Agile Outside of IT
The case for flexibility in accounting and finance
There’s a growing business case for flexible working, and each year, agile ways of working seem to be offered by more and more employers. Big firms are setting the trend for flexible working in the sector, but does this mean it isn’t a priority for smaller organisations? In this blog I discuss how the flexible working agenda is taking shape in the accounting and finance sector and how businesses of all sizes can harness the benefits it brings.
The Latest from Retrium
PRODUCT UPDATE: New Website!
For the first time since our inception, we underwent a major revamp and treated ourselves to a whole new website! We wanted to provide a website that more clearly articulates actionable solutions to the specific problems your team is facing.
Teams, Coaching & Facilitation
Psychological Safety and the Dangers of Being Yourself
Allowing people to see the weirdo within, the creative mind, mother of genius, is socially dangerous.
Most of us listen to the wisdom of our censors and hold back large parts of ourselves – particularly our authentic feelings, our opinions, and our new, untested ideas – unless we’re certain the risk of rejection is low.
Who Defines Your Product Owner?
“Wait a minute!” you say. “That’s a nonsensical question. Scrum breaks down the organizational barriers between Business and Development. There is no us versus them. We’re all on the same team.”
Tips & Tricks
Scrum Stakeholder Anti-Patterns:
Learn how individual incentives and outdated organizational structures — fostering personal agendas and local optimization efforts — manifest themselves in Scrum stakeholder anti-patterns which easily can impede any agile transition.
How to repair a toxic work culture with ‘psychological safety’
Did you know TNW Conference has a track fully dedicated to bringing the biggest names in tech to showcase inspiring talks from those driving the future of technology this year? Check out the full ‘Impact’ program here. Nir Eyal, who authored this piece, is one of the speakers. Check out the full ‘Impact‘ program here.
7 Best Practices for Facilitating Agile Retrospectives
Facilitating a retro is a very powerful role; it’s almost akin to being a courthouse judge (and stenographer). By asking questions, recording testimony, and shaping the debate, you mold and influence your teammates’ feedback in a very vulnerable and trusting space. If the Product team sets goals (like a Legislature) and Development and Design teams implement them (like an Executive Branch), a retro is a chance to reflect, interpret, and set future direction—not unlike a Judiciary. In practice, that means it’s important to be especially honest and impartial, and to double-check that you’re doing justice to the team’s best interest and the speakers’ intent. Here’re a few patterns I’ve observed that help make the difference between a good retro and a bad one.
Industry News & Analysis
Don’t Do Agile and DevOps by the Book
In software development, we talk a lot about the importance of Agile and DevOps. Agile aims for rapid releases, positively encourages involvement from customers and other stakeholders and splits work into smaller iterations, releasing as soon as possible. DevOps extends it by introducing cross-functional team collaboration and automation, enabling teams to always have a stable build ready to deploy.
Agile at Scale
Agile Estimation at Scale Using Story Points
When organizations scale agile, they’re faced with the challenge of managing multiple teams. And if you have multiple teams working on the same project, that coordination becomes more complex, particularly when creating estimates.
In Case You Missed It
Sprint Review Tips for Product Owners
Collecting feedback from the right people is crucial to make the right product decisions: If you invite the wrong individuals or if key people are missing, then you are unlikely to receive the feedback you need. You should therefore make sure that you invite the right individuals.
Agile Gone Wrong
Most people will agree that the adoption of agile is now mainstream. This adoption is rightfully so, as agile can be an excellent framework for building software. This being said, I’ve noticed a few common mistakes when product teams are adopting agile.