I’ve been challenged in thinking about how human laziness influences self-directed teams.
This morning I stumbled on this talk by Eli Pariser about the affects of “tailored content.” “Tailored content” means content on the web is algorithmically filtered and, so, “tailored” for you according to your behavior, according to what you click on. In practice, this can mean you don’t get to see links that might challenge you and might not be in accordance with your usual patterns. (more…)
Recently an executive said to me that “we need someone who is buttoned-up on this project.”
It got me thinking. What is “buttoned up?” What do we mean when we say “buttoned up?”
On complex projects there can be lots of little details. No matter how “Agile’ you are, you cannot escape details. The details become more distributed, I think, but they remain. We just can’t get out of them in complex activities. (more…)
I had the experience recently of encountering Fear and Loathing of Agile in a few people. It made me realize that in my writing this deck for executives how important it is to understand that everyone wants process; they just don’t want your process. Kind of like religion. They worry you’ll try to convert them to something that goes against everything they stand for. And ironically that, I believe, is at the heart of why an Agile approach actually can work better. It allows for room for your process.
I’m picking on Dr. Alistair Cockburn this time because I’m finding the material I need to accomplish this end. From this page on his site, “Balancing Lightness and Sufficiency”: (more…)
I thought to collect some links here for use as source material in writing a short deck for Executives (in Advertising or Marketing) describing Agile. (UPDATE: Note – the deck is not yet written – this is my raw research).
My criteria for quoting from these (or being inspired by these) is that the material has to be value-focused. Why Agile? What’s the benefit? How is it better than what I’m doing now? And must apply outside of software development. Maybe apply directly to marketing.
I think I also need to give very high-level descriptions of Crystal Clear, Kanban and Scrum, possibly XP and possibly Lean. But I want my deck to be very, very short and succinct.
I may update this post over time.
Here is my first list at 8 AM on 3/29:
Agile Scout’s “Agile is NOT a Methodology”
Agile Methodology.com’s “Agile Methodology”
Dr. Alistair Cockburn “Balancing Lightness with Sufficiency”
Dmitri Maex for Ogivly’s DoubleThink “Agile Markerting Part II: Learnings from Product Development”
Decks by Jeff Patton – read the first deck
Dr. Jeff Sutherland on Agile Principles and Values (his site has great stuff too, but this is at Microsoft)
Jason Yip’s article “It’s Not Just Standing Up: Patterns of Daily Stand-up Meetings”
John Paul Titlow for ReadWriteWeb.com “What is Agile Commerce”
Excellent article by Ken Schwaber on driving value for business titled “Major Releases are a Failure”
Lyssa Adkins’ “What is Agile?”
Michael Sahota’s “Agile Fits Better in Some Company Cultures Than Others”
Scrum Alliance’s “The Scrum Framework in 30 Seconds”
Scott Ambler’s “Bureaucracy Isn’t Discipline”
Scott Brinker (Chief Martec) “Ideas for an Agile Marketing Manifesto”
Scrum.org’s Scrum Guide page
Tobias Mayer’s “Simple Scrum” , “Scrum: A New Way of Thinking” and “The Essence of Scrum”
VersionOne’s “What is Agile” (although pretty development-centric)
Suggestions more than welcome.
Updated 3/29 – 3:45 PM – with articles by Schwaber, Sutherland, Cockburn, and Patton. Alphabetized. Hm. The list is getting too long – probably not a good page for executives, but good for us detailed people to find source material.
Work Different 