March 2007 – Leading Answers

March 28, 2007Agile Project Management, Books, Events, Weblogs

Changing Jobs

In April I will be leaving Quadrus Development to go independent again. I have found an interesting contract at local company, Husky Energy, where they have an agile project to manage and some other interesting initiatives underway and I am looking forward to my new role. End With the Beginning in MindI have been at Quadrus for over six years and I enjoyed my role there tremendously. Someone very wise (Christopher Avery) once told me that when a relationship comes to an end that you should always End With the Beginning in Mind i.e. remember the reasons why the relationship started in the first place and focus on these points when wrapping up. Not only is end-with-the-beginning-in-mind, a great twist […]

March 22, 2007October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Planning, Teams

Release and Iteration Planning with Innovation Games

In this post I outline some really useful techniques for planning releases and iterations. They are adapted from a great book called “Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products through Collaborative Play" by Luke Hohmann Some thoughts on the term “Games”I have never been a fan of suggesting the use of “games” in the enterprise workplace, as in XP’s “Planning Game”. The term does not sit well with some traditional-type folks; to them it sounds unprofessional and not serious enough for important work. Yet the Innovation Games described by Hohmann are high performance facilitated workshop exercises that produce great results. If the project is serious enough to engage busy stakeholders then I think we owe it to the business to use the […]

March 18, 2007Events

Next Calgary APLN Meeting – April 10 – Team Motivation

The next Calgary APLN Chapter meeting is on April 10th and will feature Ross Martin and Lynn Harrison from Black Tusk Leadership speaking on: "Team Motivation: Working Inside the Egg". See www.CalgaryAPLN.org for a full description and registration details. This promises to be an interactive and entertaining talk that emphasises the importance of listening and motivation within teams. I first met Ross when I attended a "Leadership Challenge" workshop last year. Ross was an invited panel presenter and he impressed me with his knowledge and humble demeanour. I met up with Ross for lunch shortly afterwards to ask him some leadership questions and we got talking about his job as an executive coach and leadership consultant. Ross explained that he […]

March 15, 2007October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Teams

Introducing Agile Methods: Mistakes to Avoid – Part 3

(Achieving successful change) In Part 1 we looked at the W5 (Why, Who, What, When, Where) of introducing agile methods into an organization. Part 2 dealt with why change is difficult, resistance to change, and when people do accept changes. Today in Part 3, I will introduce a change framework to effectively implement agile methods (or other organizational changes) with less opposition. Let’s recap the circumstances where people will accept changes: • When the change is seen as a personal gain: in security, money, authority, status or prestige, responsibility, working conditions, achievement • Provides a new challenge and reduces boredom – when we create more interesting work • Opportunities to influence the change initiative – when we involve people in […]

March 13, 2007October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Teams

Introducing Agile Methods: Mistakes to Avoid – Part 2

(Understanding Resistance to Change) In Part 1 we looked at the W5 (Why, Who, What, When, Where) of introducing agile. Today in Part 2 we will look at Challenges and Resistance. In Part 3 I will introduce a change framework to effectively implement agile methods (or other organizational changes). However, before I get to that we need to look at why change is difficult and why people resist change. Change ChallengesAs a believer in agile methods and someone who had witnessed the benefits they can bring and the great buzz of an effective agile team, I used to think rolling out the methods would be a no-brainer. Mistake # 8: Underestimating the resistance to change. Wrong, achieving successful lasting change […]

March 9, 2007October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Teams

Introducing Agile Methods: Mistakes to Avoid – Part 1

(Understanding change) I was contacted by a reader recently who was enquiring about practical ways to introduce agile methods into their organization. I suggested the book "Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas" by Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising as a good reference for successful change introductions, but drew a blank with blogs on the subject. So I thought I would write up my experiences and suggestions in a short series of posts. Having being involved in the creation and roll-out of DSDM in 1994 and engaged on agile projects ever since, I have been exposed to a wide variety of process change initiatives, many of which had some pain-points. It is probably fair to say that if there […]

March 4, 2007October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Books, Teams

Agile Methods and the Rise of Mass Collaboration

Last week I attended a great presentation by Don Tapscott author of “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything”. It was organized by Cambrian House (full disclosure: a company I have an investment and advisory role at) and spoke to the rise of peer collaboration over command-and-control management shown by the explosion of user-generated content sites and new work models. For me it generated some “ah-ha” moments and connected several ideas related to agile methods and new organizational structures. Don Tapscott writes ahead of his time (either that or I’m just slow on the uptake), in his previous book “Growing Up Digital: the rise of the Net Generation”, he explained how modern generations are growing up comfortable with new communication methods. […]