Project Management Category
Scrum Australia 2016 – Lean Discovery
Posted on July 6, 2016 Leave a Comment
My presentation at Scrum Australia 2016 titled “Lean Discovery” is available on Slideshare. “The hardest part of building any software system is determining precisely what to build.” – Fredrick Brooks. Discovering exactly what customers, stakeholders, and sponsors want to create is often the most difficult part of product development. Getting everyone aligned can be fraught […]
Do you have a real deadline?
Posted on May 27, 2016 1 Comment
The first written record on the use of the word “deadline” was in 1864. It was a the term to describe the line over which prisoners were forbidden to go – Along the interior of the stockade, 19 feet from the stockade wall, was a line of small wooden posts with a wood rail on top. […]
7 Stages of Waterfall
Posted on March 12, 2016 Leave a Comment
The seven stages of waterfall: Perfect plan Wild enthusiasm Total confusion Death march The search for the guilty The persecution of the innocent The promotion of the incompetent Adapted from Roger Rothstein’s ‘6 Stages of (film/movie) Production’.
Rethinking Agile Procurement and Contracts
Posted on February 12, 2016 1 Comment
One of Edward Deming’s 14 Prinicples from his book Out of the Crisis (1982), contains a very astute principle that procurement should grasp: End the practice of awarding business on price tag alone. Instead, minimize total cost – move towards a single supplier for any item, on trust. I was recently interviewed for an article […]
LAST Conference 2015 – Agile Start Me Up – Using the Minimum Viable Discovery (MVD)
Posted on September 18, 2015 Leave a Comment
My presentation at last year’s LAST Conference 2015 titled “Agile Start Me Up – Using the Minimum Viable Discovery (MVD)” is available on Slideshare.
Passed the PMI-ACP Exam
Posted on November 10, 2012 Leave a Comment
Yesterday I passed the PMI – Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) exam with Proficient results. Woo Hoo!! I took a very very light weight approach to my preparation. I am currently very time poor which has led me to do minimal and just enough study. I did not read any of the prescribed reference books for […]
Leadership styles
Posted on November 30, 2011 Leave a Comment
Donald Gray has written a great and interesting article on Three Leadership Styles, based observations on managing traffic at an intersection. In the article the most successful leader is the one that sees people as “adults that most of the time they can take care of themselves, and that the role of a manager is […]
Useless sprint goals
Posted on November 18, 2011 Leave a Comment
A sprint goal helps to enable the team to focus on for the next 2 weeks. What does everyone want the team to work on next? The Scrum Guide [Oct 2011] states: The Sprint Goal gives the Development Team some flexibility regarding the functionality implemented within the Sprint. As the Development Team works, it keeps […]
Seeking the exact answers
Posted on October 20, 2011 2 Comments
“No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” — Helmuth von Moltke Sooner or later you will have the business asking questions like “How much is it going to cost?”, “What will I get?” and “When can I have it?”. The honest answer to this which often provokes a reaction of surprise are: “How much […]
I want to run an agile project
Posted on June 21, 2011 2 Comments
This is all too funny! Whilst the video is intended to be humorous, the pain of the “Agile Guy” maybe all too familiar for some. Agile changes many things we have become use to over many years – agile questions the status quo and challenges our muscle memory……..