Interesting Post... 7/4/2010 through 7/11/2010

Today is the last day of our beach weekend. The kids were pretty much over the beach after the first day. Their Mom grew up on the beach and can sit there for hours on end enjoying the sun and surf. I don't think the kids got that gene. I told my 8 year old that if he tried to have fun today, I'd let him bury me in the sand. I was hoping he might forget... he didn't. I spent about 30 minutes trying to get sand out of places where sand should never be!

As you can see from the length of this post, I continue to be extremely pleased with the performance of the Dlvr.it service. It's better than Twitterfeed ever was... even when it was working it's best. I go through a lot of blog posts every week, it kind of makes me sad how many were never getting out to you guys. It always seemed like I was reading and sharing more than would come up in these summaries... and now we know why... so anyway... it's fixed... I'll stop dwelling on it... really... I will.

Enjoy this week's installment of Interesting Post...

Interesting Post... Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-11 http://dlvr.it/2WnrT

Interesting Post... So easy to talk about lunch http://dlvr.it/2WY3V

Interesting Post... Insubordinate... 50th anniverary free ebook http://dlvr.it/2VSyB

Interesting Post... What Does $35 Billion Look Like http://dlvr.it/2V59q

Interesting Post... Assessing Agile pilot projects http://dlvr.it/2V59t

Interesting Post... Changing Agile Roles - The Programmers http://dlvr.it/2Sq2m

Interesting Post... Elements of Project Controls http://dlvr.it/2SVTc

Interesting Post... Tell People a Story http://dlvr.it/2SVTd

Interesting Post... New “Agility Now!” Newsletter http://dlvr.it/2SNmc

Interesting Post... PMBOK 5 - Rejected http://dlvr.it/2SNjr

Interesting Post... The Art of Agile Development: Incremental Requirements http://dlvr.it/2SNfh

Interesting Post... Beware Bloated Processes http://dlvr.it/2SNcH

Interesting Post... Quote of the Day - Complexity http://dlvr.it/2RVqR

Interesting Post... Yes I am mocking you http://dlvr.it/2RVpz

Interesting Post... Agile and Re-Engineering http://dlvr.it/2RVpY

Interesting Post... Should We Build It Again? http://dlvr.it/2RVnl

Interesting Post... Dr. Seuss Inspired by Personal Kanban http://dlvr.it/2R9fW

Interesting Post... Defining Program Management and How Agile Helps http://dlvr.it/2R7w8

Interesting Post... SCRUM vs. Kanban it’s like Football vs. Soccer http://dlvr.it/2QvdH

Interesting Post... The path to software Craftsmanship http://dlvr.it/2QvdJ

Interesting Post... Agile & Culture: The Results http://dlvr.it/2Qt2b

From Leading Agile: Okay… Just What are we Transforming? http://dlvr.it/2QsdN

Interesting Post... Physical Percent of Planned Progress http://dlvr.it/2Q3SM

Interesting Post... Lean or Six Sigma? http://dlvr.it/2Pd5J

Interesting Post... Our Divisive Scrum Terminology Needs to be Deprecated http://dlvr.it/2NxNY

Interesting Post... Musings About Agile Program Management http://dlvr.it/2My3p

Interesting Post... The Fourth Career Mistake... http://dlvr.it/2MxsX

Interesting Post... Agile and Technical Complexity http://dlvr.it/2Mxch

Interesting Post... Defense Industry and Scrum http://dlvr.it/2Ms3t

Interesting Post... Bad Requirements? Actually, That’s Your Fault http://dlvr.it/2MnF3

Interesting Post... 1 FTE http://dlvr.it/2M582

Interesting Post... Software Calculus - The Missing Abstraction. http://dlvr.it/2LxFd

Interesting Post... Object-Oriented Design and Mock Objects: for non-programmers http://dlvr.it/2Lx3v

Interesting Post... Types of Scenario Tools http://dlvr.it/2Lx3t

Interesting Post... This Is Why The Kindle Is Winning http://dlvr.it/2LFG5

Interesting Post... Measuring Progress - What Can We Use? http://dlvr.it/2LF61

Interesting Post... Design-Build-Run http://dlvr.it/2LF0N

Interesting Post... The Limited Red Society – Joshua Kerievsky http://dlvr.it/2Ks5L

Interesting Post... 3 Aspects of Team Boundaries http://dlvr.it/2Ks2G

Interesting Post... How to do agile when we only have 50 crap developers? http://dlvr.it/2KGWP

Interesting Post... VIDEO: "I've already got the prize. The prize is http://dlvr.it/2Jk7j

Interesting Post... Four Type of a Program Management Office (PMO) http://dlvr.it/2JQyF

Interesting Post... Silos Aren’t Evil: They’re Just Icky. http://dlvr.it/2JJ3C

Interesting Post... The A - Z of Agile - W is for: http://dlvr.it/2J2RT

Interesting Post... Happy Independence Day! http://dlvr.it/2HzzC

From Leading Agile: Southern Fried Agile Conference... It's Gravy for your Brain! http://dlvr.it/2Hx3Q

Interesting Post... A Day of Independence http://dlvr.it/2HppL

Oh by the way... did I tell you about this great new service I found called Dlvr.it? You should try it out ;-)

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Okay... Just What are we Transforming?

I'm constantly reminded that context is king... that words have meaning... and that the meaning of our words is almost entirely dependent on our context.

Last night I had coffee with an agile coach here in the Atlanta area. We got to talking about the idea of 'agile transformation'. It became pretty clear, pretty quickly we were using the phrase in two very different ways.

His perspective was that 'agile transformation' involved taking a project team, teaching them agile values and agile practices, and helping them deliver better products to market faster, and with higher quality.

Worthy goals... no doubt.

My perspective on agile transformation looks a little different. To me, agile transformation involves influencing the structures and culture around the team. Only by influencing the systems around the team, can we achieve true end-to-end business agility.

Meaningful, long-lasting agile transformation starts by establishing a clear vision for the organization, and how we want it to operate when we get there. It involves creating a change management strategy that will get us from here to there as safely as possible.

Without transforming the organization around the team, the transformation within the team won't be sustainable. The forces that act on the team are often too great for the changes to stick. It's too easy to go back to the old way of doing things.

It helps to understand just what we are trying to accomplish with our agile transformation. If we just want to get a project team really humming... team transformation might be enough to meet our goals.

If we want ongoing, sustainable business benefit from our investment in agile, we are going to need to think beyond the team. We are going to need to think about the rest of the business and how we collectively deliver value.

No right or wrong here... you just gotta be realistic about what you are trying to accomplish.

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Southern Fried Agile Conference... It's Gravy for your Brain!

I wanted to let everyone know about a new regional conference coming up on July 23rd. The conference is called Southern Fried Agile. Pillar is sponsoring and helping organize the event in partnership with the Agile Carolinas group. The conference is featuring many of the premier Agile Coaches in the Southeast. We'll have three tracks... one for those learning agile... one for more advanced practitioners... and an open space so you guys can get in on the action.

Speakers and Talks:

Mike Cottmeyer - Getting Started with Agile
Bill Gainennie - All That You Need to Know is that It's Possible
Joe Little - What's Lean Got to do with it?
Dennis Stevens - Using Agile and Lean to Lean Business Transformation

Paul & Ian Culling - Collaborative Chartering and Story Mapping
Bill Krebs - 10 Years of Scrum Meetings
Jared Richardson - Agile Testing Strategies
Mike Cottmeyer - How to Own a Really Big Complex Product

Head over to the Southern Fried Agile site for more information about the conference, the sessions, and our speakers. We've also got a link for you guys to register... and at only $49 for a full day of agile goodness, you'd be crazy not to make this happen! If you are within three or four hours of Charlotte, NC... this is a must attend event.

Remember... It's Gravy for Your Brain

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Interesting Post... 6/25/2010 through 7/4/2010

Hey everyone. It is a great week for my Interesting Post... updates. I finally gave up on Twitterfeed and went to dlvr.it. This new service is faster and more accurate that Twitterfeed ever thought about being. I finally have confidence that all the stuff I share in my Google Reader feed is making it out to the Twittersphere. I'm guessing that you'll notice the list here is longer than usual... now you know why.

Anyway... for all you guys in the US, happy 4th of July! My family has started a series of traditions around this holiday that I think are really fun. The kids and I got up early yesterday and drove to South Carolina to buy some fireworks. The really good fireworks are illegal to sell in Georgia, so the good people of South Carlolina provide stores just on the other side of the border so we don't have to drive too far.

The past few years, our tradition had been to cook many, many pounds of baby back ribs. We changed it up this year and made a shredded BBQ concoction of beef, pork, chicken, sausage, and bacon... plus my secret blend of sauce and seasonings. Very tasty.. we made it yesterday, but I'm really looking forward to leftovers later this afternoon. We did the whole fireworks thing last night and have plans to spend the evening with some good friends and launch the fireworks we got yesterday in South Carolina!

Have a great day and enjoy this weeks installment of Interesting Post...

Interesting Post... A Day of Independence http://dlvr.it/2HppL

Interesting Post... Organizational Complexity http://dlvr.it/2HHGN

Interesting Post... Who’s Got Your Back? http://dlvr.it/2H0VX

Interesting Post... Microblogging in Project Management 2.0 http://dlvr.it/2GMmT

Interesting Post... My Three Biggest Career Mistakes http://dlvr.it/2Fm4X

Interesting Post... Agile Metrics http://dlvr.it/2Fhp6

Interesting Post... The Southern Fried Agile Conference is Coming! http://dlvr.it/2FLqT

Interesting Post... How to be a Bad Manager http://dlvr.it/2FCMh

Interesting Post... How to improve a team's velocity http://dlvr.it/2Dzp1

Interesting Post... The difference between running and managing a project http://dlvr.it/2DkFF

Interesting Post... Which Compliment Do You Want? http://dlvr.it/2DfK3

Interesting Post... Agile Friday: "The Planning Game" Now Online http://dlvr.it/2DfBL

Interesting Post... Big Bang vs Evolution – A software look http://dlvr.it/2DBSs

Interesting Post... Agile 2010 – The words we use http://dlvr.it/2DBBw

Interesting Post... The Phrase That Should be Banned from Product Managers’ Vocabulary http://dlvr.it/2CwdK

Interesting Post... How can you know you're headed to the Ditch? http://dlvr.it/2Crsb

Interesting Post... Guest Post: Not Putting Out Fires http://dlvr.it/2ChgR

Interesting Post... TDD and Agile – What Does the Research Say? http://dlvr.it/2ChMc

Happy Day!!!

Leading Agile... Agile Atlanta in July... Dennis Stevens and Kanban! http://goo.gl/fb/RkDce

Interesting Post... New Chapter – Use Cases http://bit.ly/92URe0

Interesting Post... 19 Feeds for ProdMgmt, Product Marketing and Marketing Operations types: http://bit.ly/aOM5XY

Interesting Post... It’s The Values That Matter. Or Maybe It’s The Culture. http://bit.ly/cz0UQp

Interesting Post... Shorten and Reduce Variability in Lead Times using Kanban http://bit.ly/9ZB5me

Interesting Post... Refactoring with Fire http://bit.ly/agWuGK

Interesting Post... The Notion of a "Master" http://bit.ly/bXL6BU

Interesting Post... Web services in Java http://bit.ly/cnbjU0

Interesting Post... Ten Rules of Common Sense Program Management http://bit.ly/asxYow

Interesting Post... Define: ScrumMaster http://bit.ly/aqSKQZ

Interesting Post... The Art of War - Chapter 2 - Entry 1 - Knowing the Cost*"To http://bit.ly/aSTOuO

From Leading Agile: Ro-Sham-Bo... Shoot! http://bit.ly/9Zp8fH

Interesting Post... Always have a plan B when negotiating http://bit.ly/bHuuYG

Interesting Post... "Heavy Use of Math Puts People Off" http://bit.ly/aeYo5I

Interesting Post... Book Review: Your Career Game http://bit.ly/9gYZve

Interesting Post... Video: Kanban for Video Game Development http://bit.ly/9Zo92C

Interesting Post... New Trends In The Project Ecosystem http://bit.ly/9Z0ws0

Interesting Post... The Declaration of Interdependence http://bit.ly/aTHjGH

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Agile Atlanta in July... Dennis Stevens and Kanban!

Next Tuesday, July 6th, Dennis Stevens will be teaching us how to get started with Kanban.

Speaker: Dennis Stevens
Date: July 6th, 6:45 PM
Location: Matrix Resources, 115 Perimeter Center Place, Suite 250 (South Terraces Building - facing Dillard's at Perimeter Mall)

Learn what Kanban is and how to implement it on your teams. Kanban Software Development focuses on the flow of work to lower delays to delivery and increase quality. It provides significant visibility into how a team works, enabling evolutionary improvement and an improved relationship with management. Kanban can be used in a wider range of environments than many Agile methods because of its ability to be tailored. It also compliments existing Agile methods as it scales beyond the development team and across more complex efforts. There will be plenty of time for Q&A to learn how Kanban may specifically fit into your environment.

Upcoming meetings:
August 3rd: Mike Cottmeyer, How to Manage a Really Big Complex Product

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Ro-Sham-Bo... Shoot!

I had a fun experience last week that I want to share with you guys. It was my first week with an awesome new client. The plan was to start with two days of general agile training, followed by a day of release planning workshops, and then iteration planning. Once the team starts sprinting, I'll come back for a day a week to do a little coaching, and to help keep everything on track. All in all, a pretty standard engagement.

This team has a solid product vision, and a pretty good understanding of their features and needs. The features and needs were pretty easily translated into high-level, value driven epics. We spent some time breaking down the first set of features into finer grained user stories. Because the team was new to agile, and really had no idea of their capacity, we took the extra time to break their user stories down into tasks.

Okay, so you guys know the drill. User stories get estimated in points, tasks get estimated in hours. We decided to use the Fibonacci series for the user stories, but the team wanted to use a binary sequence for estimating task hours. I'm okay with either... and since it's really not my call... we went with binary. The only problem was that we didn't have enough binary planning poker cards so that the entire team could get involved. We had to get creative.

The ideas came quick, but what we ended up with was a version of the old rock-paper-scissors game. Someone realized that each of the allowable estimate values, could be represented as a single digit, using a power of two...

1 = 0
2 = 1
4 = 2
8 = 3
16 = 4
32 = 5

...and, we could each vote with one hand by throwing the exponent, rather than the entire estimate value. Only, in a room full of software developers would someone come up with that. It was elegant... it was geeky... we could do it without supplies... so we went for it.

Since there was no way to hide your estimate using fingers (say, by putting the card face down on the table) the developer leading our session introduced the rock-paper-scissors idea. But... rather than saying rock-paper-scissors-shoot... he went with Ro-Sham-Bo-shoot. I had never heard that version, but once again... it was funny... it was geeky... and the team loved it... so it stuck. Each time, after they talked about a task, someone would look around and ask... 'rochambeau' ?

Once everyone agreed... they played their hand... literally.

It was an awesome... fun... emergent experience, and we came up with a new approach that I am sure I'll want to use with other teams. The estimating went really fast, faster I think than messing around with physical cards. Either way, it was a great team building experience. It was a creative and effective way of playing planning poker. I'm curious if anyone has every played planning poker this way? Is it documented somewhere?

If you happen to be interested... here is a link to the Wikipedia entry for Rochambeau.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-paper-scissors

The Urban Dictionary had a much more colorful explanation... this one made me laugh out loud.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ro-sham-bo

Give this approach a try and have some fun with it!

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Interesting Post... 6/14/2010 through 6/20/2010

Okay... so get this. When I go to my Google Reader feed and look at all the stuff I've shared over the past week, I get one list. When I go to my Twitter page and pull all the 'Interesting Post..' articles I've shared over the same time period... I get a different list. There is some overlap but neither is a subset of the other. My guess is that what I've actually shared over the past week is a superset of both lists. Oh well, again... maybe one day I'll spend some time trying to figure out what's up. Either way, this is a pretty good list of all the stuff that I noodled through over the past week.

Hope you like this week's installment of 'Interesting Post...'.

Corporate stuff http://bit.ly/caURkK

PMBOK, Agile, and Some Tips http://bit.ly/bA10TB

Connecting the Dots to PMBOK http://bit.ly/aQXo1w

Are things getting to complicated? http://bit.ly/93cV9r

8 Habits of Highly Excellent Bloggers http://bit.ly/cnIbX5

Getting Ahead, Really? http://bit.ly/cSG3D1

8 Transformational Leadership Lessons From Seth Godin http://bit.ly/dcdLxA

Stop Whining and Get Started! http://bit.ly/aWtuJZ

What Does It Mean to Be Agile? http://bit.ly/daoMJc

Using Agile To Scale Agile – Part 1 http://bit.ly/cbMJ3M

Fridays Digest #18 Scrum vs. Kanban http://bit.ly/968w3L

The Pepsi Challenge of Waterfall Agile or Kanban http://bit.ly/clDBr7

Agile in Everyday Life http://bit.ly/8ZJNly

Your Software is not a House http://bit.ly/a98OPH

Scrum and the PMBOK http://bit.ly/daxNlc

New to agile? Learn how to fail well http://bit.ly/d6wVj3

The Context Machine: The Essence Is Context http://bit.ly/adHbT3

T-Shaped People http://bit.ly/92aQK9

Change Without Motivation http://bit.ly/c7amuo

Come Play Innovation Games for the Agile Developer Skills Project! http://bit.ly/c5omCk

ScrumMasters Now Earn More Money Than Project Managers http://bit.ly/92ahVw

Kanban: What are Classes of Service and Why Should You Care? http://bit.ly/aodC4t

The Oath of Non-Allegiance http://bit.ly/91Pxhh

Your Product Is Done http://bit.ly/dmn9aT

And as an added bonus for making it all the way to the bottom of the post... here is my last update from summer camp. I am home now, we came back yesterday, but the last night I did an update was Thursday. I feel a little guilty for not doing one the last night, but I got back to camp late and we had a campfire to go to. Anyway... this is Day #5... Family Night!

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Let's Define Our Starting Place

I'm telling you guys... if you're not participating over on the AgilePMI Yahoo! Group, you are missing out on some great conversation. Think about it... this is THE issue going on right now impacting the agile community. We talk about agile and transformation... but the traditional establishment holds the keys in most of our organizations. Unless we can show them how to transition safely, we are relegated to bottom-up, grass roots agile initiatives... most of which have a very low probability of making any kind of meaningful difference in our companies.

That said, one of the problems I think we have... not just on the Yahoo! group, but as a community in general, is that we often talk past each other on pretty key issues. I was going back and forth with Dan Mezick and Dennis Stevens on the idea of team authorization. All of a sudden it dawned on me that Dan and I agreed in principle on where we wanted to take the organization, but Dan wanted to discuss the organization as it should be... I wanted to talk about the organization as it was, and how we can be successful in it.

It seems to me, that in any conversation, we have at least three possible starting points for debate:

1. The current state
2. The future state
3. The transition state

My guess is that most people in the group agree that something is wrong with the current state of software project management. That is why they spend time reading and posting and exploring how to do things differently. I'd also guess that most folks in the agile community agree on the ideal end state. We might have some differences of opinion around Scrum or XP or Lean or Kanban, but I think we all value the idea of empowering teams, respecting individuals, and helping organizations deliver the most value possible.

Some of us are so passionate about the way things should be, that point of view becomes the starting place, and they argue for change right now. Others of us have heard those messages and found that they don't resonate given the current regulatory climate in our companies. These people want to talk about what they can do today... without some sort of massive transformation. They don't have any clear way to make the kinds of changes that the 'future state' people are advocating. Others, like me, want to talk about how to get from point A to point B as safely as possible.

Understanding the point of view from which the other person is arguing from can be really valuable as we're trying to move this discussion forward. I hate seeing us run in circles with each other when there is probably more we agree on than we really think. The futurists hold the vision, the today people have the current reality, and the transition folks want to find a way to bridge the two. Maybe if we can start our conversations by clearly stating our starting point... and have more meaningful discussions around all three different viewpoints... we might have a way of moving this thing without constantly going around and around, without ever really increasing our understanding.

By the way... here is a link the Agile PMI group if you are interested in joining the conversation:

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/pmiagile/

Oh, by the way... here is day #3 and day #4 of Summer Camp... have fun!

Summer Camp Day #3

Summer Camp Day #4

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Fundamental Attribution Error

Anybody ever heard of this phenomenon? Here is the definition from Wikipedia:

In social psychology, the fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect) describes the tendency to over-value dispositional or personality-based explanations for the observed behaviors of others while under-valuing situational explanations for those behaviors. The fundamental attribution error is most visible when people explain the behavior of others. It does not explain interpretations of one's own behavior - where situational factors are often taken into consideration.

When we talk about methodology and roles, how often do we attribute to the methodology... or the role... some sort of evil bias? How easy is it to dismiss traditional project managers as command-and-control, when in reality, these people are doing the best they can, given the situation in which they find themselves? Do we acknowledge that these people are only doing what the organization expects of them?

How often do we give a failed Agile project a pass, maybe on the basis that they 'tried' or were 'fighting the good fight', but view every failed waterfall project (and the traditional project manager running it) as incompetent? Do we ever acknowledge that people in these projects might just be playing the hand they were dealt? Working within the system they were hired to support? That the very structure of the organization around them accommodated no other way of moving forward?

If we want people to behave differently, we have to be able to influence the systems that are driving their behavior. I'm telling you guys, much of what we talk about in the agile community does not play well in the environments where many traditional project managers find themselves. Company culture and organizational structure drive behavior. Until you address those fundamental structures, meaningful change will be hard to come by.

The problem isn't the people involved, or even the leadership... the problem is the system in which those people are operating within. People want to be successful, but if the system around them is not conducive to empowerment and self-organization, people are going to change until the system changes. Authorized teams, without the appropriate organization to support that authorization, will expose both the company and the individual to an unacceptable level of risk. We've got to acknowledge that risk and help people deal with mitigating it.

(Those last two sentences were for you Dan!)

More scout stories from our brutally hot week... I think my 14 year old son has gone insane... Watch out... this clip is PG-13!

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Interesting Post... 6/6/2010 through 6/13/2010

Okay... so this has been one HOT Sunday afternoon. Today is the first day of Boy Scout camp... our annual trek to a really HOT and humid place to spend the week living outdoors. It was about 96 degrees today and probably about 96% humidity. I smell like a barn animal, there are showers, but that squeaky clean feeling DOES NOT last long.

Fortunately, there is an administrative building up the dirt road that has AC and Internet access. I'm going to try to get some writing done tomorrow while the kids are out working on merit badges. I hear they have a coffee pot too. If you are interested, scroll down to the bottom of this post for a little video log from our days adventures.

Enjoy this week's installment if Interesting Post...

Your Product Is Done http://bit.ly/dmn9aT

Silly Saturdays: Mac vs. PC http://bit.ly/cGd2ve

The Reality of UI Test Automation http://bit.ly/9Oi0sS

Projects that are NOT Agile Software Projects http://bit.ly/akTOJa

Fear of shipping http://bit.ly/9xjhna

Agile Isn't Latin http://bit.ly/9WFS22

The new CST application process http://bit.ly/ccsNrW

Status Reporting Intervals http://bit.ly/d5VSTs

Are you being creative? http://bit.ly/dwR69w

PMBOK is NOT a Method - Part Deux http://bit.ly/cka0ND

Kanban and When Will This Be Done? http://bit.ly/cohJ0n

Big Binders And Checklists http://bit.ly/ci0Sk3

The 19 Keys to Successful Agile Projects http://bit.ly/aEBXnJ

Scrum Gets Going In Bangalore http://bit.ly/aHrrQZ

PMBOK is NOT a Methodology http://bit.ly/cUyJVm

Artificial Critical Paths http://bit.ly/cypzpC

Base lining Story Points http://bit.ly/ajF9ix

Why Is There Still Talk About Agile v. PMBOK? http://bit.ly/9ojMy9

What DONE Looks Like? http://bit.ly/9gFksS

Schizophrenic Use Of Methods http://bit.ly/aQ7xy7

Agile is in the PMBOK so it must be true http://bit.ly/c4pw7L

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