January 2008 – Leading Answers

January 27, 2008Agile Project Management, Leadership, Metrics, Teams

We Don’t Want User Input!

Do you really need those pesky users on your project, forever changing their minds and requesting new functionality just as you are about to be done? When I was at school, my physic’s teacher was fond of telling us that, "if it were not for the students I would enjoy teaching." The same is true for users, they may cause us issues and headaches, but they are the reason we are there and developing software in the first place. Why we Need User InputThe truth is that on agile projects we do not want user input we actually need user input in order to be successful. Agile projects are deliberately light on capturing initial requirements because we realize that requirements […]

January 20, 2008October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Events, Leadership, Teams

Agile 2008 – “Leadership and Teams” Stage

This year’s Agile conference in Toronto this August will be structured slightly differently. Following a music festival structure, the conference will be divided into “stages” to cover different topics. I was able to visit the Agile 2008 conference venue in December when the last Agile Alliance Board meeting was held there and we toured the facility with the Agile 2008 Conference Committee. Johanna Rothman and I are the “Leadership and Teams” chairs for the conference and we have been allocated a great venue; a large, bright ballroom with high ceilings and lots of natural light. This year the conference has much more space and larger mingling areas both indoors and out which I am sure will help. On the “Leadership […]

January 18, 2008Agile Project Management, Estimating, Events, Leadership, Lean, Metrics, Planning, Risk Management, Teams

Agile Project Leadership Training Course

On February 4-5th I will be co-instructing with Sanjiv Augustine our new “Agile Project Leadership” training course in Manchester, UK. Sanjiv is the author of the excellent “Managing Agile Projects” book and fellow APLN board member. This is a fast paced, practical focussed course that covers agile project management, leadership, and avoiding common agile project pitfalls. You can find further details including a course outline at here.

January 17, 2008October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Estimating, Metrics, Planning, Teams

Top 10 Estimation Best Practices

I have written a few posts now on estimation and so I thought it was time for a summary. Also, I am planning to create a series of one page best practice summaries / cheat-sheets for agile and this seemed like a good candidate. (I am a real fan of one-pagers; there is special value in getting everything visible and presented on one page that brings unique scope comprehension and clarity. Toyota and other lean organizations make heavy use of A3 reports, a one page summary of an issue, its root causes, countermeasures, and verification steps to summarize problems and planned solutions – they are powerful tools. Incidentally, when I first started work I had a wise and cantankerous project […]

January 13, 2008Agile Project Management, Events, Leadership, Teams

Personal Agility – Free Webinar

Is agile about new tools and techniques or more a mindset? Philippe Kruchten asserts “agility is not a technology, science, or product but a culture”. This makes sense to me; innovation comes in waves (object oriented programming, business process engineering, lean production, etc); and while they all have their merits, most fail to deliver the full potential of their benefits because people concentrate on the process rather than the mindset. At the heart of agile is a mindset not a toolset. I was speaking to Christopher Avery today, author of “Teamwork is an Individual Skill” and he shared some thoughts on personal agility and team motivation. Christopher is great for this since he approaches agility and team work from a […]

January 7, 2008Agile Project Management, Estimating, Metrics, Planning

Software Estimates – Managing Expectations via Ranges

Customer: How much is that parrot in the window?Pet shop owner: Somewhere between $200 and $250 Customer: Erm, OK, I’ll give you $200 for it then! To some people providing estimates as a range of values seem a strange and unsatisfying way of conducting business. They just want to know how much something will cost, not how much it may or not cost. This is reasonable if the object or service is ready for use, but not if it has yet to be created. The more uncertainty involved in the process the more likely there will be some variability. Now consider this conversation: Customer: How much will it cost for a taxi ride from the library to the airportTaxi driver: […]