Illustrated Agile
It is a bit crazy to think we are already in 2016 but before we get too far into the new year here is a quick review of what has been happening at Illustrated Agile in 2015. Thanks to all of the new email subscribers to the blog. It’s been a record year for the […]
For many leaders, the sprint review (or demonstration) is one of the few chances they have to see their direct reports functioning with their Agile team and to witness the outcome of their work. My recommendation would be to attend as many sprint review sessions as you can. Everything you need to know about the health […]
Complications, contention, and complexities will often emerge when attempting to integrate a non-Agile vendor implementation within an Agile organization or team. From my experience, many vendors already have a phased project plan template established for their portion of the work and this can seem somewhat. What is an Agile team to do if they are […]
Some product backlogs seem to meld perfectly with their team while others are more of a detriment to productivity. An ineffective product backlog will impact the team in many ways. Team sizing activities become challenging, creating tasks from backlog items takes twice as long as it should, and frustration and lack of trust will be […]
As organizations create new products, grow their workforce and add new teams, keeping them in sync becomes difficult. This becomes even more challenging as the demands of a fast-paced marketplace require greater agility and flexibility. Throw in the growing complexity of technical solutions, service-oriented architectures and dependencies between teams to deliver pieces of a larger […]
Thank you to all of the Illustrated Agile readers who made 2013 so awesome. The reason Illustrated Agile exists is to encourage you in your journey as a change agent and for you to become a catalyst for introducing agility concepts and practices into your organization. I’m looking forward to continuing the journey with all […]
The Sprint Review session should be a time at the end of every sprint for the team to inspect their work, receive feedback within the team and with stakeholders, and to decide what to do next. This should be done in an informal setting and become a natural ritual for the team. Many articles have […]
Over the past couple of years, I have been able to facilitate or observe many, many sprint review sessions. As you can imagine, many would be considered a success while others did not go so well. Just about everything you need to know about how an Agile team is doing can be discovered by observing […]
I am often asked about team user story sizing or planning poker and why its use has been advocated in Agile or Scrum circles instead of a using other estimating techniques. While I’m sure there are many opinions out there, capturing story points with group estimating techniques are effective because they weave individual perspectives into […]
If you have led, coached, or participated in an organizational transformation to Agile, it will be just a matter of time before someone asks “How do we know if we are truly Agile?” or “How do we know if our Agile teams are healthy and doing well?” Good questions often coming from leadership. I have […]
Since our Agile transformation began 9 months ago, I have been able to observe over 100 retrospectives spanning 10 dedicated Agile teams. It’s pretty fascinating to watch the evolution of a newly formed team turn into a well-functioning and dynamic group. Every team has their own language and interactions and it’s important to give the […]