Sept 11, 2014 · Anthony Boobier
I have a problem where Agile maturity and benchmarking models are used for comparison of where a team should be in their agile practices adoption; a one size fits all approach where teams must conform or they aren’t doing ‘agile right’. This approach is a fixed repeatable answer that conveniently ig... continue reading
Aug 20, 2014 · Sandy Mamoli
My goal for the next couple of years is to become an awesome public speaker. And here’s why:This is handball, and this is what I used to do. First, on a competitive level from when I was 12 and then, when I grew older, as a professional player representing Austria at the 1992 Olympic Summer Games. W... continue reading
Jul 14, 2014 · Sandy Mamoli
Let them be in control of the way they work ... After having been though a day of letting people self-organise into squads David Mole, Trade Me's head of projects (and my Agile partner in crime) and I are often being asked how we kicked off the new squads and how we make sure they work in a discipli... continue reading
Nov 06, 2013 · Mike Lowery
I recently ran a “get to know your team” session to help a team with lots of new members to better understand each other’s history, motivations, likes and dislikes. We did a number of exercises including journey lines, what do you value and team flags and we wrapped it up with postcards (insert ref... continue reading
Oct 09, 2013 · Anthony Boobier
... or Team Closure within a Project Closure Why? Projects come to an end, which means that a team that has been working closely together, may well be torn apart. This can lead to a sense of loss associated with disbanding some strong team relationships; especially if the team has reached the fourth... continue reading
Sept 22, 2013 · Sandy Mamoli
Why your daily standup should be driven by a daily goal Let’s face it, the daily standup can be a boring affair. I’m not talking about abominations with 16 people or half-hour long status reporting meetings. I’m talking about the ones that are kind of okay and adhere to the rules but nonetheless are... continue reading
Sept 02, 2013 · Sandy Mamoli
5 things that happen when you let ‘em loose ... Last Friday we had Fedex day at Trade Me. The aim of a FedEx Day is to complete something deliverable within a 24 hour period, i.e. to go from idea to a shippable product within a day. It was fun, lots of great projects saw the light of day and I enjoy... continue reading
Aug 05, 2013 · Sandy Mamoli
What is a premortem? A premortem is a project postmortem that’s run before a project. During a postmortem people analyse and discuss what went wrong, what went well and what could be improved. While postmortems are very useful the problem is that by the time we run them the project is usually over a... continue reading
Jul 01, 2013 · Sandy Mamoli
What are ground rules? Ground rules are a list of behaviours and rules a squad decide are useful for working together as a team in a productive and respectful way. A list of ground rules is an incredibly useful tool for guiding group behaviour. They are part of establishing an environment where peo... continue reading
May 01, 2013 · Mike Lowery
What does your sprint planning meeting look like? Are you the "do it as fast as you can" efficiency hounds or the "sit and listen while the tech lead drones on" type, or are you a "real team" who fight for great designs and customer experiences? Having watched and attended a few hundred of these mee... continue reading
Jan 23, 2013 · Sandy Mamoli
Every other week I have a geek and gossip breakfast with fellow Agile coach Nathan from Boost New Media. Last time he told me that at Boost they had replaced the word “Scrum Master” with “Agile coach”. It makes complete sense: The most important part of the Scrum Master role is coaching. Also, many... continue reading
Nov 05, 2012 · Mike Lowery
When you are coaching / mentoring there are times when you just get stuck, no matter what you try the message does not get through. You speak to your peers and you come up blank there too. This happened to me when I was coaching a development team manager, they had sort of adopted some Agile practic... continue reading
Sept 20, 2012 · Sandy Mamoli
A while ago I wrote about Personal Kanban at Snapper. Personal Kanban, or KanbanFor1 as we call it, has supported Snapper’s Agile adoption and has proven an excellent training ground for the team to develop good habits and behaviours. As in all Agile adoptions the delivery team aren’t the only ones... continue reading
Jul 02, 2012 · Mike Lowery
This is my second post in my Scrum coaching patterns series. In my last post I asked for some help with a pattern format that I could follow and at least one person must have read my blog as I now have a shiny new format to follow thanks to Gareth Evans for this. This is based on Linda Rising and Li... continue reading
May 16, 2012 · Sandy Mamoli
My client, a New Zealand government department, is in the process of introducing Agile-Lean. They are currently in a trial phase to see if it is for them and during the early stages they'd like to run Agile and non-Agile projects in parallel. Fair enough, but how to choose whether a project should... continue reading
Apr 09, 2012 · Mike Lowery
Earlier this year I was invited to join the Scrum plop, to help write some patterns for the Scrum community, unfortunately the stars were not right and I was not able to attend. It did however help me answer a question that a great friend and fellow Agilist Sandy Mamoli put to me, which was "how do... continue reading