI in todays world.

Stop starting and start finishing Jason Yip gives some tips on how to start doing large and complicated tasks.

Forget Brainstorming I have recently said that in front of a friend and he questioned why? I think Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman give far better answer than I did.. I just happened to have experienced great results with a modification of the traditional brainstorming. This article goes further than that- very interesting read.

Weekly agile links 19th July - 23rd July 2010

Agile: Doing the wrong thing righter Bob Marshall with his point of view on whether Agile helps or not overall. Judge for yourself ;)

Programme Level Kanban David Joyce with a different approach to scaling agile - program level kanban board to replace Scrum of scrums. They look pretty similar approaches, don't they?

Coaching Agile Teams Podcast Lyssa Adkins talks about her new book.

The Flow Experiment based on maths example. Good illustration.

Ester Derby's Coaching Toolkit 'As a coach, your job is not to solve or do—it’s to support other people as they develop skills and capabilities ' looking forward to reading this one ;)

The Core Protocols an Experience Report by Yves Hanoulle (Part 1)

An interview with Russell L. Ackoff It is a pdf and very long. My experience tells me I should find time to read it ;)


The System Behind The Behaviour by Esther Derby (Better Software) - this helped me with an approach to a problem recently. Very good.

The Limits of Agile Alan Kelly talks about common frustrations when applying agile. Very thue. Not sure about the Is it worth it section - Coming from the point of view where I was not replacing a process with Agile I can't argue with how successful other approaches can be.


Scrum is a Silver WHAT and you want to put it WHERE? By: Mike Dwyer. I like this answer - Silver mirror ;)

Re-thinking Lean Service I am pretty sure I've had this John Seddon video before but it is so good that I am including it again.

Weekly agile links 12th July - 17th July 2010

We just ain't that good at risk Rich Maltzman argues that we're not good at managing risk with (only) our gut. I agree. He also argues that "the tools and techniques given to us by our PM books and mentors are worthwhile" - I would say in some contexts. Interesting read overall.

LeanSSC 2010 UK The link to all published presentations from this year's event @ Bletchely Park

How To Succeed With Scrum When Your Company Is Anti-Agile by Rob Diana. Good article that highlights the issues with the way we sell agile (and the way we've been taught to do it) and why it does not work. I agree the approach will have its benefits and it will be event better if we find ways to illustrate how good this is not by facts but by making people realise it themselves.. and then perhaps at some point they'll realize that there is a bigger problem to solve because it is a common experience that development adopts agile well.. the issue lies elsewhere..

Leaving a Legacy, How Do You Leave an Environment in Which a Team Can Continue to Grow Dan Rough's notes from the open space session with this title at Agile Coaches Gathering in UK 2010.

Kanban - how software people get it wrong Thad Scheer pointing out the mis-understanding and mis-use of Kanban. Pretty good and explains well why most companies would move a team to Kanban only after they've mastered Scrum/XP for the benefits of JIT delivery.

The Essence of Agile Henrik Kinberg's slides from his keynote "The Essence of Agile" at Agile Spain 2010, Madrid.

Millennials and Scrum, made for each another What Lyssa Adkins talks about here is exactly the place I'd choose to be. Just look at that: “Well, that’s just stupid. Who would ever choose to work that way in the world we live in?” When was the last time you heard someone who is not an agile proponent to say something like this about waterfall?!

Paul Dyson's On Estimation article says the things pretty much the way I think about them. Easy to say do not estimate, not so easy to avoid it - yes I do want to know how much it costs before I make a decision to buy it.

The Secret Sauce Recipe to Agile Coaching I am going to read ROB MYERS in detail and compare with my notes from ACGUK 2010.. the topic is hot hot hot for me right now.

Metrics Used In Testing Lots of suggestions.. pick & mix.. but remember Demming's quote: "The most important things cannot be measured."

5 Tips to Build a Real Project Dream Team Ty Kiisel on my favourite topic - building dream teams.Simple & effective.

Weekly agile links 5th July - 9th July 2010

It is Agile Coaches Gathering week and I am heading to Milton Keynes early on Friday so this post will either be lucky to be published earlier or will wait until Sunday.
Looking forward to a great event and for those who cannot attend follow the twitter updates - tag #acg.

Enjoy this week's links ;)

Steps In Performing a Project Risk Audit One topic that is hot at the minute, at least according my impression..

New Maxim: If You Can’t Change the People . . . Change the System! From Tripp Babbitt's Blog

The History and Simplicity of Lean Process Improvement Brian Hunt explains a lot of the reasons behind lean and why things are the way they are.

How to Project Manage Just About Anything My busy week means I can't read this one now but the title sounds intriguing enough so I am including it.

The globally connected project team This might as well have been titled practicla advice on how to work in a distributed team. Looks good.

How Agile Projects Measure Up, and What This Means to You Executive report by Michael Mah, Senior Consultant of Cutter Consortium.

How To Tell Your PM His Leadership Skills Are Terrible? Send him to a IMPROV course? No, seriously I suck and I am proud of it!

Test Driven development with MVC and MSpec 52 minutes video, must watch for me ;)

HICSS 2011 Agile Papers - Need Reviewers! Jeff Sutherland posted this call for reviewer recently.. I wanted to do it but then considered my schedule and gave up.. any takers?

THE LEAN PRODUCT BACKLOG – ELIMINATE WASTE Roman Pichler usually has very useful things to say so worth readin..

LOOKING FOR A NEW SCRUM MASTER I am not looking for a ScrumMaster. this is just the title of the article by Thomas Karsten. Once I had to make similar choice and who knows when it might happen again?

Weekly agile links 28th June - 2nd July 2010

Adventures in Accelerated Learning If you're in the business of spreading knowledge in one way or another, if you're a change agent, trainer or coach or you simply want to learn an effective way to tell a tell then you should read this article. I also highly recommend the 2 books mentioned.

Guidelines for Group Collaboration and Emergence Trust, Respect, Participation, Comittment.. A brilliant article by Venessa Miemis.. for me it created a lot broader understanding of something I've already read about elsewhere. Thanks.

12 Things the Best Bosses Believe I believe in certain things about being a great leader so this one naturally caught my attention. I find this to be a Great list with very useful reminders.

Identifying Waste Lean Thinker says “Make less, buy less, use less, throw away less.”. Sounds reasonable to me :)

Kate Oneal: Productivity 2 years old and still very relevant. From XProgramming.

Cultivate Informal Leadership Jurgen Appelo's article gives some practical advice about leadership that is worth having.

Understand Technical Debt by Playing a Game - Packing Peanuts This game sounds great fun and looks like it will demonstrate technical debt. Thanks for sharing Masa!

Risk Management Methodology Ray W. Frohnhoefer provides some useful guidance that can be used to do risk management in agile (I know, I know "agile is risk management" yet I am regularly asked how do you do it?)

A MANAGER’S GUIDE TO GETTING FEEDBACK A new article by Esther Derby. Incidentally I participated in a similar discussion on one of the agile user group boards.

How can we encourage active participation in groups after the original excitement of forming has died down? an article on Collective Self by lori which suggests that self-organizing work groups don’t live on indefinitely. I'd agree with that. Useful ideas about what options are available once you're in this situation.

Making TDD Stick: Problems and Solutions for AdoptersMark Levison's article about TDD is not about 18 months old. Still plenty of relevant ideas, some not always practical. I'd add BDD at the top of the list.

The Estimate Goat The only bad thing about this site is that I have not discovered it earlier. Great tool to give you estimates!

Your Project Needs Business Rules, Not Meetings To be honest I cannot be bothered to read this one right now and hence I will not comment on it. I am including the link as I might need it later and it does sound controversial which usually means there might be some good ideas in it.

Weekly agile links 21st - 25th April 2010

Last was a very sad week for me.. :( I was devastated and pretty much off the whole week so just a few links listed.. will see if I can start adding more stuff this week.


Project Failure Modes Root causes of project failure and plenty of other interesting posts on the herding cats blog

Check this out - What a transparency in reporting an issue - lovely:)

WHY PRODUCT OWNERS SHOULD CARE ABOUT QUALITY Roman Pichler has reworked his article that already featured in Weekly Agile Links before.

Kanban case study Financial Services Kanban case study by John Dunion

Weekly Agile Links 14th-18th June

Some more links from the past week. things continue to be extra busy with plenty going on and finding it difficult to spend time reading.. too bad :(

Lean-agile dogs: Are we chasing the right car? One more Scrum/Kanban article by Pascal Pinck.. some interesting thoughts on what is important.

Business Intelligence Requires Thinking . . . Not Technology Tripp Babbitt talks about business intelligence and maturity levels.

How to read a book in an hour I'm sure it is possible, just haven't quite yet mastered the tricks Jamie Flinchbaugh shares with us...

The Dolt's Guide To Self-Organization Interesting presentation on self organization by Jurgen Apello.

Kanban and Scrum – Intention and Implementation Karl Scotland finally gives the explanation why Scrum and Kanban are like apples and oranges!

AGILE PRINCIPLES REVISITED This is results from a survey asking respondents to rate how important is each of the original agile manifesto principles along with other stuff like what is essential to be considered agile. Interesting idea but they all are .. no really, they are.. Also no mention that being agile based on these results may simply mean nothing.

Animating a Blockbuster: How Pixar Built Toy Story 3 A very Scrum/Agile like process although does not mention the words.. according to e very reliable source who has actually read it ;)

Weekly agile links 17th - 21st May 2010

I had several busy periods during this week so I am sure I have missed on a number of great links. The ones I have below I am sure are still worth checking ;) My link of the week this time is The Bigger Picture and The Four Mindsets and three transition zones of Rightshifting - Bob Marshall finally publishes this chart which grabbed my attention when I first saw him draw it on a whiteboard.

Enjoy also the rest of my links.;)


The Rise And Fall Of Waterfall The true history of software development methodology called Waterfall... In memory of Winston Royce

Agile antipattern: Target fixation Agile Bob explains the anti pattern of fixing the target and not seeing anything else.

Why Lean is a Wicked Disease John Seddon on re-thinking industrialised processes (Enjoyed reading it)

Single-Piece Flow in Kanban Video - talk by Arlo Belshee and James Shore.

Kevin Rutherford's session on Flow Slides & links. The session is from agilenorth 2010

RETURN ON HUMAN INVESTMENT Raising our View of People and Their Possibilities By Jim Lucas

The Ten Most Common Failures of Bad Leaders Paul Sloane brings us the result of a large survey highlighting the most common failure of leaders.

Getting RE-TRAINED to be a ScrumMaster My friend Geoff Watts has published another great article to help Scrum masters understanding their role.

WHEN SCRUM IS NOT A GOOD FIT Here's another article by the CST who certified me several years ago. Roman suggests using Kanban when Scrum is not a good fit.

The Three Manifestos Nice pictures of the 3 most important manifestos of our time ;)

Weekly agile links 10th - 15th May 2010

A week of trying to go back to normal and a week of new opportunities and some exciting changes. At the end of last week Leeds United (the team I support) won promotion to the Championship and while that has nothing to do with Agile links it does represent a positive development for me;) Anyway on the links topic my link of the week is here:
The Problem with the World? "Dear Sirs,I am.Sincerely yours,G.K. Chesterton"

And the rest of my links:

Can I Do Perfect Scrum and Still Fail? Yes. Read more if you want to find out Mike Cottmeyer's somewhat longer answer.

One Team: Replay initially published in July of 2001 by Kent Beck. Classic read.

Dee Hock’s four priorities for managers How obvious isn't it? And how well misunderstood .. manage what?

Scrum or Kanban? YES! You have seen these questions I am sure.. which one is best, when to use each, and so on.. Every process has a sweet spot says Michael Sahota and concludes - We need to know both Scrum/XP and Kanban

Agile and Lean Product Development – Yesteryear, Today and into the Future Rally dev post including opinions of their own gurus Ryan Martens and Jean Tabaka.

Scrum to Kanban transition Case study published by Mattias Skarin

Word to the Wise Someone finally has defined wisdom.. apparently

Approaches to Organizational Change a post by Michael Sahota which is mainly about Mary Poppendieck talk “What’s wrong with targets?” whose goal is to 'trash Management by Objectives'

The Missing Link To Lean Six Sigma - Emotional Intelligence ANKIT PATEL explains why lean and six sigma should be viewed as more than just tools.

Career paths for technical folks Bob Marshall on the always interesting topic of career paths and why developers should not move into management if they do not want to..

Weekly agile links 26th April - 7th May 2010

Here's an extended week due to me going on a training for several days and then picking up the pieces in all the areas I am engaged with... Due to being busy I have not read most of these so would be difficult to recommend any.. What I can recommend is the Agile Coaches Gathering UK in Milton Keynes in July. All details are here

So my link over the last few weeks.. I am sure there's plenty of interesting stuff that I need to catch up ..


It’s All The Same – Leadership Challenges and Organizational Dynamics by Mark Graban

What is Kanban? Agile Denver meet on Kanban lean software development methodology, presented by Frank Vega and Brad Swanson.

Saving your job or speaking the truth No comment really.. I need to keep saving my job..

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action Sounds intriguing and on my favourite subject- leadership

Real Developers Don't Need Unit Tests Interesting point of view in the era of TDD, BDD, EDD and ?DD..

Why You Shouldn’t Hire the Best and the Brightest Candidate By Michelle Malay Carter

The Role of the Agile Coach Allan Kelly summarizes it for the benefit of everyone who needs the extra explanation.

How One Leads Others: The Tone at the TopBy Dr. Jeffrey Magee, PDM, CSP, CMC.. this is part 7 so perhaps best to start from the beginning (only if it was easy to find it)

WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT LEADERSHIP AND DELEGATION and TWO POSTURES TOWARD CHANGE Two interesting posts by Michael Hyatt on leadership and change

2 ideal cases for continuous flow another post about why choose Kanban over Scrum .. got the mesage

Building an Agile Environment this looks very interesting to me, especially we as a team have had the chance to change our environment to suit us..

How to give a talk One to check later. could be useful. these days it is very likely that at some point you will be required to give a talk..

Weekly agile links 12th - 16th April 2010

Interesting (if not thrilling) week for me filled with both positive and not so positive emotions. We had Bob Marshall @ Agile South Coast at the start of the week and last night I attended NxtGen Southampton for Visual Studio 2010 launch presentation by Jason Z who happens to be GM of the Visual Studio team. As a result I have not been very active and missed most of the links flying around. Yet I hope I have a nice and quality collection below.

My link of the week is The Psychology of Lean Management By Michael Ballé

I hope you find something useful to read ;)

Agility, Measurement,and Motivation A free article by Jim Highsmith, Director of Cutter Consortium

Agile Transformations fail because of FEAR... "Have you heard this before?" asks Michael Depaoli and challenges the statement used by too many..


Agile and Management of Change If you go into the trouble of reading this post by Elderclei Regis Reami you're likely to think - yeah nicely said but unlikely to happen. I am sure it can happen though and one day I am going to write a report based on actual experience!

Stumbling Through Mediocrity I am yet to read it.. which is why it might miss on link of the week.. it seems very interesting so .. top of my to read list..

WHY PRODUCT OWNERS SHOULD CARE ABOUT QUALITY Roman Pichler with another good (and short) article to help shape the PO role.

The product owner and the product-shaped hole What the product owner needs to worry about according to Jeff Patton. One for me to read later on.

Agile Record A new magazine. Looks promising.

[link of the week]
The Psychology of Lean Management By Michael Ballé, author of The Lean Manager. Kind of long but a must read really.. if I managed to survive it I am sure you'll do too;)

SEMAT - Software Engineering Method and Theory by Mark Levison.. another manifesto.. similar to the software craftsmanship idea

Weekly agile links 6th - 9 April 2010

Here we go again, I actually had a day off on Friday and a nice long holiday so finally getting time to publish last week's links. I hope you find something useful ;)


8 Tips for Performance Metrics Jurgen Appelo again with some extracts from his book. Re-confirms my thoughts on performance measurement.

The Agile Manifesto… and status report John Mortimer re-reads the agile manifesto every year so here's his 2010 verdict

The Failure of Failure An HBR article by Michael Schrage on the different types of failure

A Simple CST Application Process On 6th April the Scrum Alliance Board of Directors approved a new CST application process and this is the link to it.

Pluralcast #12 : The Future of Scrum with Ken Schwaber Interesting comments on what happened between Ken and the SA and an unfortunate word used to describe Scrum ;)

Top 150 Management & Leadership Blogs Another entry by Jurgen Appelo - this time he used his own algorithm to create a top of leadership blogs. Good idea - I know what to read now.

Achieving Fast, Flexible Flow Brian Lawley on product management and how to make it leaner.

The Case for Sprint Preview Meetings We call them pre-planning, requirements workshops or something else - Charles Bradley comes up with a new name.

Listening is a Top Leadership Skill Hugh Ballou explains why listening is so important. I like this transformational stuff ;)

Better Software March/April 2010 This issue has several interesting articles including one by Mike Cohn, some interesting exploratory testing stuff and one on collaboration.

THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE ON SOFTWARE QUALITY: AN EMPIRICAL CASE STUDY A pdf containing a study by MS people apparently. A bit too long for me with the time I currently have but worth reading later on so here's a good place for me to store the link.