Daniel Markham thinks the Product Owner is “the perfect scam in the Agile community” and recommends getting rid of the role. This might work for highly functioning teams working in highly functioning organisations, but for not normal teams. For normal teams in normal organisations the Product Owner performs a valuable role as a facilitator and, if you are lucky, a leader.
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Tag Archives: flow
Test driven architecture – use your tests to inform architecture
As test-loving development teams, we are all painfully aware of the complexity of getting an application into the zen state of development – quick, test-driven red/green feedback for developers, software designs that are functionally on-the-money from a test-led, “outside-in” approach (from BDD), and a nigh on seamless continuous delivery process as a result. Very few teams achieve this, and those that do are frequently gifted a green-field project in which to engender them.
As test-savvy teams, when tests start to hamper the release process, we often assume our approach to testing needs an overhaul, but that might not be the case. Here we look at the role of architecture in test-driven applications, and examine whether we should listen to our tests to examine our macro design.
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Scope Creep v Flexible Scope – Undisciplined v Agile
Bart asked “What do I do when agile is abused as an excuse for scope creep?” with the sub-text “You’re agile so you’re flexible, no?”. I say point out the difference between scope creep and flexible scope. Agile makes changing scope a zero sum game – that gives flexibility without the creepiness.
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Deming wasn’t a fan of Management by Walking Around
W. Edwards Deming, credited with launching the Total Quality Management movement, wasn’t a fan of Management by Walking Around.
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TPM – Project Manager who is technical or technical person who manages?
I squirm when I see a job description for a “Technical Project Manager (TPM)”. My experience is that an organisation advertising for a TPM is often confused about what they are looking for. Do they mean a project manager who is technical or a technical person who provides some coordination? Often you’ll find both types in the same “project management” team.
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How to get Agile experience as a project manager? Just start
Tim felt in a Catch-22 situation. He wanted to break into Agile, however, without experience he had little chance of landing a job running an Agile project. He felt stuck and wanted help to find a way forward. My advice – just start.
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Little’s Law – the basis of Lean and Kanban
Sometimes I think it helps to go back to basics. And when using Lean Software Development, including Kanban, that means a man called Little and his Law. “Little’s Law” is a fundamental of queue theory and defines the relationship between Work in Progress (WIP), Throughput and Lead Time. It is the reason why Kanban teams try to limit WIP.
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I hate part time assignments to projects; they challenge WIP limits
I hate part time assignments – when I see people being asked to split their time across projects. Where ever possible I try to get people full time on one thing at a time.
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I always work with a “Product Owner”; never a “Scrum Product Owner”
I’ve previously had a poke at the Scrum Product Owner role when I called it Scrum’s Uber-Pig. Now I have to admit that, although I always work with a “Product Owner”, I never work with a “Scrum Product Owner”. In fact, given my own responsibilities, I can never work with a Scrum Product Owner.
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Don’t use the Formal User Story Format for Minor Modifications
Kim Daubney asked what to do when the story isn’t a new requirement but a UI change. Kim wanted to know if the “as a, i want, so that” format is still required? Short answer is “no”.
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