—

I’m frequently asked if a Tester, Business Analyst, User Experience (UX) person, Database Analyst, or Security Expert is part of the Scrum team? Short answer: Yes. Long answer: many people misunderstand the Scrum Guide. Scrum Development Team Membership The Scrum Guide has a ...continue reading

Definition of “Done” The ScrumGuide says that: “When a Product Backlog item or an Increment is described as ‘Done’, everyone must understand what ‘Done’ means.” I can promise you, that sentence and the paragraphs that follow are the most poorly understood aspects of the ...continue reading

In April 2017, United Airlines made global headlines when they forcibly removed one passenger (David Dao) who had already boarded the flight, to accommodate crew flying to another destination. The flight staff called the airport police and Dao was hurt as he was dragged off the ...continue reading

Dear Rt. Hon. Kim Campbell, In early October we met in the Toronto airport while lining up to board for Edmonton. I’m the Ottawa-based management consultant, who helps organizations become more effective. You asked what it is that I do, so I’ve undertaken to explain it here ...continue reading

(Continued from Agile Change or Adoption Always Starts with Why : 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ) Seeing an organizational change map with seven to eight proposed major changes can feel daunting and discouraging. It’s even worse when we realize that list will keep growing as new ...continue reading

Twice now in my career I’ve done a massive rewrite to replace an existing product. In both cases, it didn’t end well. Each time, the new product was competing with an existing product that was making the company money. So, of course, the existing product got enhancements on a ...continue reading

Nearly every client I work with asks me this question at some point during consulting: How large should the Development Team be? How many doers (i.e. exclusive of ScrumMaster and Product Owner) per team? The Scrum Guide offers very limited guidance, suggesting 3-9, without giving ...continue reading

As most Canadians can tell you, the rollout of the Canadian Government’s Phoenix payroll modernization system has gone disastrously badly. At one stage, there were over 80,000 civil servants who had payment problems, with some even losing their houses over the mess. I’ve seen ...continue reading

We’ve seen the risks of assuming that everything is normal distribution, and also the problem with reporting a single number. What else do we need to be aware of? What can we usefully measure? Risks in Measurement Many important things can’t be measured using formal measurement ...continue reading

We’ve previously seen that our mental models often make false assumptions due to cognitive bias. Giving a Single number in a report has a similar problem. The classic Agile number is ‘Velocity’: the average rate at which your team delivers work. It is often shared as just one ...continue reading