I recently spoke at the Boston chapter of the Interational Institute of Business Analysts (IIBA) about the Role of an analyst in an Agile environment. The presentation is available here:

For more information about the Boston IIBA, you can see their site here: http://boston.theiiba.org/

I have been thinking recently about the culture of a corporate organization and how our own fears and insecurities can lead to disastrous results. IBM best encapsulated this insecurity with their commercial “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”. In the 1980’s when IBM was competing with PC clones producing cheaper machines this advertising theme was used to imply that picking IBM was a “safe” choice, one that would never be held against you.How often is this concept applied to the process, artifacts and ceremonies accompanying IT projects in major organizations?

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How many of you have experienced the following on a project? The initiative kicks off fairly well, but as time goes on it become apparent that what the customer asked for isn’t indeed what they needed. After some introspection the team comes to the conclusion they must have messed up the analysis, if only they had done a better job of understanding the need, all would have gone well. more »

I have been going back in forth with several coworkers on two seemingly contradictory points. We want to see teams self-organize and take personal ownership for what they do and how they do it. Simultaneously, most teams can’t seem to make the leap at first. As Jeff Sutherland has proposed, sometime teams need “Shock Therapy” to become effective Agile teams. Yet this seems counter intuitive to the idea of self managing teams. By definition, does the jump start actually impede the team from achieving self-sufficiency. How does an organization know when structure is needed for a team or when it is ready to move on it’s own?

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One of my favorite teachers in college was a former managerial consultant and our class enjoyed being regaled with stories of her former clients – a veritable who’s who of major companies – and the challenges they faced. I recall one lecture when she was telling us about reports and communications and how you need to understand the psychological impact they may have on an organization. She was working with a major department store in the early 90’s when the organization was in a steep decline. more »

Recent events allowed me to catch up on light reading and I found myself going through “Sway – The Irreresitable Pull of Irrational Behavior” by Ori and Rom Brafman. The book is a generally enjoyable light read, but it delved into one topic I found very fascinating: irrational loss aversion. more »

I will not claim to be a religious individual, but an associate referred me to the Serenity Prayer – more commonly known as the Alcholics Anonymous prayer – as an effective mindset for a change agent. more »