Month: August 2007

Agile Project Management, Leadership

Popular Posts as PDFs – One year of LeadingAnswers

I have been blogging on this site for a year now and it has been lots of fun. With 82 articles and 33,000 visitors from 127 countries, I have made plenty of contacts that I would not have made otherwise and learned lots in the process. A couple of people have commented that it is hard to print articles from this site and so I have created a separate page with some of the more popular posts as PDF documents for download or printing. Just click on the "Articles as PDF documents" link of the top right of this page. Who knows what year 2 will bring, but I’d like to hear from you so I have added a “Suggest […]

Read more
Uncategorized

Training Courses

  Leading Answers offers the following consulting services: Training Courses PMI-ACP Exam Preparation Course – 3 daysThe new PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) certification is the PMI’s fastest growing certification and is set to be the gold standard for agile competence by employers. Train for the examination with this 3 day, accelerated learning exam preparation class taught by Mike Griffiths, one of the PMI-ACP Steering Committee members and designer for the examination. Get inside information on all of the PMI-ACP Domains, Knowledge & Skills areas, and Tools & Techniques needed to pass the exam. Course Outline: PMI-ACP Exam Prep – Outline Agile Project Leadership – 2 daysFor anyone faced with managing an agile project who is dissatisfied with the training […]

Read more
Agile Project Management, Leadership, Teams

How many volunteers do you have working on your project?

While your initial reaction may be “none”, I would assert that your whole team are actually volunteers and we can benefit from recognizing this and treating them accordingly. All that paying people does is ensure that they turn up (hopefully) and then once they are at work they must want to contribute or else very little will be achieved despite all the outward appearances of them “working”. Attending the Agile 2007 conference in Washington and witnessing the passion of people engaged in something they truly care about and volunteering on programs with likeminded people got me thinking again about the productivity of volunteers and paid team members. Team member contribution varies on a scale ranging from being a net drain […]

Read more
Events

Agile 2007, Agile 2008

I’m heading off to the Agile 2007 conference in Washington DC next week so you can probably expect a short gap in postings here as I take in the sessions and events there. This year’s conference sold out early as it was capped at 1100 people due to venue capacity. Next year’s conference will be in Toronto and there has been a good dialogue on the Agile Alliance board recently regarding the objectives for the 2008 conference including optimal size and format. An element I have suggested for inclusion is a stronger community involvement. On agile projects we let the users prioritize the requirements and I would like to see a similar approach used for Agile 2008. Agile Alliance members […]

Read more
Uncategorized

Articles as PDF documents

Popular Posts as PDF documents: Agile Interfaces: PMO Integration.pdf Agile Suitability Filters.pdf Agile Traditional Dictionary.pdf Complex Project Success from less specification and more collaboration.pdf Large Project Risks.pdf Release and Iteration Planning with Innovation Games.pdf Summarizing Progress with Parking Lot diagrams.pdf Team Decision Making Techniques.pdf The 5 Myths of Leadership.pdf The Pipelining Antipattern.pdf The Rise Fall and Rediscovery of Agile Methods.pdf The True Role of a PM on Agile Projects.pdf When Project Managers Should Step In and When They Should Step Back.pdf Creating and Interpreting Cumulative Flow Diagrams.pdf Creating Risk Profile Graphs.pdf Most Software Development Metrics are Misleading and Counterproductive.pdf Using DSDM with PRINCE2 Original White Paper.pdf Collaborative Games for Agile Risk Management Agile and Earned Value Reporting.pdf Tools: Estimation and […]

Read more
Agile Project Management

Keeping Agile Real (and avoid losing people before you begin)

I went to see a bad chiropractor a few months ago and his approach diminished my (already quite skeptical) perception of this medical practice. His outright dismissal of conventional medicine and biased view that chiropractic treatment is the only true solution to all ailments turned me away from him and from any benefits I may have found by continuing with his treatment. I am not comparing agile methods to alternative medicine, instead I’m just pointing out that zealots who fail to acknowledge alternative views can do a lot to damage their profession. As proponents of agile methods, I believe we can make a stronger case for agile by acknowledging strengths of traditional approaches and explaining how agile can help common […]

Read more