Month: March 2009

Agile Project Management, Estimating, Metrics, Risk Management

Non-Functional Requirements – Minimal Checklist

All IT systems at some point in their lifecycle need to consider non-functional requirements and their testing. For some projects these requirements warrant extensive work and for other project domains a quick check through may be sufficient. As a minimum, the following list can be a helpful reminder to ensure you have covered the basics.  Based on your own project characteristics, I would recommend the topics are converted into SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realisable, Timeboxed / Traceable) requirements with the detail and rigour appropriate to your project. The list is also available at the bottom of the article as a one-page PDF document. While it is easy to make the list longer by adding more items, I would really like […]

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Agile Project Management, Estimating, Events, Leadership, Metrics, Risk Management, Teams, Travel

Agile in New Orleans

Next week I’ll be teaching a two day Agile Project Management course for the PMI in New Orleans. The class sold out quickly; I only teach 3 or 4 times a year for the PMI and I wondered if registration numbers would be down this year. The fact that it filled up so quickly is very positive and perhaps more people are tuning to agile as a way to get more work done with less budget. This year’s Agile Business Conference in London has the theme of “Driving Success in Adversity” and I have submitted a presentation outline and plan to attend. There submission system states “This year we invite presentations and tutorials emphasising how Agile practices promote efficiency in […]

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Agile Project Management, Events, Leadership, Teams

The “Realization, Suck, Advance” Progression

Many skills go through a familiar progression:1) Poor Performance2) The Point of Realization3) The “Sucking” Phase4) The Advancement Phase I went through this with TDD, then with a switch from management to leadership, more recently with learning to ski down hill in control on cross-country skis. 1) Poor Performance – Some things you just cannot do, or you have a lack of recognition about. The end result is that performance is poor. 2) The Point Realization – this is when you realize what you are supposed to be doing and the “a-ha” moment occurs. It feels good to now know what you need to do, but usually we are not practiced at it and still continue to fail for a […]

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Agile Project Management, Events, Leadership, Teams

VUCA Lessons For Agile

Bob Johansen author of “Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present” outlines the challenges of VUCA projects. VUCA is a military term used to describe environments characterized by: VolatilityUncertaintyComplexityAmbiguity In such environments standard Command-and-Control processes are not effective. I recently attended a great presentation by Denise Caron who outlined Bob’s description of VUCA challenges and the new leadership models that lend themselves to these circumstances. Many of today’s software projects exhibit Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity and there are numerous parallels between agile leadership and the VUCA leadership model. Low complexity, fixed targets and “knowable” problems can be solved with a Command-and-Control approach. Here careful upfront planning and then methodical execution pay dividends. However, projects with […]

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