Agile Coaching – Lessons from the Trenches

Authors: Gene Gendel and Erin Perry High performing organizations, high performing teams, and high performing people do not often happen organically. They are a return on investment. We’ve spent time in the trenches, both giving and receiving coaching, at organizations of all sizes: from small startups to large enterprises. In this article, we will use … Read more

Bad Smells: Appraisals and Performance Reviews Influenced by Agile Coaches

Agile/Scrum coaches should not position themselves in ways that will give them an authoritative/commanding role within an organization, where they coach. If this happens, organizations/people that are being coached will not gain long-lasting learning.  The result of such engagement, will be have a ‘quick fix’ at most, but it will not be sustainable.  Coaches will … Read more

Unspoken Agile Topics

Author: Gene Gendel This paper, originally written in February 2013, brings to light some of the least-discussed topics and consequences of “broadband agilization” that currently take place in the industry. The materials of this paper are subdivided into two general sections: The first section describes certain impacts that Agile has on individuals and their personal … Read more

Scrum and Kanban at the Enterprise and Team Levels

Scrum, as the most structured of all Agile frameworks, is a great way to ensure predictable, strategically planned, incremental product delivery. Scrum ensures good responsiveness to frequently changing market demands. Although nonprescriptive, Scrum clearly defines certain roles, responsibilities, and ceremonies. Kanban, for the most part, is silent about certain aspects that Scrum suggests explicitly (e.g., … Read more

Epic-Level Estimation

Author: Gene Gendel Imagine: You are about to form a new feature team that is composed of bright, cross-functional experts, self-motivated and self-managed. They all worked in Scrum settings before and are fully supportive of Agile principles. The organization they work for is properly structured and it nicely supports the adoption of Agile/Kaizen culture. Imagine … Read more

Reviews, Appraisals and Incentives

Author: Gene Gendel I wanted to start this discussion with Wikipedia definition of Performance Appraisal: “A performance appraisal (PA), also referred to as a performance review, performance evaluation,[1] (career) development discussion,[2] or employee appraisal[3] is a method by which the job performance of an employee is documented and evaluated. Performance appraisals are a part of … Read more

Feb 1-3, 2016. Certified LeSS Practitioner in New York

Author: Gene Gendel Event Details  Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) is a framework for scaling agile development to multiple teams. LeSS builds on top of the Scrum principles such as empiricism, cross-functional, self-managing teams and provides a framework for applying that at scale. It provides simple structural rules and guidelines on how to adopt Scrum in large product development. The … Read more

Fallacies of RAG Reports

Author: Gene Gendel How Much Can You Trust Your Navigation Instruments? 1944…Imagine you are flying back home from a risky military mission…If you are not able to vividly imagine what this experience is like, please follow this link:  https://www.keystepstosuccess.com/2016/01/b-17e-bomber-tight-coupling-of-color-coding-with-numerical-data/ RAG System in Conventional Project Management Today, the RAG system is still widely used in conventional project … Read more