“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” – Mark Twain Mark Twain wasn’t a Software Development manager in any way; however, his words still resonate very accurately ...

Sounds simple. Why is it so hard then? First, what do I mean when I say “Know Thy Customer?”  Ultimately I mean that the best teams have customer value at the heart of their software development processes – they truly “Know Thy Customer”.   I’m not saying anything new – however, ...

I’ve said this very often – and I’ll say it one more time. Agile isn’t just about software development. It can be effective to manage your entire business. I’m a huge believer that many aspects of Agile should be applied to business – especially management and sales approaches. In his ...

I wrote a number of blog posts on a “behind the scenes look” at how the TeamPulse team works.  You can read all about them here (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) As you can see, we truly value and embrace the principles behind Agile and have ...

Everyone knows that developers can’t test! Let’s face it – testers should only test. Developers should only develop as they have no clue what test cases look like and can’t be bothered with such mundane and trivial work. Asking a developer to test or to write documentation is like asking ...

I’m pretty excited about an upcoming event I’m taking part in  - it’s actually going to be a Q&A panel where myself, Steve Porter, and Phil Japikse will be discussing some of the most difficult aspects of Agile adoption. If you sign up – you can also have a ...

I like agile user stories. They make sense to me. 15 years ago – I wrote a lot of “Use Cases”. As use cases seemed to have some components I liked – they frightened and intimidated me - I found that as use cases would gradually become ...

Most Agile texts/guidance/speakers (including myself) stress the creation and sustainment of self-organized teams. What does this mean? Is this possible? Can this ever be achieved? I’ve seen many teams evolve to Agile teams over the years. I must say, Team organization and Team management (especially self-organized teams) is quite difficult ...

I get asked this a lot.  Project Managers are asked to provide full project plans and are asked to commit to this plan.  In order for Project Managers to feel good about this, we try to get all of the requirements up front.  This allows them to derive a schedule ...

Agile teams like short iterations because they help to ensure tight feedback cycles in order to reduce waste and minimize uncertainty. However, what if you can’t fit all the work required to implement a product backlog item in a 2 week sprint? For example, with more and more emphasis on ...