Having identified “Three-Market-Forces” that highlight an opportunity, you can use the “Big Idea” format to articulate your new product development concept.
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Need an unsolvable problem solved? Call in the Development Paratrooper
A guy walked up to me and said “I hear you’ve got a problem with Flash”. I hadn’t met him before but I’d heard about him. Mike Brown the Development Paratrooper.
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Work Item Tracking, to See or Not to See?
Work Item Tracking, to See or Not to See? This is always an interesting debate. The lists are much longer but for simplicity I’ve surfaced a few salient points. So which is best? Physical or virtual? For me physical boards win hands down, but there are occasionally good reasons for a careful blend.
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How to Distinguish Between Activity and Queues on a Kanban Board
My Kanban boards follow a certain pattern, what I call the “Step In Progress then Done” pattern. By default each step in my process has an “In Progress” column and a “Done” column. Some people don’t like that. You wouldn’t believe the number of conversations I’ve had about it. These conversations more or less boil down to me explaining that “Done” is a queue, not an activity. And I want my Kanban board to make it clear that each activity has an associated queue.
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Did HeartOfAgile emerge from PDCA?
I don’t know if it was Alistair Cockburn’s inspiration but I’ve noticed a striking similarity between Cockburn’s HeartOfAgile and the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle of TQM.
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A U in UX
Obvious, right. Well, perhaps not. After all, what is UX anyway? I have many conversations on this topic, with developers and UX designers, and I never seem to get the same answers. I find that both fascinating, and a little frustrating, and I’m very aware that the feeling’s mutual! I have a simplistic view on this, fortunately for me it aligns with the definition that pops up when you Google (other search engines are available) “what is ux”.
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Going back to basics with Agile, what would we find? The Heart of Agile
In a world with non-software Agile and Agile at scale, what is Agile? I think Alistair Cockburn has hit the nail right on the head with his recent HeartOfAgile.
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Quality is a choice: the case of the Next Generation Apps
Over the last year I’ve had the privilege of overseeing the development of the next generation of mobile apps (iOS and Android) for the major commercial radio brands in the UK. The most amazing thing about this experience was the priorities – UX&D was #1 priority – something I’ve never had before.
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Strong products are backed by “Three-market-forces”
Oren Klaff’s book is on how to “Pitch Anything” however it includes a lot of valuable insight into start ups and new product development. One idea I liked was the “Three-market-forces” pattern.
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What is the optimal number of manual testers in a development team? Zero?
To have manual testers, or not to have manual testers, that is the question. Typically I have one per team: Less than many teams but more than some organisations get away with.
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