Kategorie: Blog

  • Book: Henrik Kniberg – Scrum and XP from the Trenches: How We Do Scrum

    This is the must-read book for any new agile team member! Author: Henrik Kniberg Title: Scrum and XP from the Trenches: How We Do Scrum http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/scrum-xp-from-the-trenches Rating: highly recommended! Are you dealing with new agile team members from time to time? Do you have to train and explain agile to developers, testers, managers? Do you…

  • Let the Team play Product Owner

    Today I made a nice but rare experience: team A could play Product Owner for team B. Team A is settled since several iterations and is working on a new product. Team B is only a few days old and is going to build an internal, technical product to emulate the behavior of depending external…

  • Book: Rachel Davies – Agile Coaching

    Everyone supporting agile teams has to read this book! Authors: Rachel Davies, Liz Sedley Title: Agile Coaching Rating: highly recommended! More and more developers and project managers suddenly have to take over the role of ScrumMaster these days. All our agile frameworks and methodologies are easy to learn and understand so people become facilitators, supporters, and…

  • ACCDE10 Survey: The One Book

    During the last few hours of the Agile Coach Camp 2010 in Germany I started to do a spontaneous survey with one simple question: „Which ONE book should I read?“ People’s reactions were quite different. Some mentioned a book within a few seconds, others needed time to think of the most recommendable book. The question…

  • Skill-Driven Development

    There was a nice discussion yesterday at the meeting of the Scrum User Group Karlsruhe. We talked about dysfunctional Scrum organizations and the new roles of lost middle-managers. At some point a participant said that with really good people one could create really good products regardless of any methodology–either waterfall or agile would work. That…

  • Area of Collaboration: Product Owner and Team

    Saturday morning 10:00 in Karlsruhe, Germany. Last event of XP-Days 2009: community day with a very well moderated World Café. All input for this posting was created in a 20 minutes timebox with four random conference attendees including myself as host of the table. The initial question was: „Does a Product Owner need technical skills?“…

  • ScrumBut: Method Picking

    After two conference days I attended several sessions and talked to lots of people. It is amazing how many claim to do Scrum but mention following typical statements: „How should I change Scrum to fit into my organization?“ „With which part of Scrum should I start?“ „There is no Product Owner in our team, we…

  • Pedantic Coders: Warnings are Waste!

    Some days ago I had a discussion with a Scrum Master, a Project Manager, and the team leader of a bunch of developers. We talked about an upcoming big project and how to guarantee high quality output right from the start. At one point in the discussion I thumped the table and raised my voice:…

  • Book: Taiichi Ohno – Toyota Production System

    Everyone interested in historic basics of Scrum and other agile approaches should read this book. Author: Taiichi Ohno Title: Toyota Production System Taiichi Ohno – Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production Rating: recommended If you want to understand several basic principles of Scrum and other agile approaches then take a deeper look at Taiichi Ohno’s…

  • Lose Customers with Disorganized Workflows

    Last week my wife and me went to the traditional Saint Martin Procession with our son. It was a nice walk with all those gleaming hand laterns of the kids. The walk ended at a school were the local music society had prepared some food and beverages. Ordering and delivery was organized as follows: At…