George and I presented our Agile Battlemapping presentation at the Agile2009 conference.  I had an absolutely fantastic time and based on the feedback we received from the audience, it appeared that everyone else had a good time too.  This was the first time we had added the practical exercises.  First the audience members individually drew battlemaps of their own projects or programs followed and then they combined into groups to create prioritized response strategies.  I look forward to making further enhancements and to the next time we present it.  Click below do download a PDF of the presentation.

Agile 2009: Mapping the Change Battlefied

Courage can’t be taught, I’m told.  It can be learned though.

I wasn’t taught it…but I did learn it.

One day long ago my professional career seemed torn asunder by an organizational change.  At that time, I believed that all I had worked for was no longer firm ground on which to base my next successes (that is the way it seemed, anyway).

“It is only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything” – Tyler Durden

I use that quote way too often.  My perception at the time was that I had lost everything.  There was a new regime moving in.  My colleagues resigned themselves to stagnation while the new leaders arrived and established their top-down plans.  This seemed really familiar to me… more »

Coaching has some really important benefits in helping organizations adopt Agile methods, Lean, <insert process improvement of your choice here>.  This is especially true in large, complex organizations with deeply-traditional cultures that seem resistant to change.

Are you considering a coach?

If you aren’t, are your organization and projects at risk? more »

I apologize for the delay in posting this presentation. Here is the third, and final presentation we offered at the Mass Bay Professional day on May 2nd. Presented by Giora Morein, it is focused on the challenges an organization faces as they try to grow an Agile initiative beyond a single team.

You can view the presentation here

This Saturday, Giora and I were invited to speak at the Massachusetts Bay PMI Chapter’s professional day. Thanks to everyone who contributed to a great dialog about Agile and project management. I have included the two of the presentations we went through and hopefully we’ll have the 3rd one out shortly.

There is a lot going around about success in Scrum these days.  Talks on ScrumButt,(or ScrumBut); long threads about how long it takes; presentations on what is involved.  Yet I wonder how these folks can talk this way.  In my humble opinion to declare that you are successful at being Agile or doing Scrum is to admit that you don’t grasp the essence of Agility.
Maybe I am wrong, after all I put my pants on just like everyone else and just like them I periodically forget to zip up.  Could be one of us has that problem.
So to be transparent, What I have been teaching, coaching, leading, and doing the past 10 years is getting people to stop thinking about this as a goal to attain and to start accepting that it is a way of getting things done, better each time.
Is this a copout in that I never have to say my teams FAILED?  Nope.  It means that if you did good today, you were better than you were yesterday and now you have to do something else to be successful tomorrow. Lots of days you don’t get there but you do learn what doesn’t work. So if I understand the ScrumButters’ metrics, most of what I do is fail, but then again I have tomorrow to change things and get better than I was.

Here is what I measure. more »

You shouldn’t be surprised by this.  Agile is in need of Architecture but you have to seriously question how we are going about adapting and inspecting the role of the Agile Architect in meeting that need.  Funny thing is that it may be due to the fact that mainstream Agile thinking is wrapped around Agile as a small team of hardy souls bringing joy to the masses and angst to ‘the man’.

When you live where we do, working with huge organizations spending enormous sums of money so that hundreds and even thousands of people can build, support, train, maintain, and even (gasp) plan how to handle the information needs of millions of people as they; trade at a local, regional, national, and international level concurrently; seek, provide, research, pay for healthcare;  protect/defend their person, family, home, community, nation, world from threats of others or their own environmental actions; and even download upload whatever they find entertaining in this world; when you live on this side of hill, architecture is at the core of being Agile.  And for the most part, we suck at making it great.  Why is that? more »