Agile Bites

Building software requires a balance of solid planning but also the availability to pivot and adapt. So how far should you be planning ahead for your projects? To answer this question for your team, you have to ask yourself 1) how likely your plan is to come out wrong, and 2) how quickly your team completes work. Because the time you're using to make a plan that's likely to change anyway could be...

What does it even mean when someone says they " do Agile"? And why does " doing Agile" automatically mean using Scrum (apparently)? There's a lot of conflation when it comes to the terms "Agile" and "Scrum." And in this episode, we're clarifying the difference between the two and how using them synonymously can limit the potential of Agility.

People often say a focus on process means you don’t care about people. But it's actually the opposite—Agile done well is really about caring for people. When you improve processes, you are improving the lives of people. You empower them to reach their potential and feel fulfilled in working with dignity rather than dysfunction. It's caring for people that makes us passionate about processes. That'...

Imagine being able to predict with a high degree of accuracy when your team is going to complete a project. How would knowing that information change what you're doing right now? By running Monte Carlo simulations, using completion rates from your team's past, you can peek ahead at your project's risk and the probability of possible completion dates—helping you make better decisions while you stil...

As an organization grows in its agility and gets rid of old models, what happens to the role of traditional project management? What do you do with the skill set, knowledge base and rich experience that our project managers bring to projects? Before you go making your project managers into Scrum masters, we're telling you the ways that project managers bring their own value to the table within a t...

If you're on LinkedIn at all, you've seen the classic "Efficiency vs. Value" dichotomy. While stating that teams should focus on delivering value and not efficiency makes for a punchy post, elevating one while ignoring the other doesn't make sense. Caring about efficiency doesn't mean you don't care about value. If you care about producing value (which you should), one of the best ways you can do...

Despite how "limiting" limits on work in progress sound, they're actually an excellent tool for improving your team's flow and speed. WIP limits optimize your team for FINISHING rather than starting. And that cuts down the time work spent in progress, getting features in the hands of users faster and you receiving feedback sooner. In this episode, we're showing you the value of WIP limits (whether...

People tend to have a lot of mixed feelings associated with metrics. They can seem intimidating and like a lot of extra work—or even an oppressive tool used by some managers. But when used properly, metrics can be the guiding star on your path to Agility. In this episode, we're showing you the value metrics can bring (hello, better projections and team improvements!). Plus, we're giving you three...

So you've got an idea that you think will make your team's lives easier, but the only way it will be implemented successfully is if they all get on board. So how do you convince those involved to accept, and better yet, support the vision? In this episode, we're breaking down strategies for getting buy-in. And *spoiler alert* — it's not always about it being your idea .

Before you write this episode off as another anti-Scrum talk, hear us out—Scrum is not a bad system, but a lot of the teams using it are not who Scrum was made for. Scrum was meant for exploratory development—the kind of development when you don't even know the next piece you'll be building—and most software development teams don't fall into that category. So why are so many dev teams trying to fi...

Happy, Halloween, Agile Spooks and Ghouls! In this special episode, we're sharing three truly chilling Agile horror stories about the Middle Management Slasher, a shadowy project with no owner, and the treacherous Pit of WIP. So gather around, grab your emotional-support sticky note pads, and get ready to hear some bone-chilling software tales of Agile terror.

If you've been listening to our podcast, you know we're not the biggest fan of themed retrospectives (see Ep. 1 "Retrospectives That Work"). But not everyone shares the same opinion, and some find them to be a valuable tool for their team. In the spirit of sharing valuable knowledge and continuing the longstanding debate of themed retros vs. non-themed retros, we've invited a guest with a compelli...

Too many stand-ups (or daily Scrums, for our Scrum friends out there) have turned into status updates, and that's hardly valuable for anyone. Say goodbye to everyone going around the circle, proving that they've been staying busy. Use your stand-ups as an opportunity for your team to come together and come up with their plan of attack for the day to stay on track as a group and reach team goals. C...

Despite the coder stereotype, programming is not best done alone in a dark room. Building software is a team sport, and features are best tackled by tackling them as a group (aka swarming). Swarming is one of the most powerful and effective ways to increase your team's throughput. But so many teams struggle to execute it. Find out how simple swarming really can be for your team and how it can not...

100% utilization rates— we know it doesn't sound like the most exciting thing to hear about, but it could be the key factor that's slowing you down. What if we told you that the people working on your project should not be as busy as possible ? Sounds crazy, right? But if delivery is your ultimate goal, optimizing your system for everyone to be "busy" could be working against your flow and decreas...

This episode is for all you out there who've had to spend hours breaking down a requirements document into statements that say "As a role, I want a ____ so that I can ____." We're here to help clear the misconceptions, liberate you from that kind of work, and bring the user story back to focus on what's important: the user. Connect with Agile Bites Host Phil Ledgerwood on LinkedIn Visit our websit...

Do you know why you’re trying to increase your organization's agility? What do you want to get out of it? Identify the specific benefits and the specific reasons that it's worth it to you to make your organization more Agile. Because if you don't know the “why,” not only will you not know whether you've succeeded—you're not going to be able to pick the best way to get there. Connect with Agile Bit...

Are your retrospectives producing value for your team? Have they turned into unfocused complaining sessions? Or have people stopped coming altogether? Understand what's going wrong and learn how you can bring value back to your retrospectives (hint: it doesn't have to do with incentivizing with food or popular TV show themes). Connect with Agile Bites Host Phil Ledgerwood on LinkedIn Visit our web...