Confusing responsiveness for productivity

Key practice in effective product development culture. — Pair programming is two programmers working together on the same problem at the same time. NOTE: Although the Agile Alliance includes sharing a single workstation as part of the definition, I don’t consider this required. For example, remote pairing and head-to-head pairing…

Implementing a small improvement is like deploying a single line of code. “How long would it take your organization to deploy a change that involves just one single line of code?” Mary Poppendieck, Tom Poppendieck, Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash The purpose of deploying a change that involves just one single line of code is to use the simplest…

I’ve been thinking about Think Big Work Small and change management in terms of coherence and momentum. Think Big to create coherence; Work Small to create momentum. Target operating models are a way to Think Big. Identifying critical challenges to focus improvement is how to Work Small.

Just saying or writing “we’d like you to do X” is unlikely to lead to people doing X if there is any kind of reluctance to do X. Usually, you also need to use more sophisticated tactics to address multiple sources of influence. Having said that, don’t skip the easy…

It’s useful to be clear about role expectations. Poorly defined roles increase the need for communications and increase the time spent in meetings. Donald G. Reinertsen, The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development Clarity creates speed. If you can join a new team OR work with another team, and already know what is expected from you and…

Derived from my old blog back in 2013. “What is the right thing to do?” NOT “Is this part of my job?” Reference: John Shook on responsibility-focus versus authority-focus; see Managing to Learn. “If we fail, then I fail”

The Ladder of Leadership is a leadership development model created by L. David Marquet and Stephen Covey. The ladder is an incremental scale from people needing to be told exactly what to do, to acting completely independently. When facilitating change, there are generally two ways to create problems by assessing…

“Teams” over “Scrum Teams” Calling teams “Scrum Teams” implies that effectiveness is defined by Scrum. Spotify shifted to “Squad”, at least partly, as a way to be clearer that teams should not limit themselves to Scrum patterns and practices. Outside of Spotify itself, I’m wary of suggesting “Squad” as an alternative to “Scrum Team”…