Tag Archives: agile

Correcting Overcommitment during a Sprint

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As I’ve said before the most common problem I’ve seen with software development teams is over commitment. If worse comes to worst you get to the end of the spring before realising the problem. But you don’t have to wait until the end of a sprint to take corrective action.

Taking Corrective Action mid-Sprint to address Over Commitment

Taking Corrective Action mid-Sprint to address Over Commitment


This post was prompted by a comment, by Chris, on the post where I described what to do when tasks in the Sprint Plan are not finished. My assumption in that post was the team only realises they are overcommitted at the end of the sprint. And for first time teams that is often exactly what happens.

What I didn’t mention is that more mature teams are likely to spot what is going on earlier.
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Revisiting the Iterative Incremental Mona Lisa

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In his brilliant post Don’t know what I want, but I know how to get it Jeff Patton used a sketch of Mona Lisa to illustrate the difference between Iterative and Incremental development.

Jeff points out that many Agile people use the word “Incremental” when they mean “Iterative”. I believe this is because, in reality, most Agile projects combine both approaches and become Iterative Incremental. In fact I can’t imagine delivering software in any other way.

To illustrate what Iterative Incremental means I’ve taken Jeff’s Mona Lisa illustrations and added a third showing a combined Iterative Incremental approach.
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When To Measure Lean-Agile Productivity, and When Not To

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Lean-Agile offers two productivity measures: Velocity and Throughput. It is possible to improve both over time but there is little point in management demanding that a development team improve either because both metrics are very simple to fudge.

There is also little point in using either of these productivity measures in product development. The focus is discovery not churning stuff out.

Where a productivity measure is useful is in a project or programme. Where somebody is wanting to know when the team will be finished. Or, conversely, how much functionality will be delivered before the time and/or money has run out.

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Three Threads within Agile Programme Management

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The way I see it Agile Programme Management weaves together three threads: Transformation, Alignment and Adaptation. These threads are present in traditional approaches to programme management however an Agile approach subtlety changes each and increases the focus on Adaptation.

In this, the first post in a new series on Agile Programme Management, I’ll explain the three threads within Agile Programme Management.
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How to Manage a Vague or Dynamic Product Backlog

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In response to my request for questions along the lines of what do I do when … ? Jo asked:

What do I do when the product backlog is not complete and we still want to deliver our product on the agreed date? It is hard for the Product Owner to prepare a complete feature backlog and for developers to estimate the required time in order to get a realistic burndown chart during the sprints. The product backlog is kind of dynamic.

In response I’m going to look at three states for the product backlog and strategies for managing backogs when in each of those states:

  1. Normally vague/dynamic
  2. Completely vague
  3. Massively dynamic

The first of these states is, well, normal. You never know everything about the scope. You just have to manage what you do know.

The other two states suggest something is going wrong in the product management space. And that is very much a product owner issue. The agile project manager / scrum master role is to help the product owner and/or organisation realise their problem.
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Go Deep on Agile Practices: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How

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One of the interesting things about having an outsider look at my work is that I have an opportunity to gain a greater understanding of what I do and, specifically, what I do differently from others. Joanna Geraldi gave me such an opportunity when she came to interview me about my approach to project management for some research. After the interview Joanna characterised my approach as "’real’ principle-driven agile project management". That got me thinking because for a long time I was far more concerned about practices than principles. It seems that has changed.
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What is Agile Governance?

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Personally I think good governance is essential for successful delivery, either within a programme or project, or part of on-going product development.

The recent publication of Governance for Agile delivery: Examples from the private sector July 2012 by the British National Audit Office suggests the UK government is also very interested in Agile and how it can be used to deliver value. But within the constraints of good governance.

However the term “governance” is rarely used along side “Agile”. As a agile programme manager I thought I’d try to answer the question “What is Agile Governance?”
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