In the past year I watched the Amazon series Patriot. From a plot perspective, the show is about an American agent who takes on a “non-official cover” with a pipe company to prevent a nuclear threat. At a deeper level, the show is about the complications of flow, mentioned several times as the simplicity of …
Continue reading “The Mechanics of Flow: You don’t have to be the fastest to beat the fastest.”
If a team’s initial response to Scrum is that it’s restrictive, prescriptive, and high-overhead, consider this the tip of the iceberg floating above the water.
A recent discussion in one of my tech forums turned to a question of how to price yourself when you’ve been approached about freelance development gigs. Much good information was shared on topics including new developers getting their first paying gig, race and minority status in the job market, the temptations that lead to undervaluing …
Continue reading “Counter-pitching freelance gigs as Agile engagements”
“What makes a good coworker in tech? What makes a bad one?” I saw these two questions posted in a coding forum today as part of JC Smiley’s daily questions, which he then reposts with the answers to his LinkedIn feed. If you’re getting started in development, you should follow him. “What traits or actions …
My goal with this Retrospective is a format allowing teams to break down a few specific issues into constituent parts, look for themes in root cause analysis, and take actions to prevent the recurrence of those factors. Some specific choices about the Retrospective, and why I made these choices: A. This Retrospective serves as an …
One theme on my mind right now is the proper expression and treatment of “Pain” as a core part of Scrum Agile working as intended. Schwaber and Sutherland said they promise one thing only from Scrum, everything else is a nice side benefit. Scrum will show you all of your problems. In order for that …
Typical Approaches to Solving for Time What are the ways we typically try to resolve time problems? There is the appeal to work ethic. Bob, in sales: “Come on guys, work your magic!” This assumes that all the resources in the process are already under-utilized, and by appealing to one resource (the people), they will …
Temporal Distribution Thus we arrive at temporal distribution. Because humans are so bound by time, we do a poor job of considering it. We are fish, rarely contemplating the water. We frequently and easily think of distributing objects (everyone on this floor needs paperclips), knowledge (all the new developers need training), and people (one person …
Time as a Unique Resource Because all inputs are human modulated, they are all subject to the one key resource – Time. Humans are inevitably a slave to time. Therefore, time is really the ultimate resource. And it is unlike other resources. Sometimes you can “crash” a project by adding people, you might increase heat, …
The Agile Couch