Tag Archives: flow

Seamless processes and continuous improvement, ensuring technology operates efficiently, adapts to change, and drives effectiveness

Agile Project Manager as Shepherd

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I value project managers and see an on-going need for them within a Lean-Agile context. Admittedly the role of the project manager changes when using an Lean-Agile approach, becoming more of a shepherd and less a military officer. In this, the first post of a new series, I thought I’d revisit my definition of the Agile Project Manager.
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How to spot a Product Owner’s Pet Requirements

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Everybody has pet requirements and product owners, being human, are no different. Unfortunately pet requirements are a real risk to software projects. We should all resist these pet requirements and do everything possible to kill them off ASAP and avoid building them. So how do you spot pet requirements
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Is Kanban Turning Developers into Mindless Automata? Not necessarily

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David shambles up to the Kanban board. He moves a card from “Dev In Progress” to “Dev Done”. No emotion cracks his blank facade. There is no celebration of a job well done. No acknowledgement from others in the room. David glances briefly to his left and then pulls another card from “Ready for Dev” into “Dev In Progress” before shambling back to this desk. Another burst of coding begins. This little scene has occurred four times already this week, 19 times this month, and 271 times since David joined the project 15 months earlier. Is David just a machine in the Lean-Agile software factory? A mindless development automaton?
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Who is Specification by Example for? Everybody!

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I was talking to Pedro Santos on the train the other day. Pedro is my technical lead, an expert in his field and a keen advocate of automated testing and software craftsmanship in general. We were talking about Gherkin and Pedro was saying he doesn’t see Gherkin tests adding value because it doesn’t help him as a developer. Of course I disagree. The way I look at it is the Gherkin tests are not for the developers. The Gherkin tests are for the organisation – they are for everybody.
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Solution Convergence: Marrying Business, User Experience and Technical Input

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My product owner was upset when I told her she couldn’t have the widget that she had agreed with the User Experience (UX) Designer. The problem was the design was not technically feasible. To get a great solution to meet the business requirements three parties – business, user experience and technical – must agree on the approach. That negotiation is what I call “Solution Convergence”.
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Specification by Example helps even with no Automation

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I’m keen on Specification by Example particularly with a tool like Cucumber to automate tests. However this style of specification is also useful without the automation. I introduced my current team to Specification by Example and, with some help from me, the customer is now using the same disciplines to define requirements to hand to a 3rd party development shop. The experiment has been very successful.
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Everybody on your new team says they know Agile. Don’t believe it

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Early in my Agile career I was the only person on my team who knew anything about Agile. Now everybody claims to know Agile and/or to have Agile experience. Certainly this has been true for most people on my last couple of teams. My advice to you is – don’t believe a word of it. Assume they know nothing.
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