Month: February 2012

Slow Down and You’ll Reach Your Goal Sooner

I find it fascinating that many people complain about organizational behaviors, yet nothing changes. Want to be more agile? Change something. Let’s take meetings, for example. It seems that most people complain about meetings. Here are some of the most common complaints: There no clear purpose or objective is offered. No meeting agenda or timeline […]

The Software Must Be ‘Done’ by the Due Date

My examination of enterprise agile development based on the article I wrote for the Tools Journal called “10 Tips for Succeeding with Enterprise Agile Development” is nearly complete. Let’s talk about delivery dates…deadlines…schedules…drop-dead dates. Meeting dates is important. Let me repeat that — “Meeting dates is important.” Some agile development practitioners seem to believe that […]

Sacred Cows Often Stop Enterprise Agile Teams

My exploration of enterprise agile development continues with the topic of training and coaching — areas that are often overlooked or shorted. When transitioning from a command-and-control development approach like waterfall to an agile approach like Scrum or Kanban, there’s a tendency to oversimplify. After all, the rules governing agile development, particularly Scrum or Kanban, […]

Team Retrospectives Are Not Enough for Enterprise Agile

This post continues my exploration of what it takes to be successful with enterprise agile software development. The Scrum-of-Scrums only scratches the surface of what you’ll need to do. Let’s reconsider the role of the retrospective. Everyone practicing any agile development approach should recognize that regular retrospectives are a critical success factor. Teams need to […]

Automate Your Way to Enterprise Agile Success

As I continue to explore what it takes to achieve enterprise-scale agility, I have to admit that I’m a big proponent of automation. I know many advocate physical Scrum or Kanban boards but they don’t scale. They can be used at the small team level but you have got to leverage software solutions to scale […]

To Be Agile, Establish Team Metrics Not Individual Ones

One of the points in my article, “10 Tips for Succeeding with Enterprise Agile Development”, is to focus on teams not individuals. Many firms have a difficult time with this concept. Large enterprises go to great lengths to manage individual performance — setting personal goals, rating staff members, tracking distribution curves, conducting annual reviews, creating […]

Software Development Teams Need Help and SIGs Can Offer It

In my post “Enterprise Organizational Structures Are Not Agile and Don’t Work”, I introduced the use of Centers of Excellence (CoEs) as an alternative to traditional command-and-control org charts in large enterprises. While a good start, CoEs are not enough. Organizations must dig deeper and find ways to nurture and grow highly specialized skills. The […]