agile

Aligning Individuals and Teams with the Company Strategy

How do you ensure that individuals and teams are aligned with the company strategy? How do you validate your company strategy?

The answer is typically to have good data. When we measure outcomes, our organization becomes more transparent.

Challenges with Good Data

Good data is hard to find though. The larger an organization is, the more complicated it becomes and the harder it is to associate cause with effect.

Lessons Learned from Organizing a Scrum Master Community of Practice

I helped to organize a large (60+) Scrum Master community of practice. Some of the lessons learned include:

Acceptance Criteria

Acceptance criteria are story-specific requirements that must be met for the story to be completed. They are a technique for adding functional detail to user stories. Acceptance criteria are often added during backlog refinement or during the sprint planning meeting.

Using a Kanban Board for Synchronization

A Kanban board helps developers synchronize their work.

The first few steps in an agile transformation are critical to success. Lay a good foundation and what follows will be simplified.

So what is a good way to start an agile transformation?

The following are some common Scrum myths.

Velocity is a measure of performance

Isn't a higher velocity a sign of a more productive team?

The Scrum guide is very clear that velocity is purely about establishing the likely capacity of a team for future sprints. The actual value is irrelevant, it is the predictability that is important.

1. Mike Cohn - Mountain Goat Software

One of the founders of agile, Mike speaks with authority on a number of agile subjects. His focus is slightly more towards the product/project side with less focus on engineering practices.

Although not a hard-and-fast rule, I see the tiers of an agile organisation being the following:

1. Strategic tier
2. Product tier
3. Development tier

Strategic tier

The strategic tier is responsible for deciding the long-term goals, such as:

Even if I don't know how to implement something I can almost always write a test for it and If I can't figure out how to write a test for it I have no business programming it in the first place. - Kent Beck

Many processes in agile are mutually supporting. A good example of this is testing and its relationship to the development iteration.