An Open Letter to the Project Management Community

Think Different

Occasioned by this discussion on LinkedIn, I wanted to write to Project Managers everywhere…

Dear All

Dear Project Managers everywhere,

I hear you have mixed views about the recent, er, “developments”, in the field of Software Development, commonly referred-to as “Agile Software Development practices”. I won’t call them “advances” as we may not be able to agree that they have, in fact, advanced anything. Incidentally, I share some of your likely skepticism on that front.

I am writing to you today to share some opinions and observations about the changes in train in the software development field, globally. Whilst patchy in their uptake, changes are afoot. I can relate to your professional concerns that we retain the best of what we have learned from decades of successful project management (this also, we have to admit, being very patchy, too).

Many who…

View original post 316 more words

Recently at the Scrum Day Germany

Ken Schwaber and I, discussing his new book

Sh!t bad Scrum Masters say

Thank you Adam Weisbart, for making the video shareable!

Estimates are often not helpful.

People construe estimates as promises. No one can predict the future, but many people treat estimates as guarantees. Failed predictions fan blame. Trust and openness suffer.
Esther Derby

The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Play4Agile – Saturday

After Olaf Lewitz commented on my first post on this year’s Play4Agile, not keeping up the daily recap is not option anymore.

So this morning started like I predicted yesterday. After a delicious breakfast, the day began with session presentations for the Open Space.

Kick Off For Play4Agile

Today, I made my way to Seminarzentrum Rückersbach, a small retreat close to Frankfurt, where the second Play4Agile takes place.

Play4Agile is a gathering of experienced peers from all over the world to create and play games in an inspiring environment. — Play4Agile Wiki

Scrum in 3D

This is new. After all the attempts to visualize the greater Scrum flow (with the one from Mountain Goat Software being my favorite so far), I just came across this Scrum Cycle in 3D by OneSpring!

Scrum Is Like Your Mother-In-Law

https://twitter.com/#!/x_tough/status/161723817297842176

Give Engineers Room

If you have a great technical idea, you don’t have your V.P. send out a memo telling everybody to use it. Instead, you take it to your fellow engineers and convince them that it’s good. […] But it also means that the burden falls upon you to spread your idea. – Bharat Mediratta (software engineer at Google)