The Latest from Retrium
Chapter 5 – Using Data Effectively in Your Retrospectives
So many people don’t bring data to their retrospectives. What happens in a retrospective without data?
A lot of the time, people end up presenting their perception of the facts as the absolute truth, because it feels real to them! This is not deceptive behavior … everyone experiences the world differently and their version of the facts feels real to them. But without a common set of data, it is hard to find out what is objectively true vs. what is subjective reality.
Teams, Coaching & Facilitation
5 Tips for Structuring your Agile Board
The thing I find fascinating is there are hundreds of thousands of agile teams out there. Those teams are reflecting on their workflow to understand how they can improve their product development meaning there are literally millions of learnings every year.
Ten things not in Scrum
Last year I did a public speaking session on Scrum, and one of the questions that arose, again and again, was, “How many times this is mentioned in Scrum Guide[1]?” This question gives me an idea to compile things mistakenly believe to be a part of Scrum. Here is a list of few items I can think of on the top of my head.
Tips & Tricks
Using ‘Management in Scrum’ for Job Interviews with Scrum Masters
The Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master II class contains an exercise called “Management in Scrum”. It explores how management is an integral part of Scrum, and how this is often different in ‘real-life’. It also shows how it impacts the empirical process of Scrum and what a Scrum Master can do to remove any limitations.
Calculating Your Weekly Meeting Effectiveness (WME)
Meetings, meetings, meetings. Our working lives are filled with them. In my work I have met some people who claim to attend thirty hours a week worth of meetings in a forty-hour week. When are we supposed to find time to actually WORK?
6 diagrams I use to explain Product Management concepts
They say a picture is worth a thousand words but, honestly, I think they are worth much more. They help you build a common understanding and remove much of the complexity and nuance that comes with written and verbal language.
Agile Outside of IT
Scrum in a non-IT context - The Increment in Police work
In this post I want to explore whether the Increment, a core concept to Scrum, needs to be changed for Scrum in a non-IT context. In future posts, I will do the same for the Definition of Done, or other concepts that may provide a better understanding of Scrum when applied to non-IT context. Please ask questions and make suggestions in the comments! Disclaimer: what I will not do in this post is explain WHY the Increment is a key element for transparency in empirical process control. If you don’t understand this yet, check out this resource and its links. Still have questions? Let me know in the comments.
What is Agile Project Management & Its Importance
Agile project management originally started with software development, but it has spread everywhere. It is now used by construction projects, schools, and marketing teams, yet many more still don’t know what agile project management is. Compounding matters is the confusion of certain terms with agile project management.
Business Agility
Unlearning These Five Fallacies Will Make You More Innovative
There’s increased competition. There’s a disruption in every industry. Customers want more innovation, faster. And employees want the freedom to dig in and make it happen.
Agile Business Processes Are Needed To Power Business Growth
Business growth strategies rely on new revenue streams, which necessitate new and agile pricing models that can adapt to changing market needs. Thanks to the web, consumers are demanding more pay-as-you-go and fee-based products and services, and businesses are necessarily adapting internal business processes to accommodate agile pricing strategies. Without the ability to pivot pricing strategies rapidly, companies will not be able to optimize or will miss out on new revenue opportunities.
In Case You Missed It
Most Managers Don’t Know How to Coach People. But They Can Learn.
Are you successful at coaching your employees? In our years studying and working with companies on this topic, we’ve observed that when many executives say “yes,” they’re ill-equipped to answer the question. Why? For one thing, managers tend to think they’re coaching when they’re actually just telling their employees what to do.