Employee Engagement and Professional Scrum – Part 1 of 5
Between Agility and Better Business Outcomes is Employee Engagement Editors Note: this was initially published to our newsletter in July 2021. To receive early access to more content like this (including the next part in this series!), subscribe here. Somewhere in between all the hard work that goes into becoming a more “agile” organization, and the […]
Virtual Retrospectives – Tips & Tricks
Esther Derby (who literally co-wrote the book on Agile Retrospectives) had some sage advice at a recent webinar: When facilitating Retrospectives for remote teams, structure becomes increasingly important. Facilitators need to be methodical about going through the 5 stages of a Retrospective, and constantly remind the group which stage they are in. Even though many […]
Arrogance, and getting to Done…
“Matt, that is the most arrogant thing I’ve ever heard,” said the Executive leader. And with that, the room turned red. My fists clenched. My heart rate spiked. I could feel the temperature in my gut rise. “I’m done with this crap,” I said to myself, silently. You see, I was just beginning to learn […]
So, the boss says you’re a Scrum Master now…
Here is a common scenario playing out in enterprises around the world today: Executive: “We’re an agile organization now.” Project Manager: “Ok… but I’ve heard there are no Project Managers in Agile…” Executive: “That’s right! I went to Agile Leadership Training last week, and they said we don’t need Project Managers anymore!!” Project Manager: <silence> […]
Quality without QA – Keeping the bar high
In 2016, I had the pleasure of coaching at a leading event tech company, EventMobi. Their event app is #1 in the world, having reached over 8 million attendees from 72 countries. Aside from being wonderful people, the Product Development group was probably one of the most lean & efficient operations I’ve ever been a part of. […]
Managing Agile — How an agile transformation can be the key to becoming a great manager
Update: November 24, 2016 – I gave a talk based largely on this blog at the Toronto Agile Community Conference 2016 on November 14, 2016. You can find the slides and notes from that talk here! I recently had a conversation with an HR leader at a large software company who was interested in hearing how ‘going […]
Why You Need an Aspirational Definition of Done
Note: This article was initially published by the Scrum Alliance, here. Every Scrum team worth its salt has a Definition of Done — it’s probably written down somewhere, and hopefully it’s displayed prominently in the team’s work space. Many teams look at the exercise of defining what “done” means as a one-time investment: Let’s figure […]
It’s Good To Not Be A Hero – Bringing Joy to QA with Agile
My Agile journey has so far included stops along the way in Project Management, People Management and Quality Assurance. In this post, I’d like to write a bit about how agile (and in particular, Scrum) can help folks in QA, and what software testers can expect to happen over the course of a transition to an agile framework […]
Choose Your Own Work Flow
Note: This was originally published on the Scrum Alliance website, here: https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2014/september/choose-your-own-workflow High-performing Scrum teams run like a hot knife through butter. They move so fast that job titles become a blur, and last week’s impediments seem like a distant, faded memory. I want to focus for a moment, though, on an impediment that many teams […]