When I first heard the quote “culture follows structure,” I loved it. It was liberating in some way — to change an organization, doing something more than talking about values or visions. The sentence talks to me about action, about breaking the existing hierarchical power structure to start fresh. To…

Ever wondered what DevOps practices and principles are about but don’t have time to read a book? In a fast-paced world where time is of the essence, understanding the core principles of DevOps can provide a significant advantage to software development teams. This article explains, with examples, DevOps practices. There…

In today’s world, everyone runs some form of Scrum or Agile framework. If everyone runs Scrum, what is the differentiator for success? How can you ensure your team has a competitive edge? For me, a key ingredient, and important aspect of Scrum, is to deliver value often. This article will…

A week ago, I talked at DevOps Pro about the mistakes we have made in the last three years running SAFe. After the session, I was asked how to handle Technical Debt working with Scrum. I don't have a silver bullet, but having worked with Scrum for fifteen years, I…

Have you walked in your customer's shoes before setting a Sprint goal and more importantly will your customer let you? — The 2020 Scrum Guide clearly states that a team commits to a Sprint Goal rather than how many User Stories the team can complete. Having a Sprint Goal is a great idea, but I see it misfiring. Before I elaborate on why let me go back 15 years to when…

Scrum is about patterns. Scrum gives us reusable solutions for common problems. What if you don't see the patterns? Then, Scrum is like the Emperor's New Clothes. Do you remember the story by Hans Christian Andersen? The story starts when some swindlers arrive at the king's palace. They claim to…

Egoism, Altruism and Utilitarianism — “The Product Backlog is an emergent, ordered [my bolding] list of what is needed to improve the product. It is the single source of work undertaken by the Scrum Team.” — Scrum Guide 2020 How is your Product Backlog ordered? Based on Return on Investment (ROI)? Who your manager had…

In today's world, some 27 million developers exist, 22 million of who use some version of Scrum. Probably today, more developers use Scrum than any previous method or framework. 81% of agile teams report using some version of Scrum, including Scrumban or a hybrid Scrum model. (Source: Digital.ai) Having been…

A common obstacle I encounter in organizations is economists' old-school view of the world. Unfortunately, many of these are managers who both supervise and set expectations based on misunderstood principles on how to “build” software. Economists can be dangerous for Scrum or any Agile development team. Now I don't believe…