Event: Israel Scrum User Group, December 2008
Location: Tel-Aviv, Israel
Presenter: Giora Morein

This is the Scrum Introduction presentation I presented at the first Scrum Israel User Group.

Download the Introduction to Scrum

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 »

Advanced Communication, Problem Solving and Team Facilitation skills!

The world around us is changing quickly. We have a new president, the economy is in rough shape, unemployment is up, financial institutions are closing, businesses are being stretched to do more with less and many are losing the battle. It seems everywhere we turn; the message is things are changing whether or not we want them to.

Good news ahead! more »

I have spent a good portion of the last 15 years trying to go back to the future. For the first 15 years I worked in companies where Quality was paramount and their common approach shaped my thinking and actions. Names like Fisher Price, Parker Brothers, Eastman Kodak, Wang Word Processing, speak to the power and importance of quality. With their respective demise I also learned another important lesson about quality. It is not just about how well the product is built. It is the value the product adds to a customer’s quality of life that separates a fad from a staple. This, it turns out, is the one item I have found that moves business and management to understand the importance – to their success – of having quality at the front of the train. 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 »

When your CIO thinks everything is fine, but you know it isn’t.

(How many times have we all seen this or experienced this situation?)

Agile allows everyone to win.

John the CIO thought everything was running smoothly, not perfectly but customers had stopped complaining and products were shipping on time for once. Re-org after re-org had finally brought some results. The developers/testers/project managers and business analysts were happy, or so he was told by the V.P. of Development to whom all departments reported. Everyone was solving problems and working together in the open and bright space. Disciplined process and structure were in place and demonstrated during executive and shareholder meetings using sharp power point presentations. Documentation, process and procedures were stored in shared repositories for all to see. More eloquent documentation you could not find.

Everyone agreed improvements needed to continue but the executive management team was elated. more »