A Retrospective on Retrospectives
I had an opportunity to help another team out with their retrospective the other day. These guys hadn’t done one in over 3 months so I offered to help out. I was curious to understand why they had stopped doing them although I was pretty sure I knew why already. Keep in mind this team isn’t following Scrum, they practice daily standups but otherwise it’s (IMO) just adhoc process which suits the type of work they’re doing. One of the team members was busy and...
Read MoreCreating a Retrospective Room
Sometimes it’s hard to be in multiple places at the same. Ok, it’s not possible to be in multiple places at the same time so with 10 teams and 100 or so people in the organization I’m working with and only myself and another coach I’m working with, I decided to create a retrospective room so teams can get some helpful tips and advice when we’re not able to help facilitate. I had one goal in mind when creating this space which was to make it safe for teams...
Read MoreThe Only Reason Why You’re Not Getting Results
My wife and I were working on our monthly budget last night and were looking at where we could free up some dough so we could put more money aside for un-expected stuff, debt, vacations and so on. Seems like every once in while we talk about the same ideas for managing our budget without anything coming of those discussions. Sound familiar? How often in your personal life or work life do you have the same conversations over and over again only to never realize the benefit? What’s the...
Read MoreRetrospectives are a Powerful Tool
I’m a firm believer in retrospectives and the value that comes from a team committing to constant improvement. Over the last few weeks I’ve been delivering Agile training to a wide range of folks from developers to testers to traditional PM’s to business folks and so on. To demonstrate the power of retrospectives, at the end of the class we have a time-boxed retrospective that helps me deliver more value for future classes by understanding my customers and their needs....
Read MoreA Look Back at 2008 – Personally and Professionally
This year seemed to fly by. I sat here in front of WordPress for a while trying to figure out just where to start with this post since this year was a blur. Seems like just yesterday the calendar was rolling over to 2008 and now here we are in 2009 already. Overall I am very pleased with 2008 both in my personal life and professional life. Professionally I’m happier than I’ve ever been and I attribute that to the best working environment I’ve ever had. I attribute a...
Read MoreGet Lean Change
