Agile Portfolio Management in Boston held at birthplace of Scrum
The next public enrollment class of the Agile Portfolio Management course in Boston will be held at the birthplace of Scrum in Burlington, MA, just off Route 128. It was exactly at this facility, where the collection of best practices for process control turned into Scrum in the 1990s. Today, the facility is however far [...]
2/14/ General Assembly, New York City
No plans for Valentine’s Day, yet? Tired of crowded restaurants that evening? Joe Krebs will present on Agile at the General Assembly in New York City 2/14 from 6pm – 7.30pm. This is the second appearance at this start-up incubator, after the great interest back in September’12. Not only are Agile processes very popular [...]
Fast Track
One of the most frequent impediments of agile teams are interrupts and distractions. Developers know that it does not only take time to get familiar with a new task but also to return to the previously interrupted task. The problem gets worse if we change back and forth multiple times. Fixing task switching penalties are, [...]
Agile Portfolio Panel at RallyOn Conference in Boulder
I just returned from a trip to Boulder where I participated in a panel discussion about agile portfolio management. Next to me on the panel were Mike Griffiths, Dean Leffingwell, Alan Shalloway and Johanna Rothman. Todd Olsen from Rally Software moderated the panel very nicely. Once the video and pictures become available, I will add [...]
ROI Company
I spent a little time with the ROI company and I was really impressed with how they carry their vision not only in a slogan to the outside world, but also inside as a constant reminder for the employees. Let’s see if agility can support their vision and goals.
Change Agents – Tribes
Good change agents learn from other change agents in action but also by expanding their knowledge and looking at work from others, even if at first sight that work seems only peripherally related to Agile. Well, I ventured out to Seth Godin last week and read “Tribes”. Although I felt the book lacked a bit [...]
Managing is Time-Consuming
Jon Orringer, CEO of Shutterstock, has time for his own pet projects and is present in the office between 9.30 and 4pm. He schedules 3 meetings a day which are usually not longer than 30 minutes in length. Envious? Well, Shutterstock is agile. The examples used in this article have something in common. Leaders create focus by determining [...]
Powering up the next “Power Pack” with Ken Schwaber
For the past two years I have been delivering the Scrum Power Pack with Ken Schwaber in New York City . We even took it to Miami in January’12 with great success. Ken and I we have bundled two courses together to give future Scrum Masters and team members the best possible experience to make [...]
New Year’s Resolutions
It is February, and the the second wave of TV ads about weight loss programs are a great reminder to reflect on your new year’s resolutions. One of mine was to reduce the noise level around electronic communication and by doing that increasing focus for my important things in work and personal life. I realized [...]
Insourcing
During the state of the union 1/24/2012, President Obama dedicated an entire segment of his speech to manufacturing and ingenuity. Most importantly, he outlined the concept of “insourcing” to bring jobs back. He connected insourcing to success stories based on Ford, GM, Chrysler and Master Lock. While I was listening, my 3-part series titled “Taking off [...]
